Dear Sir or Madam,
I hope this e-mail finds you well. Please find attached that thing you need.
Below it, please find this e-mail, and the sentence you’re reading now.
Above, please find the menu options for the computer program you’re using to read this e-mail.
Above that, please find a ceiling. (Or, if you’re lucky enough to check your e-mail en plein air,_ _please find the sky.)
Back down to below, please find a Post-it on your computer monitor reminding you to do that thing.
Below that, please find your hands, resting gently on your keyboard, perhaps toying with the scroll wheel on your mouse.
Back up to here—please find the word “here” here.
To the side, please find your cubicle wall adorned with items of personal significance, or, if you work in an open-plan office at a startup company, please find a man with a beard.
To the left, please find the opening lyrics to that Beyoncé song.
To the left again and keep going, please find out if you’re on a swivel chair. If you are not, please find the floor. Please find that you are bleeding slightly. Please find a first-aid kit. Please find your bearings again.
Please find this e-mail in the same place as it was before, displayed comfortably in your field of vision.
If someone is reading this e-mail aloud to you, please find him a better job. He has an M.B.A. from N.Y.U., yet here he is, reading you your e-mail. Please find it in your heart to give him some much needed help. To do so, please find that folder you have on your computer where you keep job stuff like your résumé and cover-letter template, and e-mail it to him as an example of what his should look like. To locate this folder, please find the application “Finder,” or, if you’re on a P.C., whatever the Microsoft equivalent of “Finder” is. While you’re at it, please let me know its name. I really haven’t used anything but a Mac in years. Please find that this makes me sound like a bit of an ass.
Please find that I just used the “return” key to create space between this paragraph and the previous one. Please find yourself relieved, because that paragraph was pretty long, and it used the phrase “please find” a lot.
If the repetition is starting to annoy you, please find some other e-mail to read.
Now please find yourself back here, with me, on the edge of your seat, anxious to see what you might learn from the final sentences of this e-mail.
Please find enlightenment and happiness in the people around you whom you love and who love you. But, before that, please find the five hundred dollars that you owe Big Jimmy, because otherwise he’ll break your legs.
And if it pleases you to find only one thing in life, please find a way to communicate your needs and desires via e-mail that doesn’t require the use of the phrase “please find.”
