Envelopes and other antiques

I like to meditate on things that make other people feel old, resulting in a reverse effect for me and somewhat vindictive amusement to boot.

I had such an experience today. As far as I am concerned, the postal service is for packages and junk mail, and I'm only interested in the first one. After all, how can one get their Amazon package without someone delivering it? I suppose if the US Postal Service disappeared, we'd still have FedEx and UPS and so on. All bills would have to be online, all letters would be email, and you could use e-cards and some form of digital checks for birthdays. Would that really be such a loss?

But, as a child if this sort of thinking (and having lived without the USPS for my formative years), I was completely at a loss when it came to mailing something. I am applying for a volunteer position, and oddly enough, even though their application is online in pdf form, I had to print it off. I could have scanned it, but instead of an email address, they gave a PO Box address. I actually had to mail the seven pages of application, two pages of resume, and a background check authorization. Worse, I have to get two references to also mail theirs.

Now, I had my doubts about the ten pages fitting into a flimsy paper envelope, so David gave me one of those large orangeish envelopes that I generally see as holding your packet at some convention. What do I do with this envelope? I was one step ahead of David in that I figured it had to be angled horizontally to address, and he wasn't sure on that point. The internet told me that the flap should be on the right hand side. And I vaguely remember the tradition of putting the addresses in the right spots.

So now I have an overly large envelope. What to do with it? Stamps are mostly a mystery to me. I get that it is a form of you prepaying for your mail and then showing proof you already paid for it by putting the little receipts on your envelope, which seems convoluted, but it works. But the thing that always gets me is how many stamps? So the price has gone up since... well, at some point when I last heard about it. I assume as much because the price always goes up. But I have no concept of what it was then or now. And how does that relate to those Forever stamps? How many of those does it take to mail a large orangish envelope?

At this point, it's too much to think about. So I go to the Post Office. Which apparently is busy, but most people there have packages, so they are permitted.

Actually, now that I think about it, I don't have a mailbox. Just a slot in the door next to the garage. I have no idea how you send outgoing mail from that. Probably go to the Post Office. Or one of those dropbox things.

I have no idea what to do in a Post Office. There are signs over the windows, but I'm not sure if those are general information or indicative of that window's business. I didn't see one that said, "clueless people," so I just stood in the normal line, hoping that whatever employee I got wasn't one of those government robots that you see at some government institutions that no longer behave like normal people. Because if I was in the wrong line or something, I didn't want to get my head bitten off.

Thankfully, the employee I got wasn't a robot and when I walked up and said, "I have no idea what I'm doing," she complimented me on having the address on the envelope in the proper places. So I'm probably not the worst case she's seen. Anyway, she weighed it and I paid for it and felt slightly better, even though I had to ask if the envelope needed to be licked shut or I could just use that little bracket thing. She was probably scared of the flu or something cause she just taped it shut.

Come to think of it, envelope licking can probably lead to AIDS among other people. What an unsanitary practice.