[♪♩INTRO]
Bill. Bill. Spam.
Oooh, real mail!
Oh, it’s a thank-you card.
You may have thought only little kids and grandmas cared about thank-you cards and snail
mail, but oh contraire!
Mail might seem obsolete, but whether you’re applying for a job, running your own business,
or getting married, thank-you cards and mail play an important part in adult life.
But we don’t send mail all the time any more, so if you need a refresher on how to write a
thank-you card and send it, fear not!
For I am behind on my thanking people and I want to show you how to do it right now.
Recently How To Adult had a few out-of-town visitors on the show and we really appreciated
them coming and talking with us.
But me saying that right now does not count as a thank-you.
I want to send them mail!
So, I’m going to do that. I'm going to start with Aaron Carroll who came to talk to us about health stuff.
I've got a bunch of pretty pen colors so that I can make it pretty.
Let's start with this weird orange color because that seems, like, unusual.
“Dear Aaron…”
When you’re writing a thank-you note it can either be formal or informal.
Aaron and I are friends and we talk a lot about our colons, so it’s safe to say that this should
be an informal letter.
If I wanted it to be formal, I’d address Aaron by his proper titles and open
my note with “Dear Dr. Carroll”
Once you’ve decided on how to address the person, you just launch right into your thank-yous.
“Thank you for coming all the way to Montana to be on How To Adult with me.”
Next, tell them something specific that you appreciated about what they did.
Like, “I appreciated how open you were and how expertly you answered all of our questions.”
If you’re writing a thank you for a gift, this would be where you would say what you liked
about the gift or how you use it.
Like, “thank you for the mixer!
It's such a wonderful addition to my kitchen, and I know I'm going to have it forever, and I never knew
how much I liked making bread until I had a bread mixer.
Don't go over the top with it. But, you know... be nice.
And thank-you cards don’t have to be long.
People are busy and just appreciate that you sent a card at all.
People... never get mail.
It's so nice to get mail that isn't...
just more bills.
So now I’m going to wrap this one up to Aaron reiterating the thank you.
“It was so much fun to have you on set.
Thanks again, Hank.”
Now somewhat surprisingly to me, a lot of people, particularly younger people, in our office said that they
sometimes get confused about how to address a letter, so I’m going to go over that too.
What a waste of a thank-you note if you don’t actually send it.
First thing’s first, put your card in an envelope.
Side note: DO NOT put glitter into the envelope.
Save that for your enemies.
Then, seal it up.
Most envelopes have a water-activated seal called the gum that you can either lick, or
if you're doing a bunch of them, it's probably good to use a damp sponge so that your mouth
doesn't taste like that forever.
You can also get peel and seal envelopes.
Some people even use stickers or wax— whatever floats your boat.
So, good. Next, the address.
We’re actually dealing with two addresses here: my address and Aaron’s address.
The most important address is Aaron’s, so that one goes right in the front,
in the center in the middle.
Most addresses are three lines.
I’ll put his name on the top, the street address or PO Box on the second line, and
his city, state, and zip code on the bottom line.
Just in case I don’t have Aaron’s address right, or he moved recently, or I just wrote it real bad,
it's good to have a return address on there so
it doesn’t just disappear into the postal system.
Instead, it’ll then come back to me.
So I just put my address in the upper left hand corner.
If you have large handwriting or need more space, or it’s a particularly long address,
you can also put the return address on the back of the envelope, on top.
Just make sure to write it smaller so it looks like a return address and not the address
you want to send it to.
Then, you just need to put your stamp on the upper right-hand corner.
Honestly, you could probably put a stamp anywhere on the envelope and it would still make it
to its destination, but just like I don’t want to glitter bomb Aaron when he opens
his mail, I also want to make things relatively easy for the people working to deliver my letter.
Sam has suggested, who is sitting over here, that if you ever need to—there he is.
If ever you need a hand figuring this out you just google a picture of a stamped envelope
and it will have the whole layout there, if you like get confused by which side things are on
Because maybe you're a little flip-floppy in your brain or you're left-handed or something and you're like,
"I don't know where the return address and the stamp should go..."
You can do that!
Also, postage prices change over time and since I don’t send a ton of mail, I always
buy these nice things that they have now: Forever stamps
And I know they will always be the right amount of postage for a letter….forever.
Now all I have to do is drop it into a mailbox and Aaron will know how much I am thankful to him.
Who are you thankful for?
Send them a card, and let us know in the comments who you sent that card to.
How cool would it be just to fill up the comments section of this video with things and people
that we are thankful for?
Here's an example:
I am thankful to all of the people who are watching this and all the people who are
our patrons on Patreon, who make this show possible.
Thank you all so much, and I hope you have a happy whatever time of the year this
is in the place where you are.
Its a thank-you card!
It says "thanks a lot".
There's nothing on the inside. [laughter]
When I was a kid, they didn't have these, and you had, like, the 32 cent stamps
and you had to go buy a bunch of +2 cent stamps to put on with the 32 cent stamps...
It was a nightmare.
The worst thing that's ever happened to a human.
Like, uh... like, thank you for the mixer, um, I never knew how much I loved bread until I got to make—
Like, thank you for the mixer, friend—
Like—like thank you for my mixer. I love bread, and now I get to make it myself...
You're the best...
[laughing] I can't sound, like, not snarky.
[laughter]
And every time I make bread...
I see your face in the bread...
...Jeff.