I’ve come across slices of Kurt Vonnegut’s envelope story over the years. It’s paraphrased from a PBS interview referencing his collection of essays titled A Man without a Country.
Here’s the snippet of said interview:
Kurt Vonnegut Buys an Envelope
DAVID BRANCACCIO: There’s a little sweet moment, I’ve got to say, in a very intense book — your latest — in which you’re heading out the door and your wife says what are you doing? I think you say — I’m getting — I’m going to buy an envelope.
KURT VONNEGUT: Yeah.
DAVID BRANCACCIO: What happens then?
KURT VONNEGUT: Oh, she says well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope.
I meet a lot of people. And, see some great looking babes. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And, and ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know…
And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And, we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore.
I love this on multiple levels—the side-eye at technology, and the way it imbues small errands with a sense of elevated purpose.
There’s more info about all this on Snopes if you can stand militant web design.
I bought the book that inspired the conversation.
It’s solid for filling slices of time between tasks, blending humor and humanity in chunks that feel a bit better than scrolling.