12/8/11     2:40am

I like regular mail way more than email these days.

It only comes once a day six days a week; doesn’t beep, flash, or otherwise fight for my attention; and for as long as I leave it in my garage it doesn’t exist. I feel accomplished when I throw a whole pile of it away. There is no possible way for someone to expect an immediate response. I get to buy stamps – beautiful, wonderful, colorful, sticky stamps. I can decorate envelopes. I get to walk to the mailbox or visit the post office and talk to actual people. Have you ever noticed how post offices always smell like Play-Doh? I can never figure out why. I’ve asked. They don’t know either. Or at least they’re not telling.

There’s something magical about mail. Anticipation, opportunity, time. The Pony Express. It may be a thing of the past but so am I. Mail is exciting.

I miss getting exciting things in the mail. They come every once in awhile but it’s mostly bills and ads. I specifically opt NOT to get my statements electronically. I want to FEEL the paper, to know I can find it just where I left it and look at it with a flashlight in the dark. Not everything can exist on computers, you know. I do love them but I miss life offline, unplugged. I love mail.

I passed the test to work for the post office but never did work there. I’m guessing that’s a good thing.

Nobody even sends me anything interesting through email. I am a woman of greeting cards and stationary, stickers and stamps. The kind of stamps you ink or color before their wonder appears. Of fancy pens and markers and glitter glue. Lost wonders. Lost art.

I miss the mail. Bring back the mail.

© Michelle Routhieaux 2011