I got a couple of strange envelopes in the mail the other day.
Not that the envelopes themselves were strange. They were ordinary-looking envelopes. It was the contents that were strange.
One envelope contained a letter from my sister, written on the inside of a silly Halloween card, briefly detailing the recent adventures of her various family members and mentioning possible future travels here and there.
That part was not strange. It’s the type of silly holiday-card-plus-letter-about-the-family I often get from my sister.
The strange part was a clipping from a newspaper, folded up and included inside the card. The clipping included a Word Search; a mildly humorous story about a man trying in vain to pay off a credit card bill for $0.00; and a joke advertisement for “Emergency Chill Pills.”
Consume 1-2 Chill Pills immediately following an encounter with an individual who can be described as one of the following: frustrating; dense; stubborn; annoying; loud…
…Side effects may include laughter, happiness, good mood, jubilation, delight, fits of giddiness and/or not caring about anything.
The product illustration appeared to show a jar of jelly beans.
But the strange part was the Word Search, titled “Happy St. Patrick’s Day”, which involved locating 17 words — “GREEN”, “IRELAND”, “LEPRECHAUN”, etc.
Someone had already solved the puzzle and circled all the words.
Did I mention that this St. Patrick’s Day Word Search, already solved, had been folded up and included inside a Halloween card from my sister?
The obvious conclusion: my sister has been overdosing on Chill Pills.
I don’t normally get much snail mail. Maybe one or two envelopes a week, usually from a company offering a new credit card, or a non-profit seeking a donation. And around any given holiday, a card from my sister.
My communication channels have basically moved online. Still, I check my mailbox every day… right? You never know.
In this case, a second envelope had arrived on the same day as my sister’s Halloween card.
From Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains. Inside was a two-page letter from PPRM President and CEO Adrienne Mansanares.
Dear Louis,
I’ve been waiting for the right moment to tell you something extraordinary.
The extraordinary something President Mansanares had been waiting to tell me concerned “Embark”…
…the largest fundraising campaign in the organization’s history and an opportunity to donate to Planned Parenthood and have my donation “tripled” via a 2-to-1 match by longtime PPRM supporter Mary Griffith. Ms. Griffith had signed on to donate up to $400,000 in matching support.
This was by far the longest letter I’ve received from anyone since… maybe ever. Probably three times the length of the letter my sister had written inside her Halloween card.
And I was honestly tempted to make a donation. My $10 donation would become $30 with the match from Ms. Griffith.
Not only was it a long letter, it might have also been the only letter I’ve received that offered to tell me something extraordinary. I mean, compared to my sister’s letter, for example.
But the strange part was: I have never given my address to PPRM. Nor have I ever planned any parenthood, or even thought about planning any parenthood.
How did they know where I lived?
And how did they know that waiting for the right moment to tell me about “Embark” would tempt me — momentarily at least — to make a $10 donation?
And strangest of all: Why did this letter from PPRM arrive on the same day as a Halloween card from my sister that included a newspaper clipping of a St. Patrick’s Day Word Search that had already been solved?
Sometimes I’m just blown away by how strange and mysterious the world is.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all. You can read more stories on his Substack account.