Edna had been working at the packing plant all summer, but this was a new one. A new problem, a new wrinkle. An order came in from some joker in Chicago who wanted to send some fruit to a cousin in Wales. And he didn't want to send the usual gift boxes. He wanted to send just one special piece of fruit. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Okay, so she couldn't use the usual forms, the usual packing boxes, the usual anything. She looked up the shipping costs. Yowee! For one lousy -- fig. A fig. A large, perfect fig, that's what he wanted to send. Well, all right, it was her job.

Carefully, she put the green tissue paper around the fig, twisting it the artistic way they showed her. Then she put the box together, lining it with bubble wrap and filling it with excelsior. Then she placed the fruit in, dead center, taped it shut and picked up the prepared label to John Turner in Cardiff, Wales.

At the last minute she realized she'd forgotten something -- this was an unsolicited gift to a foreign country, and she had to fill out the form so the recipient wouldn't have to pay duty. Finally, she took a felt pen and, just to be on the safe side, wrote across the front of the package in large black letters,

_ _ _ _    _ _ _.

(4 letters plus 3 letters)

Copyright 1997 J.J. Schnebel
All rights reserved

Stumped?  Here's the Answer!

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