As regular readers will know, several weeks ago my friends and I received a box full of Magic cards, a gift from a [then] anonymous sender. It was a great surprise, and turned an average, boring Friday into a day full of mystery and delight. Ok, that sentence was a bit over the top, but it was honestly pretty awesome.

With email, Twitter and Facebook at our fingertips, it sometimes feels as though snail mail is dying out. I could go on a tirade about the cost of mailing things through Canada Post as a factor in this, but I’ll refrain (for now). Snail mail is still a hopping business, actually, but how many of us get or send actual hand written letters or cards very often? There’s something wonderful about a tangible, written-on-actual-dead-plant-life message from someone. It’s even more wonderful when it’s entirely unexpected.

That mysterious box of Magic cards got me thinking about all this, and it gave me an idea. Let’s make March a month of mystery mail. Pick someone to send a surprising, out-of-the-blue bit of snail mail. It could be a package or gift, sure, but it could also be a lovely hand written letter or card, a comic you’ve drawn, a pile of newspaper clippings you’ve collected that would interest the recipient, a bookmark, a photo, etc. Things that are flat and small and easy to mail (because truthfully, Canada Post will charge you half a day’s pay to send a dozen cookies to the town up the road), but are full of care and affection. And you can send this to someone you know and love, someone who needs a pick-me-up or a bit of encouragement, someone you have never sent mail to in your life but admire, someone you feel goes unappreciated, someone you think deserves a nice surprise. You may have to do some field work to get their address in some cases, but that too is part of the fun. And you can send anonymously, or you can sign your name.

I think this is a great opportunity to spread a little joy. Plus it will make you folks who don’t use the mail service better appreciate the negative attitudes of those of us who do. I mean, um, support your local post office! Yeah. So please join me, and consider a little month of March Facebook stalking to find the address of your Mystery Mail recipient.