Post? Um...

I don't know about postcards. I suppose anybody would say that they are now obsolete, but then so almost anything you would put in the mail, including all communication. Now, a standard card in an envelope is nice to get. It's so much the better if some money or a check falls out, even if that check proves to be in the amount of five dollars. The sentiment in the card may also be rather nice, provided the person sending it is not relying on the message already printed on the card.

A postcard is something else. I'm in a bad position to guess at its value, perhaps. I guess it's supposed to be a whimsical thing where you're at the Arc DeTriomphe, you see a postcard at some cafe with a picture of same, and you think of somebody who's back home. You buy the card, write "wish you were here" on it and   send it away. I just can't deal with that. I would just have to slip that postcard into an envelope, and the whole point is that you don't.

It's the privacy thing. Now, a postcard, I gather, is supposed to have nothing in it you would mind saying aloud in a public place. Probably people along the way as the card makes its way to the recipient have better things to do other than read a message which could contain no salacious or private details anyway. God knows that there's no more secure place for private thoughts than in the most public forum possible. A mail carrier is more likely to rip open an envelope with perfume on in than to read a readily accessible card.

I can't help this reluctance to send post cards anyway. It's not about to be a problem, as no one expects it, but I do wish I were more at ease with the idea, as much of a throwback as I feel like personally sometimes. I have been told often enough how I look like someone of the 70s and I listen to plenty of music from the same decade, and I imagine that plenty of postcards were flying around back then. Well, I'm not going to worry about it.