Today, I received two letters from Italy and one from Belgium. They all had Pokémon cards inside.
One of the Italian letters was packaged simply, just the card in some protective sleeves inside a bubble wrap envelope. But the envelope itself was large, yet, the sender folded it in half to cleverly turn it into a smaller-sized letter.
The Belgian letter used a classic trick: Put the card into a sleeve, then a hard plastic “toploader,” then tape it to an A4 piece of paper. But the sender had taped it more tightly to the paper than I had ever seen anyone do it. I had to literally cut it off with a boxcutter. I’m not sure how he managed to do that with just normal cellotape, but it was ingenious.
The second Italian letter was the most distinctive. The store had printed their own little, foldable paper cards. On the outside, there was the store’s logo, a chimera, and name. Once you opened the card, the actual Pokémon card was tucked safely inside.
When you collect Pokémon cards, you’ll naturally get letters from all over the world. Each of these letters originates from a city, a house, a person packaging it and sending it on its way. Every envelope goes through many hands and travels thousands of kilometers before it arrives at my house.
It’s easy to miss these details. To just rip open each letter as if it was yet another box from Amazon, take out the card, and move on. But every now and then, I turn them over in my hands. I smell them and think about the long journey they’ve been on to reach me. And even though I know what I’ve ordered, there’s always a tad of mystery remaining. You never quite know what you’ve got until you open it! That’s true for the card as much as for the packaging and whatever personal touch a seller might include.
Usually, we’re focused on the main event, and that’s as it should be. But almost everything in life comes with beautiful side effects. Notice them before their scent disappears.
