I am really annoyed—like seriously, seriously annoyed.

Can we talk about envelopes for a hot minute?

What the actual hell is going on in the world?

I mail a lot of letters. Typed, handwritten, love letters, rants (like this one), complaints, existential crises—you name it. And for years, I’ve done so using the noble, time-honored #10 envelope (that’s 4.125 x 9.5 inches for the uninformed). Back in the ’80s, ’90s, even the early 2000s, envelopes were sturdy. Especially if you paid for security envelopes. None of this flimsy, translucent nonsense. You could fold up a five-page letter, tuck in a tea bag, throw in a couple of stickers, seal that bad boy up, and off it went. No extra postage, no special treatment, no unexpected mail carnage.

But then I got bamboozled. Hoodwinked. Tricked like a damn fool.

I ordered some beautiful, colorful envelopes from Amazon. Yes, yes, I know—my first mistake. I can hear you now: “Well, Scribbler, that’s what you get for ordering off Amazon.” Fine. Point taken. But listen, I’ve been sending letters for decades. I have multiple pen pals. Letter writing is practically a personality trait at this point. I know what I’m doing.

So imagine my confusion when my letters started arriving at their destinations shredded. The sides were ripped out like a prison guard had pre-screened them for contraband. I thought, Has the USPS developed a side hustle reading my correspondence? Are postal workers that bored on their lunch breaks? Is there some secret government operation collecting data on my thoughts about Wallace and Gromit and Dr Pepper?

And then—plot twist—I started receiving letters in those same Amazon envelopes with their sides ripped open too. That’s when I knew. This wasn’t some isolated freak occurrence. This was a conspiracy.

So I did what any rational, not-at-all dramatic person would do: I called the post office.

You know what they told me?

First, that those colorful Amazon envelopes are made from cheap, flimsy garbage paper. No arguments there—I went back and inspected them, and they have the structural integrity of wet tissue paper.

But here’s the kicker: they’re also slightly longer than standard #10 envelopes. And that tiny little difference? It means they get caught in the sorting machines. And when they get caught? They get ripped to shreds.

The USPS clerk was like, “Oh yeah, we hear this a lot.”

Well, that’s just great, isn’t it?

I asked, “What’s the workaround?” and the clerk, with the weary voice of someone who has had this conversation too many times, said, “Tape the sides. Use Scotch tape, washi tape, whatever. Just secure the edges.”

So now, before I send out a letter, I have to go full arts and crafts mode and manually reinforce every envelope like I’m a goddamn engineer? And if I do that, they reserve the right to charge me extra postage because the envelope is now ‘non-machinable’?!

So either my letter gets ripped apart in the machines, or I tape it up and risk having it sent back or forcing my recipient to pay more postage.

That’s some bullshit.

And while I’m here, furiously typing away—let’s talk about wrapping paper.

Used to be, wrapping paper was thick, sturdy, and durable. You could wrap a present with confidence, knowing that the paper wouldn’t immediately tear if you so much as looked at it the wrong way.

Now? You can practically see through it. You might as well be wrapping gifts in damp tissue paper. And of course, because it’s so damn flimsy, you have to use twice as much tape just to keep it from falling apart like the cheap Amazon envelopes I just ranted about.

What else has quietly deteriorated over the years?

I’ll tell you what: appliances.

Washers and dryers? Used to last decades. Now? If you get five years out of one, you’re lucky.

Dishwashers? Garbage.

Vacuum cleaners? Pathetic.

Ovens? Built for obsolescence.

Nothing is made to last anymore. It’s all designed to fall apart, forcing you to replace it sooner, spending more money, and feeding into the never-ending cycle of capitalist nonsense.

Sigh.

Your move, world.