Opening Carefully

A Christmas card arrives

When I arrived at the office and looked at my desk, an envelope was sitting there. It looks like a Christmas card from Mr. Enomoto in Tokyo. I use a letter opener to open it slowly. The beautiful indigo envelope has silver lettering printed on it. Opening an envelope with such good taste gets me excited right from the moment I start.

When I open it, there is a handwritten message inside, and I immediately think, "Mr. Enomoto has such beautiful handwriting." It might be the first time I've seen his handwriting, but how should I put it—it's beautiful and just so like him. Sending a Christmas card—I want to be the kind of person who does that too (though I'm far from it). I will visit the office again.

Letter Opener

Whenever I opened envelopes, I could never open them cleanly, which always left me feeling frustrated. I know that the contents are what matter and that it doesn't really matter if the outer envelope gets torn to shreds, but I always felt that if I opened it messily, it somehow lowered the value of the paper inside.

I've tried tearing them by hand, using scissors, utility knives, and letter knives, but I eventually settled on an electric letter opener. The one I'm using now is the PLUS Letter Opener Black Battery-Operated OL-001. I've been using it for about 10 years now (it's well-worn). I use this for everything, from personal mail to commercial direct mail. The feel of it while opening, the cleanliness of the result—it's just great. I open my mail carefully. I like the feeling that I am paying respect to the unseen contents from the very beginning.