You have got mail ....

I hate checking my mails...not my emails...by now I have an addiction towards email that I check them every couple min..faster than they come in usually. I am talking about snail mails. B somehow dropped the habit of picking up the mail every weekend strangely synchronized with the fact that I was selecting our rental movie DVDs these days…

Anyhow, I pull out the innumerous grocery coupons, tire change and killer deal insurance options, all the 'to the resident' and 'to our neighbors' copy of grocery coupons and dating services (why do my neighbors love me so much) all stuffed into the narrow box, hoping that my blockbuster DVD isnt crushed and cracked in all this pressure, and tossed most of them out into the bin. Glad that I was done with this ordeal, I plop the remaining mail on the coffee table where it will rest till the next mail comes in and eventually get stowed away into my closet, when I am expecting visitors and finally die its death in my shredder unopened. If one of them were to come alive and write a tale of their life, it would be pretty sad....Anyhow, while I am mindlessly gazing at the TV watching around 4 shows at the same time , I chance to spot a handwritten name...my name ..on a letter...

Its been ages since I got a letter that was not a bill or statement or a credit card offer or a fine… on my name.

Well, it could be my dentist, he always sends these nice cards every season wishing you for the season and reminding you to come by and take care of his business and your teeth....But no, it was a letter, and from an old friend...who obviously didnt know how I treat my snail mail. Super excited and thrilled I pulled out the 2 sheets of the impeccably written letter.

It was refreshing that I dint have to re-read thru a bunch of acronyms and go ‘ahh-haan...now I get it’..She had used more or less complete sentences. It felt very nice that someone had sat down and taken the trouble of writing this long letter. Considering that my entire communication system had degenerated into one line emails, chat, orkut and facebook messages, this was eye opening into my own self. As a kid, I used to make my own cards...well partially bcos I couldnt afford to buy many cards on my pocket money, partially because I liked to do something different. Also, I believed I wanted to spend more time on a gift and hence I would end up stalking my best friends with hand made cards till they told me how much they liked it or if I liked them way too much I would give them hand made sketches and portraits I drew off magazine covers and rag them to hell as to who it looked like.

S used to write me letters through undergrad days, and that used to be great. He was pbly the only friend I have who has managed to hold on to everyone he knows even when email wasn’t around..So my letter writing days continued into undergrad years, thanks to him. Then with the access to email, everything died. With email, it has become a way of convenience to express our constant sense of urgency. I phased out from an e-card splurge to express myself (or rather the card’s own words) in college years to simple notes these days.
In all my enthusiasm, little knowing how linguistically dysfuntional I had become, I started to write a letter back.....and realized y I shouldnt be doing that ...

1) My handwriting used to look quite good during school days though you had to tilt your head through like 45 degrees and squint your eyes a bit for it to make sense, it used to fall under gravity...but very symmetrically so, and now its reduced to some drunk chicken scrawling. I couldn’t read my grocery list.

2) I also like to write as I speak...meaning I get verbose and get lost in my own tangled web of words. Not to mention the very unsettling fact that whenever I wrote long emails, I got the shortest of replies !!

3) My grammar is bad (honestly who cares about grammar or punctuation in emails anymore?)...And I have started using a "?" as a sole punctuation to differentiate between statements and questions apart from my inexplicable love for exclamations and extra period marks. I strongly suspect my inability to bring a statement to a logical conclusion to be the reason for leaving them in such suspension.

4) For some reason the apartment outbox is right over trash fueling my apprehensions that some of the mail will drop into the trash can unnoticed. So I never posted anything from there. Which later went down to ‘I never posted anything at all?’

5) I am bad at posting stuff. I finally paid up my copay at the hospital after 6 months, purely out of embarrassment that the only mail I was getting was a reminder from them.

6) They keep adding these 2c to the postage charge and I keep looking for those additional stamps.

7) I will convince myself that I am doing my part saving trees

8) Most of all ...I am lazy and at a total loss for words.

I opened my email, typed out a nice email with a lot of emoticons to help assemble my thought and sent it out...Better electronic than never.