Someone picks litter out of the subway tracks. Someone puts the bumpers onto each car on the road. And someone makes my lunch bag.

I've seen crews cleaning the subway, and my high school English teacher used to assemble cars (and explained alienation of labor based on this experience). But it was not until I noticed my last name on the bottom of a paper bag that I realized that there were people behind the thing I took for granted.



(That particular bag had gotten a glop of food on it, so I threw it away, but I vowed to keep the next bag with a person's name, and write to that bag-smith, in care of the company under whose auspices she or he works.)

Since I did not wish to raise any suspicion in the employer's mind by singling out an employee, I decided to send a simple postcard.