Drinking tea

I got a letter today. Hand-addressed! That, in itself, is interesting and cool. It was air-mail from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Baton Rouge! Adds a certain je-ne-sais-quoi to the whole thing. So what is it?

I opened it.

Out fell a teabag. A teabag?

In addition to the teabag, the envelope contained a small map of the world, with a few dozen red dots scattered all over it, and a letter. I read the letter. It was an invitation to take tea with 38 other people, scattered all over the world. The person who sent the letter emailed a bunch of her friends, asking for the names and addresses of “distant relatives or friends”. We each got a letter and some tea. She said that if we all follow the schedule on the back of the letter, we’ll all be drinking tea at the same time, along with everyone else on the letter. Nifty!

Hm. I just noticed: one of the the times is incorrect. Someone in New South Wales, just north of me, is drinking tea nearly 10 hours before me. They’re in the same time zone. My time is correct though: I drink tea at 4am, Saturday January 1, 2005. Very cool.