I stood about six feet back from the mailbox by the Glen Ellyn Public Library and tried to throw a bat-style paper airplane into the slot. It took four tries. The bat design swoops — good for mailing, bad for aiming.
The stamps were picked on theme: Hot Wheels for the speed, Pluto for the notion of travel. Forever stamps, 58 cents. No envelope. The address written right on the wing.
Then I did two more with my kids. They absolutely loved it. First we carried the planes across the street to the commuter parking lot. The one for the train that nobody has really used since the pandemic. We flew them around the empty asphalt. Then we walked them back to the mailbox and flew them into the slot.
A few days later I found out May 26th is National Paper Airplane Day. I’d mailed these on the 23rd. Close enough that maybe a couple of them landed in mailboxes right on the day.
The results
Two of the airplanes arrived. The Post Office flattened one and printed the cancellation and barcode straight across the gutter of the fold, right over the stamp. A plain forever stamp carried a paper airplane across the suburbs. It worked.
