. . . and little quirks become engraved eccentricities, pet peeves become deep assaults on your sense of order. If this is true then my home office will very soon become a small mailing center. Any business consultant who peeks inside my highly organized closet would conclude that I have spent way too much on shipping supplies. I have about 11 different sizes of envelopes and padded mailers, and I use them all! Recently, I purchased a box of 100 rigid envelopes that are 12×15. As anyone familiar with postal regulations knows, that is just about the biggest size that can still pass for a “Flat Envelope,” the next biggest class being “Package,” which is much more expensive. These rigid mailers are the perfect size for sending out the newly formatted letterpress broadside of my poem “How Falling in Love is like Owning a Dog,” which is 9×12. In the past, I would often go rummaging through the recycling room down the hall in search of a cardboard box that I could cut down to use as a stiffener in a regular envelope. Now I don’t need to do that, and that brings me joy. But of course I still have a box cutter (hidden) in the recycling room for slicing up cardboard. By the time I am an old man, there will be box cutters (safely) hidden everywhere I might need them (in case of attack?). Lord help me.
