Nancy Drew was afraid of lung cancer

This morning, I left my house carrying my laundry basket and my computer. My single biggest assignment of the year is due tomorrow, and I'm nowhere close to done. Needless to say, I wasn't in the greatest mood.

But reaching into the mail box, I found something that immediatly turned my day around:



For me?! I love mail!

Hmmm, but curiously this was a package with no return address. What could it be?

Ahhh! It's a pipe! My first prop for Year of the Prop!

But who would have sent it?

Using my new prop to get into character, I decided to channel my inner Sherlock Holmes to solve the mystery.

Let's examine the clues:

1. No return address.

2. The stamp was not post-marked, so it's impossible to tell what city it came from.

3. The package is covered with grease and food.

4. An environmental sort is clearly responsible for this package, because it's wrapped in an old, used envelope with an absurd amount of scotch tape (which is a key sign that it was more likely a male sender).

5. The old postmark on the package comes from a London, Ontario postal code. Therefore, the sender of the package must either recieve mail for London, or live in London themselves.

All these clues (the greasy food marks, in particular) clearly point to only one person: Alex Dodd.

However, after doing a handwriting comparison of my postal code to another letter mailed to me by Alex Dodd, he is definitely not the culprit.* He's just the Red Herring. Going through all the postcards that have been sent to me in the last year, I decided that Steve was a better suspect, because he has very similar handwriting, but I don't think he would ever dot a question mark with an "O."

Time to look for further clues:

-The package is addressed to "Jess" (no last name used) which makes me think this is someone who knows me primarily or strictly through this blog.

-They also obviously know one of my friends (how else would they get my mailing address?)

-The postmark is dated January 24th, 2007, which means that this package was probably only sent within Ontario. (This leaves the person a good 3 weeks to get mail from London, then wrap this in the same envelope and mail it to me.)

I have my ideas of who the mysterious sender of the pipe is, but I'm not entirely sure.

So, to whoever sent me this fantastic prop, I have two things to say: Thank you, you made my day!

And more importantly, it's never too late for props!

_______________________________________________________

* Edit: After re-examining the postal code and writing, I'm actually not ruling out Alex Dodd as a primary suspect anymore. I realized that I failed to take into account that the address was written on a package, which is harder to write on than a letter, and may alter the nature of the handwriting.

*Edit: I got Alex Dodd to fess up at approximatly 10:30 tonight. The food marks were a dead giveaway.