Getting your mail can be a real pain sometimes. But it was worse back in the early days of the postal system, when bureaucrats had even less of a sense of humor than today. For in 1869, a tiny community of less than one hundred people, two churches and a store, were rejected no less than six times when they submitted names for their town and post office. When the postal department tossed out the last one, they fired back a letter (from nowhere, since they had no name), and said let the post office remain nameless. So in 1880, that became the official name of Nameless, Texas.

Post offices in extremes have more fun. There appears to be far better service from the one Santa runs at the North Pole (Canadian postal code HOH OHO) than in many a southern clime, except for a small post office in the Cayman Islands, in a charming little town named Hell.

Post offices in extremes have more fun. There appears to be far better service from the one Santa runs at the North Pole (Canadian postal code HOH OHO) than in many a southern clime, except for a small post office in the Cayman Islands, in a charming little town named Hell.

Perhaps the postal department's sour outlook on life came from having to work in the dead letter department, which got the moniker early in the 19th century, but not from undeliverable letters. It originated in the days when just about anything was fair game to be posted, including...game. People would send dead pheasants, rabbits, ducks, etc to be delivered by the postman. The office they were kept in was the dead "letter" office.

People still insist on sending the oddest things. The Royal Mail Office at quayside in Belfast, Ireland has had a mummified human hand, a live snake, and a three weeks dead salmon literally fall out of parcels.