An envelope. No address written on it. No return address either. Just a few figures scratched on the outside.
And it wasn't sealed. Postal employee Laura Smith peeked inside.
The $800 is back in the hands of its rightful owner, a Polson businesswoman, thanks to Smith, who immediately put the cash in a lock box the U.S. Postal Service provides for just such instances.
The woman had mistakenly dropped off the envelope filled with cash with her outgoing mail.
"You'd be surprised how many people mix in their banking with their mail," Smith said. "We've gotten checks meant to be deposited in the bank before that ended up in a drop box - one was for $21,000."
But the $800 was the most cash Smith, a Postal Service employee since 1978, had recovered in one lump sum.
"We did have an envelope that had $1,000 cash in it, all in $20 bills, that broke open in the machinery a couple of years ago," Smith said. "But that involved everybody picking $20 bills out of the machinery the rest of the night."
When the Polson woman realized her mistake, she frantically called the Polson Post Office in hopes the money could be tracked down.
In Missoula, where Polson's outgoing mail is processed, Smith had already found the $800, which had been moved from the lock box to a vault at the end of her shift.
"I knew that whoever lost it would probably be very anxious to get it back," said Smith, a mail processing clerk who checks for loose-in-the-mail items as part of her job.
There's no end to what postal employees find mixed in with the mail, she said - everything from jewelry to lace panties.
Wallets are common.
"There's seldom any money in them," Smith said. "I imagine most of them have been either found or stolen, and put in a drop box. But we check it out and try to track down the owners."
Missoula Postmaster Robert Galtrude praised Smith, and said her honesty was representative of most postal employees.
"We try to get every piece of mail delivered," he said, "or, when a mistake like this happens, to help out the customer."
The Polson woman was very grateful, according to the Postal Service, but wanted to remain anonymous.
"I guess she was quite embarrassed," Smith said. "Maybe she doesn't want her husband to know. I'd have probably done the same thing."
The $100 bills were shipped back to Polson - via registered mail.
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