Snail Mail: Kinematics Applied to an International Letter's Seventeen-Year Journey

The average and instantaneous velocity of a letter sent in 1990 from India and arriving in 2007 in New York City is analyzed using the equations of kinematics. An important question to be addressed is: how does the average speed of ``snail mail'' compare with that of an actual snail? The distinction between instantaneous versus average kinematic quantities are highlighted in the process.