This morning, January 16th at my home in London, I received a Christmas card from Greensboro, North Carolina. The post mark was dated December 10th 2001.
Now it has often been my observation that the US postal service is not unlike the Bermuda Triangle: a fabled place where the spacetime continuum does not quite work the way it does in the rest of the universe. However what made the letter more interesting, in fact the only thing that made it interesting, was the odd indigo stamp on the envelope:
MISSENT TO
JAKARTA SOEKARNO-HATTA
They sent the letter to Indonesia?
Now I will grant that the address was handwritten rather than printed, but the writing was extraordinarily clear and precise, so I can only speculate that some US postman was just not concentrating, perhaps he was pondering the chore of impending Christmas shopping or contemplating homicide against his colleagues in a shooting spree or some such matter to which US postal workers seem prone, and thus mis-read ‘London SW3, England’ as ‘Jakarta, Indonesia’.
But whoever you are, you little misshapen cog in the vast shuddering machine of the US postal service, I thank you.
One of my absolute pet hates is the ‘Round Robin’ pro forma ‘family up-date’ letter sent by people I met only once many years ago. As they always do, it starts ‘Dear Friends’, followed by an interminable wodge of fascinating details about children I have never met, places I have never visited and have no desire to and strange revelations that
Yes, we have joined the ACC mania for the second year in a row. Surprisingly enough, I can even quote a few stats… that’s scary
Scary? It is bloody terrifying. What the hell is the ACC? And why am I supposed to find that interesting? And why should I care where your children, whom I was only vaguely aware even existed, are going to school? At least I am told Jamie is doing well: good for him…ah, no… later in this interminable missal I discover that Jamie is a she, not a he.
So once again, Mister Distracted Postal Worker, I thank you. There was at least something interesting about this letter… on the envelope.
