Although my e-mail inbox is regularly filled with unsolicited messages
selling APL Compilers, Dutch pastry recipes, and Czech get-rich-quick
schemes, my postal mailbox is full of even more nefarious spam.
Here's how I deal with it.
Somehow my address and full name (spelled any number of ways) has
crept its way onto many a mailing list for coupons, catalogs, and free
magazine samples. I spend a good portion of my afternoons each Sunday
sorting my mail into three piles: mail I want, mail I don't want, and
mail with business reply envelopes.
Few appreciate the generosity put forth by those who send you business
reply mail cards or envelopes. Business reply mail cards say "Postage
will be paid by addressee" or "No postage necessary if mailed in the
United States". This means that THEY WILL PAY THE POSTAGE COSTS no
matter HOW LUDICROUS!
Just take all of the junk mail you receive, strip off your name and
address, and shove it in a big envelope. Insert a note saying
"enclosed is the information you requested" and krazy-glue the
business reply card to the outside.
For bills that include stupid advertising sheets alongside the request for payment,
include a nasty note saying something like "Throw this out for me, you mouth-breathing spam monkeys.
Don't send any more or I will send my brother after you. He's a lawyer.".
For organizations that pester you to the point of extreme GAR, simply
affix the reply card to an ordinary brick or cinderblock and dump it
in your neighborhood mailbox. Thanks to the miracle of BUSINESS REPLY
MAIL, it will go to its destination on THEIR DIME! Beaujolais to
that!
A note to those of you who are hopped up from licking stamps all day
and are about to rush out and try this: Do NOT put your return address
on the envelope! As a matter of fact, put ANOTHER DAMN COMPANY in the
return address. The post office will send this goddamn brick bouncing
all over these United States trying to figure out who will pay the
postage on the damn thing!
It's no wonder postal workers all go apeshit and shoot each other.
They're so overworked sending bricks from bored punks all over
creation. As a matter of fact, I'm amazed that there aren't more
headlines like "POST OFFICE BRICKFIGHT LEAVES 12 DEAD" out there.
