RIP VAN SNAIL MAIL

I got a letter in the mail last week, a single letter sitting on my desk at work. No return address was listed. It appeared to be a greeting card of some kind. On the inside was an unexpected message.

Wishing you the best in 2008 - Nike USA Brand Connections.

The last bit was written in pen, so it was actually signed by someone from Nike. Strange, I haven’t worked with them in years. But wait, did that just say 2008? I looked back at the envelope where the post mark date clearly read December 19, 2007. Running down to the mail room, I asked if this letter was found hidden behind a file cabinet or slipped underneath a bookshelf. There had to be some kind of explanation.  Nope.  Matt confirmed that this gem of a letter arrived today and he dropped it off himself.

So that means this little slip of paper has been out in the wild world for nearly 3 years! That’s when I began to wonder. Did it just sit on the bottom of an abandoned mail cart for all but one week of its life? Maybe it was the calculated by product of a mail man who hated his job and intentionally lost one letter each day. Or did it go from city to city, hitchhiking across America’s mail rooms in some Brave Little Toaster meets Jack Kerouac postal journey. If only this letter could talk. Hell, it’s been ‘alive’ for as long as I’ve lived in Colorado. But it can’t, so I’ll give him the best tribute a single piece of paper can get, the crowning achievement of legible print…placement on the home refrigerator. Front and center. Well done sir.

_Alexander