#557 When you fold a piece of paper so it fits in the envelope perfectly

Neil Pasricha

Lick and load, people.

Yeah, yeah, sure, we ain’t mailing letters much these days but we both know there’s the odd time you’re forced to fold-n-crease a piece of paper and snug it tightly into a envelope for some smoooooooth mailing.

Now, if you don’t nail it properly you get a fat wedge sticking out the top of the envelope and are left with two horrible choices:

1. The Creasy Jungle. This is where you unfold and refold your crinkly masterpiece. It’s not ideal because there’s no hiding your terrible folding habits. Your letter gets so messy you may as well mail them a stinkbomb or an envelope full of fire ants at this point.

2. The Fat Flabby Fold-Down. This one’s the postage equivalent of attempting an awkward twelve-point turn when your parallel parking job ends up three feet from the curb. When you’re rocking the fat flabby you’re just bending that top crease backwards really tightly. This gives you a thick n’ chunky wedge that barely squeezes in.

Friend, between you and me: there are issues.

Yes, that’s why it’s great when you manage to fold that paper so tightly and fold that paper so rightly that your letter slip n’ slides right into the waiting envelope’s mouth.

When you nail it your eyes twinkle a tiny bit, your smile curls at the lip, and your swagger shakes at the hip, baby.

AWESOME!

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26 thoughts to “#557 When you fold a piece of paper so it fits in the envelope perfectly”

  2. I took my time and ACED this move no more than an hour ago on my tax return! Gold medal folding.

  3. I’m the worst at letter folding…this is the best when I get it right…Yes. Yes and only yes. Sorry to be curt this time around. Still love ya.

  5. I can usually fold and stuff the envelope pretty well these days. I only really have trouble when I have some papers already folded, but I forgot some. Then I have to try to fold the new ones to match the old ones. That’s a challenge….but when I nail it, it is AWESOME

  6. I’ve actually taken a class where part of it was designed to teach us how to do this “professionally”. Not sure if it’ll help all that much, but it’s a good skill to know.

  7. Being an intern at a Law Office years ago sucked out of me all the Awesomeness folding paper and stuffing an envelope can bring.

    But folding a certain lawyer perfectly, then neatly and discreetly stuffing them into an envelope? Awesome!

  8. I was a camp counselor once and had to write update letters to the parents of the kids we cared for… they would give it back to us if it was folded perfectly… needless to say we got it down pretty fast.

    And it was AWESOME!

  9. Actually I send letters and postcard quite regularily because I am a member on postcrossing (www.postcrossing.com) so I think of this all the time!

  10. at my temple in the office they have this nifty machine that does it FOR you. yes, you feed the paper in and it pops out perfectly folded in thirds. it is awesome.

    nevertheless, nothing quite beats getting it right the first time when you’re doing it by hand. :-)

  13. So great. And it even bothers me when the paper I’m mailing is folded smaller than the envelope. Because, you know- then it’s all shifting around inside, and everybody knows that the envelope wasn’t custom made for the thing you put in it.

    “Your letter gets so messy you may as well mail them a stinkbomb or an envelope full of fire ants at this point.”
    Hahaha, may as well, right? Because messiness is a painful, stinking, and terrible thing to behold.

  14. This is AWESOME! Love sending letters and when the fold is perfect it makes the letter all that much better. It will never get old:)

  16. Have you ever tried this with a piece of legal sized paper? The degree of difficulty is so high that it hurts my brain.

  17. I had a part-time employee who I assigned letter folding for a mailing to prospective clients.

    Later, I check and she’s folding the letter in half sloppily, and then folding enough of the top down for it to fit in the envelope. A mess – not the first impression you want a potential client to have.

    But I know they don’t teach these skills anymore, so I patiently explain and show her how a professional letter is folded. But a few minutes later, she’s doing it again.

    At that moment, I know our time together was going to be brief. And I was right…

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