Mary Lou, The Postal Service Cares...

I don't know about you, but as soon as I open that little door on my mailbox, I know  if I have a TTM waiting for me in there or not.  It's mostly a "not", but sometimes I do see a nice, creased, #10 envelope with my address, written in my handwriting, with a pink highlighted: "Please Do Not Bend" scrawled over the back and corner.  Well the other day was no different, I went out there and saw it waiting right on top.  The usual flow of questions came, like "I wonder who it's from?", and then I usual try to decypher by the postmark who it's from.  Random question break: does anybody else remember what stamps they used for what??  I remember using those pine cone ones for about the first year, flag ones for ST, and Statue of Liberty ones for present. IDK but it kindof helps out.

So I see the envelope and am all excited until I notice that it's wrapped in plastic:

As you can see, the whole end is ripped off.  Now, I've had this happen before with a letter coming from Bob Feller.  Except in that case it came in an apologetic envelope, and the entire bottom was ripped out, leaving nothing inside.  In this case, I could tell something was inside, so I tore through the plastic baggie, and found:

1984 gymnast Mary Lou Retton!  Inscribed with "USA '84"

Had a little bend on the top left, but guess I can't complain considering the condition of the envelope.

Thanks Ms. Retton, that's #2 with my new Olympic collection!

Oh, and thank you Postal Service for "Caring"...did I mention their note on the baggie basically said that some envelopes need to be sacrificed in order to keep up their "Expeditious delivery"?  Oh well,as long as the contents arrive, I guess I'm OK with getting chosen once a year.