Best Mail Ever

Late Friday night, Brent and I finished watching our Netflix movie and since I'm notorious for leaving them around the house for days, or worse, driving around with them in my car with the intention of dropping them off at the post office for days, Brent took matters into his own hands and took the dvd out to the mailbox. He came back in with the most amusing surprise.

Before he gave it to me, he told me that he had found the best mail ever for me in our mailbox. I love getting mail and the idea of receiving the best mail ever was intriguing to me. I was curious to know what it was. He said that he wasn't sure he wanted to give it to me because he was a afraid that I would actually open it. Then I was dying to know what it was. I think I ended up having to beg him to show me. And then he did.

I know that this can be a little hard to read, so allow me to clarify.

This is a letter from an inmate at the Salt Lake County Jail.

It is addressed to someone named Mizz Stringham.

It was sent to my old address and then forwarded to us around the corner.

Said inmate had taken painstaking efforts to decorate the envelope so as to make it as appealing as possible.

It worked. It was an appealing envelope.

I sat and held for a while contemplating whether or not I should open it. Brent told me not to because it would be pornographic, but I held it up to the light and it was just a letter that I couldn't read - even while holding it up to the light.

I started to romanticize some sort of story about the inmate and Mizz Stringham. How the idea of her was the only thing that kept him going from day to day in the joint. That she had given him reason to become a changed man. He had found his purpose in life through her and he would love her forever for giving him a chance when the world wouldn't. When he was finally released, the two of them would have each other and start a white trash life together somewhere. In my head, it was so very romantic, and somewhat lacking in teeth.

I had called my mom and my sister to tell them about it and along the way, someone mentioned that it was more likely some sort of con artist trying to sucker money out of a lonely woman. That wasn't romantic at all.

In the end, I couldn't do it. I couldn't open it. I have no idea if it will ever get back to our inmate, but I couldn't let him live his life in the Salt Lake County Jail thinking that Mizz Stringham had received his letter and was pining over him somewhere in Sandy. So I sent it back. But I'll have the memory forever. The memory of the best mail ever.