Djelloul Marbrook

The way we do things tells us a lot about ourselves.

I open envelopes by trying to pry the flap away from its glue. Failing that, I’m apt to insert a letter knife into a corner and slit open the top. But some people carefully tear off an end and pull the letter out the side. That seems to be the preferred movie way.

Of course, nowadays just about the only thing we get in envelopes are bills and gambits to draw us deeper into debt.

My way of opening an envelope by trying to restore it to its pre-glue estate seems to me related to my compulsion to undo what has been been done, revise history, fix things that don’t want to be fixed, restore some kind of natural order that never existed in the first place.

Truth is I dislike mail and telephone calls. I tolerate e-mail because I use the computer to engage my mind with other concerns in other areas. One of my great pleasures is consigning mail catalogues to one of those services that tells retailers you don’t want their mail.

That’s right, I don’t want you killing any more trees to tempt me to buy what I don’t need.  I’m tempted to say to you what my stepfather used to say to priests who came to the door collecting for one thing or another: Why don’t you get a real job?

I don’t know what to say about people who tear off the ends of envelopes. They seem to be British. I like the gesture, and I don’t know why I never think to do it.  Slipping a letter out of the side of an envelope strikes me as eminently more civilized than pulling it out of the top of an envelope. I’ve always aspired to be more civilized than I am, just as I’ve always aspired to grow up before I die. I think it’s a forlorn hope.

People who pull letters out of the side of an envelope seem to me to be less at the mercy of the contents. They seem to have established a distance between themselves and the letter, whereas my method is rather like gulping poison. I know this letter is going to be harmful, but, like Socrates, I’m going to drink it down because I don’t want to give the bastards any satisfaction. They may kill me, but they’re not going to hear me recant.—DM