Dear Mr. Feldman,

As the previous owner of my Hinman Box, I first want to thank you for all your mail that I am still receiving. Sure, the free issues of The Economist are pretty sweet, but it would be shallow if I didn’t also thank you for the Brooks Brothers and Abercrombie clothing catalogues. It’s good to know you’re already looking out for me, subconsciously funneling me clothing advice so that I too might one day be able to sport a purple-and-gold SAE shirt.

The mail, indeed, does not matter. I enjoy getting your credit card statements. Really. What I need to know is how you were cursed here at Dartmouth, because you and I share the same curse: Hinman Box 666.

Most people might think a mailbox is an afterthought, that the number assignments are as arbitrary as the decision to use letters on the locks’ dials. Well I say to you, there’s a reason that we have letters on our Hinman Box dials rather than numbers—everyone knows that there are incremental gradations between each alphabet letter, and these “letter fractions” are really what makes the lock combinations so secure (who the hell could memorize and break into “A-and-a-half, R-and-three-quarters”?). There must also be a reason why I got Hinman Box 666.

Indeed, something supernatural has been afoot. From getting my Hinman Box number over the summer to getting to Dartmouth, I’ve found many reasons to be sure God hates me. He gave me a Catholic-school roommate (hi Simon Peter!), a paragon of virtue to help show me the wickedness in my ways. He set my dorm’s trashcan on fire. He even invented BG cutters. Ever since coming to Dartmouth, it has been pretty apparent that God is out to get me. It doesn’t matter that I’m in Philosophy 1, a class hell-bent on proving both God’s existence and inexistence. I don’t need to waffle. I just know that He exists because He hates me - a proof more clear in my mind than those of Descartes and Aquinas.

I need to know, Mr. Feldman, will things get better? Will I succeed in any of my endeavors here at Dartmouth, or am I doomed to living a life of eating McDonalds three meals a day, as your credit card statements seem to indicate you’re doing? I spent this past weekend engaging in heathen rituals of running around a fire and playing pong with moms at frats with names like “Bones Gate.” Is there any hope that God will forgive me? C’mon, it’s not like I went to the Seven Deadly Sins party (I’m not out to commit social sacrilege as well). It’s clear from skipping that and the Pig Roast, I’m not completely screwed. But judging by the second miasma of pink-eye that is seeping into my hall as I type this, I’m pretty sure the curse will never end.

I lied before. I hate getting your mail. It’s so sad getting my hopes up that some loved one might actually send me something worthwhile, only to see that the contents of my box are meant for you. At least the Courtyard Café is nearby, so I can suffocate my depression in Big Bad Burrito sludge.

In conclusion, I’m clogging your (other) mailbox with this letter in the hopes that you might now remember the same pain you felt as a freshman. Maybe you just might feel enough sympathy for my plight to ask Dartmouth to redirect your errant mail. If not, well, may God have mercy on your soul. As things look now, he certainly isn’t planning on ending the curse for me any time soon.

God be with you,
David Gusella