So the other day I fired off an email to the fine folks at the Style Invitational asking if they could send along my runner-up T-shirts. They (well, she-- actual human beings work at the newspaper, and they're even nice and have personalities!) replied that my prizes had long ago been sent to my address on file.

    I didn't take into account the fact that I had recently moved, because I was entering with a new address, so I presumed that everything would smooth itself over. This, of course, was not the case. The Invitational's Prizemistress was very friendly and offered to send more things to my current address, but asked if I had not filled out a change of address form.

    Oops.

    It slowly dawned on me that I haven't ever done that, notwithstanding the fact that I've moved twice in the last six months. So undoubtedly, scads of important mail for me is being thrown directly into an incinerator because I haven't filed the proper paperwork.

    And I object to this. I feel there are far too many things in the world that people are simply expected to know because they are part of life. But if one has never had to deal with them before, one may never be told about them, and consequently one doesn't find out about these things that are obvious to everyone else until damage has already been done, especially when one is me.

    I'm left wondering just how much important mail I've missed. And I'm also wondering if it's too late to do anything useful at this point, or if I should still drag my naive carcass down to the post office and inform them that I don't live where I live, or even where I moved to, but in the place I moved to later.

    Anyway, if you think about it, I'm sure there's something in your life that you haven't known to do even though it was obvious to everyone else, simply because you never had to deal with it. Those things aren't your fault. And I'll keep telling myself that all the way to the post office, but I still won't necessarily believe it.