Decline in Snail Mail Fuels Freedonian Fiscal Crisis

GLZORP, Freedonia.  For decades, Freedonia has been a philatelist’s haven, producing much-needed supplemental income for Dzirk Drovenzia, a flax and cardamom farmer in this, the country’s second-largest province.

Cardamom:  Bake before smoking

“When the crops she fail,” says Drovenzia in his broken English, “I could always got through the winter answering letters from rich Americans.  Now, this is no longer so more true.”

First-day cover of Princess Leia and Peyton Manning

Indeed, World Bank economists say Freedonia’s postage stamps were its principal cash crop, yielding valuable reserves of foreign currencies the national government, a hybrid of socialism, capitalism and astigmatism, could use to purchase grain, parts for hydro-electric turbines and Little Debbie Cakes, which are used in religious ceremonies by Zoroastrians, the largest religious denomination here.

But email has changed all that.  Stamps have fallen out of favor as more people around the world become comfortable with email, which has overcome concerns about privacy and security to become the most widely-used medium for circulating tuna-noodle casserole recipes and dumb blonde jokes.

From upper left:  Archduke Duane II, brothers Oman and Tlizivik, mythic founders of Freedonia, Prince Zlotny-Novena and Xaviaz Nadaz, victor at the Battle of Glzorp

“Freedonia, along with Monaco and Montenegro, became too dependent on postage stamp revenues,” says David Anderson, a specialist in so-called “second-world” economic development.  “They should have developed a folk music by downtrodden natives that could be covered by white rock musicians such as Eric Clapton–then the tourist dollars would be rolling in.”

Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy and Donna Reed

In the old days, Freedonia cranked out “first-day covers”–envelopes on which new postage stamps had been cancelled on the first day of issue–on occasions large and small, or no occasion at all.  “I was channel surfing one day on satellite TV and saw a Peyton Manning ad and Carrie Fischer as Princess Leia,” says former Minister of Stamps Oleg Dnitria.  “That was our biggest seller, as we tapped both the NFL fan base and Star Wars dweebniskis.”

Carrie Fischer as Princess Leia:  You don’t have to be a dork to be obsessed with her, but it helps.

Dnitria says he has wracked his brain to come up with a revenue source to replace postage stamps, but so far to no avail.  “We have tried to become the coupon redemption center of the world,” he notes with a far-off look in his eyes, “but someplace called Battle Creek, Michigan has the market cornered.”

Available in Kindle format on amazon.com as part of the collection "Hail Freedonia!"