5/18/2005

old style mail

One of the chores I'd been putting off for too long during the end of semester chaos was sorting through the pile of postal mail. I've known a number of people who've had phobias about receiving, opening, or sending mail -- and I don't believe I'm in that category. And I didn't use to procrastinate about the mail. But over the past year or two I've become someone who just lets the mail sit for a few days (or weeks) before opening it. I do all of our bills online, so we don't receive any statements in the mail. I very rarely get any personal mail -- and if I do, my gf will alert me (since she's usually the one bringing it in). So going through the stack (sorting into keep, recycle, & shred) is just plain tedious. It falls into the following categories: (1) credit card offers; (2) notices from my current cards trying to get me to join this or that program, or do balance transfers; (3) requests for donations from schools I've attended and political organizations; (4) a couple of catalogs; (5) account statement from my bank; (6) maybe 1 or 2 other things that are actually worth paying attention to.

If someone actually did send me something important, chances are I might not see it for quite some time. Which is Not Good in the larger organizational scheme of things. But the crappiness of the postal mail I receive only encourages me to be so slack.

Long gone are the days when getting mail was exciting. And when I used postal mail for communicating with my friends. I miss the aesthetics of writing letters (the decorated envelopes my friend V would make, the fun of choosing new writing paper) but I just don't have the time. And if anyone else's mail habits are like mine, a real letter might just get buried under 200 solicitations from Discover card. . .