I almost used a postcard over the weekend. You know the ones the post office put out trying to encourage people to use the mail to stay in touch. The pre-stamped ones. The one you just need to tear off, jot a note and send. It sounds like a great idea.
I hear that more people are using the mail these days, and not just to get the results of their online shopping. Since we have the time, people are writing actual letters again.
It’s not something common these days, but it has been making a bit of a comeback. There is something comforting in a hand written letter, but it has been dropping off as a form of communication since it is so easy to send an email or an online message of some sort, or even just pick up the phone. We have contact numbers for most people we know and can give them a call or send them a text in an instant.
But there is something about a letter or a postcard. An actual physical message that someone has taken the time to craft and send to you.
It would be much more impressive if that someone also included pictures of themselves chasing down a goose, plucking one of it’s tail feathers at great risk of harm to themselves, fashioning that feather into a quill and writing the letter with it, but that’s probably taking this whole thing a bit to far. Most of us find it enough of a challenge to track down a pen we know is somewhere in the house, let alone make our own.
But I did find a pen. And I had one of those postcards handy. I could just write a note and pop it into a mailbox. That easy.
Except there is one minor problem.
I have absolutely no idea what anyone’s mailing address is anymore. I don’t send things to people through the mail and haven’t for some time. I have phone numbers, email addresses… many ways to contact people. But I don’t have actual mailing addresses.
I could just call someone and ask them. Or email them. Or message them online. But outright asking for a mailing address would sort of take the surprise out of it.
So now I have to find a way to get peoples’ mailing addresses without letting them know I might want to send them a note through the mail. It’s a challenge, but I think it can be done. And those postcards aren’t going anywhere. At least for now.
