It'll Never Happen Again

I was flipping through the pictures I downloaded from my camera phone and I came across this little number:



So why did I happen to snap a picture of an envelope sitting on the edge of a box, you may ask? Well, Chester, I'll tell you.

The reason I took that picture is this: The box it's sitting on is an empty paper box I keep near my desk for recyclables. On this particular occasion, I happened to flip that empty envelope towards the box. And--I swear to Almighty God this is true--That's where it landed. Perfectly balanced, on the edge, with nothing on either side holding it up (it's hard to tell from the picture I admit, but there's nothing inside the box supporting it, I promise). That box is nothing more than a standard paper box, with sides 3 millimeters thick, if that.

So, I snapped a picture. If I could have shot a video of that envelope as it landed there, I would have done that too.

I don't know what course of events conspired to control the flight of that envelope so that it landed perfectly balanced on the edge of an open box. It's a shot I could never make again in a million tries. It's a shot Larry Bird couldn't make in a million tries. Go ahead--try it some time. Take a standard empty #10 envelope, seal it shut, cut the top open with a letter opener, and flip it about 5 feet through the air and try to get it to land perfectly flat on the edge of an open paper box. Then try it again a hundred more times.

You'll never do it.