10.14.2005

Junk Mail

"It's mostly bills, magazines and junk mail, anyway."
"Elaine, that's what mail *is*. Without bills, magazines
and junk mail, there *is* no mail."
- Elaine and Jerry, in "The Visa"

This little give and take from a Seinfeld episode makes me think of how over the years my outlook on receiving mail has changed. When I was young, getting an envelope addressed to me made me feel like an adult. It made me feel important and it also cheered me up. A lot of the mail I received back then was in the form of invitations to parties or some form of special occasion card, in celebration of Christmas or a birthday. These special occasion cards would at times even have currency tucked in the middle of them. Receiving mail, in general, was a wonderful experience.

Things started to change as I grew older. I looked forward to receiving mail only when I expected a check or something I ordered from a store. These anticipated events only occurred once or twice a month, so for the remainder of the month, I wouldn’t care if the mail never came. Sometimes I wished that some things would get lost, especially some of the bills which seemed to be multiplying with each passing year and life changing event.

Picking up and opening my mail each day, except Sundays and holidays, suddenly became a not so wonderful experience. Mail came addressed to me as Mr., Mr. And Mrs., Resident, Occupant, Postal Patron, Postal Customer and once in a while they would even try to slip me somebody else’s mail. Things that were put in my mailbox consisted of bills and solicitations to buy things that would only add to the bills that I was already receiving. This type of mail came on time like clockwork. I didn’t need a calendar because I knew that when I got my phone bill it was the 15th of the month, the gas bill came on the 20th, my mortgage payment was on the 1st and so on it went with the others. I never had one bill get lost in all my life – that’s quite a track record for the Post Office; they’re almost as good as the IRS.

It got so that the trip to the mailbox would get me depressed. Thankfully, I was spared of bills on Monday. The Post Office must have known that delivering bills on Monday, the first day of the week for many, would just add to the depression of having to go back to work. On Monday, the Post Office would inundate you with “junk mail.” A lot of companies would use the mail carrier as if they were their own salesperson. The solicitations to buy things were endless and knowing that many people would just throw away this mail, the companies would try tricking you into opening this type of mail by making it look like it was something of importance. Some even told you that you had won a prize. What the recipient was not aware of was they were one of hundreds of thousands of other people that received the same letter and were also “winners.”

The true winners were the companies because if they got just one person out of one hundred to respond they would recoup the money they invested in mailing costs. Since it cost them only a fraction of what the average person paid for postage, they would not stop at one mailing or one attempt to lure you to purchase their product. It was an annoyance to get this stuff and just throw it away.

Over time the term “junk mail” was changed to a more respectable name, Bulk Business Mail. I guess this was to give it greater appeal, much like retarded was changed to handicapped or Post Office changed to Postal Service. To me you could have called it anything but its still nuisance mail that has to be thrown out. How many more blank checks are credit companies going to send to me? I wish I could send them back without costing me anything. They have forced me to buy a shredder because of the threat of identity theft.
They have recently instituted a Do Not Call list for telemarketers, which has been a God send. My next wish is either for a Do Not Mail list for the nuisance mail or that the Postal Service makes these companies pay the same price as I pay for to mail a letter

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