Some people think that working in the couriering industry must be boring. But the truth is, couriers have received and transported some pretty strange stuff over the years. From the disgusting to the concerning, to the just downright odd, couriers will have seen it all in their time.
Here are ten of the strangest things to have ever been delivered by couriers!
Human Body Parts
A surprising range of body parts is regularly sent by courier. But it’s not as sinister as it sounds; many hospitals use couriers to transport organs for transplants, blood, and other life-saving donations. Even if you’re not a medical professional, you can still legally send up to 50 ml of blood or urine to friends or family in the UK… although they might not appreciate it!
Diseases And Dangerous Substances
On the other end of the spectrum, diseases and dangerous substances can be shipped across the country for medical research. Although strictly regulated by the government according to classification, more or less any disease can legally be shipped throughout the country, and most dangerous chemicals are also legal for scientific purposes.
As this is a delicate process, most hospitals tend to use their own transport or couriers.
A Dead Cat
A couple from Yorkshire wanted to ‘say goodbye’ to their cat after it had passed, so they decided to post it to their holiday home instead.
They asked for quick shipping so that it would get there before it ‘decomposed’.
Nice.
A Building
This one is quite an achievement!
The largest object to ever have been posted was an entire bank, sent brick by brick through the US postal service from Salt Lake City to Utah.
The law was changed shortly after to prohibit buildings being sent through the post because in the words of the Postmaster, ‘It is not the intent of the United States Postal Service that buildings be shipped through the mail’.
Fair enough.
A Time Travel Machine
Believe it or not, a man from Birmingham built a time machine and sent it by courier in 2015. We don’t know what year it was delivered!
The machine was getting too large for his home, so he had arranged to transport it to a friend’s house. He was looking for a shipping company that could transport it without damaging any of its very fragile parts.
Dinner
Have empty nest syndrome?
Probably not as badly as the UK woman who tried to send a hot shepherd’s pie to her son who lived over 450 miles away! It wasn’t very hot by the time it got to him, mind you…
Another couple opted to send an entire, already plated, roast dinner to their son’s university halls. Probably would have been easier to buy him a takeaway!
Radioactive Materials
You’ll be pleased to know that up to half a million packages containing low-level radioactive material are shipped around the UK each year.
There are many government regulations in place to make transporting the waste safer – as a result, there are very few incidents involving radioactive materials. But it does happen.
In 2011, 38 radioactive incidents were reported. But thankfully, only one led to ‘significant’ radiation exposure.
Live Fish… And Not So Live Fish
Another somewhat ambitious request was delivering a whole pond (including water and fish) all the way from Yorkshire to Essex – a distance of over 200 miles.
Another person asked their courier to transport a goldfish in a bowl to their friend who had a fish phobia. Sadly (and perhaps unsurprisingly), the goldfish was no longer with us on arrival.
A Poorly-Timed Christmas Tree
It’s a bit odd to try to send a Christmas tree through the post… it’s even odder to send it in summer.
One Christmas-obsessed man sent all his friends fully decorated Christmas trees in the middle of July!
A Boat Toilet
There are few things worse than being seasick. Except perhaps being sent the toilet you were seasick in.
One cleaner had clearly had enough, and decided to send their colleague the toilet they had been ill in shortly after the boat had been commissioned.
A little harsh, perhaps, but we expect cleaning boat toilets gets a little old after a while!
There you have it – 10 of the wildest and weirdest couriering jobs. So the next time you have a bad day at work, just be glad you weren’t the person making one of these deliveries!