Lawless Letters

Paper is obsolete now, right? We have e-books. We have Docusign. We have online newspapers, magazines, annual reports, birthday cards, and, of course, e-mail. OK, it's not obsolete yet. But even Luddites like me have embraced the digital age. My one holdout: I can’t quit paper books. And getting mail is still fun, even though nobody except my mom mails me anything anymore. The older I get, the less paper I want cluttering up my life. File folders are bulky; storing them is annoying. Bills pile up on surfaces and are easier to pay online. Even our beloved books are a burden to cart around; we did a book purge during our last move and it felt oddly freeing. Then there's the environmental impact. Hanging out at home during the pandemic has made it clearer to me than ever how many dead trees dwell in my house. So, yesterday, after receiving my umpteenth piece of snail mail from Computershare, I took myself to their website to switch to online statements. Some compan

“And I’ve never been the same,” I concluded, sighing. Next to me, in the window seat, the dog looked at me with big, brown, soulful eyes. “Rough,” she said. Only she had acknowledged my pain, hadn’t tried to explain it away. I smiled at my new best friend. Prompt: Tell us a story that includes an animal where there shouldn’t be one