Hundreds of Unopened, Glittery Letters Addressed to Taylor Swift Discovered in Nashville Dumpster
Nashville resident Kylee Francescan made a grisly discovery recently while disposing of some newspapers in a recycling dumpster behind an elementary school: hundreds of letters, "covered with pictures, hearts, and sparkles" addressed to Taylor Swift.
No, they weren't letters Taylor Swift had written to her future self (Dear Taylor: I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean…"); it was fan mail.
Fearing the letters had perhaps been stolen (notably absent was the $10 wrapped in a tissue Taylor Swift's grandmother had sent her for Easter) or thrown away by mistake, Francescan contacted Nashville's News 2 Investigates, who immediately put a man on the case.
Reporter Andy Cordan drove out to the Hendersonville strip mall that is home to Swift's P.O. box, where he was told that a rep for the singer periodically stops by to pick up all mail. Swift's Spokeswoman Paula Erickson explained that Swift's fan mail is delivered to her management office where it is opened, read, and recycled.
"The only explanation for any letters being unopened would be that a small batch of mail that was supposed to be delivered to Taylor was accidentally put with letters headed for the recycling center."
After being contacted for the story, Taylor's people "immediately" sent a messenger to the news studio to picked up the letters. News 2 was told the mail would be "handled appropriately."
Which means: recycled.
Time for an exercise in static progress.
If you live in Nashville area or, actually, anywhere in the world (we can all participate), keep an eye on your local paper recycling bins for any giant boxes of fan mail addressed to Taylor Swift. When you find one, as you surely will (says Erickson, Swift receives "thousands of fan letters everyday," meaning the Postal Service's proposed Saturday cutback would affect Taylor Swift most of all), call your local news agency, who will contact Taylor Swift's management. A representative for Taylor Swift will collect the mail so that it can be "handled appropriately," i.e. recycled, at which point it will once again be collected and returned to her management. Around and around in an infinite loop, the letters will travel, recycled and rescued and recycled and rescued, touching the lives of many, but never reaching their intended home. Over the years, the envelopes will yellow. The stickers will curl and the glitter will fall and still they'll be trapped in an endless comedy of manners. Taylor's blonde tresses will fade to white, and the great grandchildren of her former management team will take up their ancestors' mysterious job. "Sometimes the old ways is best," they'll tell the Vanderbilt sophomores who have asked to profile them, as they push wheelbarrows full of rumpled letters around town.
Or maybe, to avoid future embarrassment, Taylor Swift's fan mail will simply be incinerated.
