Done

I don't know when it started, my putting stickers on envelopes. I remember a friend who has a teenage daughter telling me that her daughter, when she was much younger, loved to find letters from me in their mail box. She would spend hours carefully peeling the stickers off the envelope or cutting around them and gluing them into a sticker album. Over the years, friends have said they always knew when I wrote or sent a card just by looking at the envelope.

But, today, I had three people, people who do not know each other, tell me affixing stickers to envelopes is "childish", "dumb" and "stupid". One went so far as to say I shouldn't send them anything anymore if I was going to put stickers on it, because they were embarrassed by what their mailman thought when he stuck the envelope in their mailbox.

It was just something fun to do, something to let someone know it was a card or a letter from me. So much of what arrives in the mail is junk or worse. I thought, perhaps, in a very small way, I was providing a bit of cheer. It seems I grossly over estimated cheer or what passes as cheer. I never intended to embarrass someone under any circumstances.

So, I'll be discontinuing this practice immediately. Some of you have festooned envelopes with Christmas cards winging their way to you as we speak. I dumped a bunch in the mailbox after work. I'm sorry if you've never liked this and just didn't know how to tell me to knock it off and a Christmas card arrives in a couple days with hearts and flowers or Smurfs or glitter bugs on it. I can assure you, it won't happen again.

Why should I care what people think about their cards? Hasn't it given me a lot of happiness over the years to slap stars or holiday stickers on envelopes? I have enjoyed it. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have continued it all these many years. But three people, independent of each other; people who don't know each other and who are united only by being my friend have said they find sticker festooned envelopes stupid and childish and it makes me look bad. One admonished, "For a woman your age, to be covering an envelope with stickers is extremely tacky. You're better than this." I assume that for the three who spoke up, there are more who never felt they could. You don't have to now. I will not send more cards with stickers on them.

My friend, Meredith, has been a huge source of stickers over the past 2 years that I've had the wonderful pleasure of counting her a friend. These didn't cost me anything. If there is the thought that this cost me a lot of money, it hasn't. I also never bought stickers when they weren't on sale. That has always been a rule.

Again I apologize if you were embarrassed by or for me. The practice has ended and won't be resumed. Thank you for being honest.

Beverage:  Berry flavored seltzer

Deb