Mail Bonding

I get a not-so-secret thrill out of sending notes the old-fashioned way: through USPS mail delivery. I collect stationery and rip out funky magazine pages for just this purpose, so I can jot a quick message when the mood strikes. It doens't have to be fancy or too thought-out, and it typically takes the same amount of time I'd spend shooting off an email, anyway.

Dropping this correspondence off at the Fenn Street branch on my way in to the office has become a biweekly routine, as it ensures delivery in a day or two or three to most destinations. (I may be old-school, but I'm also mildly impatient; I hate the thought of a letter sitting, waiting, at the bottom of a big blue bin. Though those are in danger of dissapearing altogether....)

It's a pretty cool bargain: for 28 or 48 cents, which you likely have collecting dust in a jar or a couch somewhere, a gaggle of postal workers, cargo trucks, and other carriers will schlep your piece of paper across the state or across the country and deliver it to the exact spot you specified, for the sole reason of eliciting joy in someone who probably spends most of his or her day emailing and texting, yet returns home to a lonely mailbox. Again.

What do you think?

Amanda Rae Busch

7 North Street

Suite 205

Pittsfield, MA  01201