Just as you can tell what a publisher thinks his magazine’s audience is by the type of advertising his periodicals carry, you can tell what the world commercially and statistically thinks of you by the type of junk mail you receive. Don’t feel too bad. Most of it is based on some pretty dated information about the people who lived in your neighborhood ten years ago. Then again, you can do quite a bit to contribute to the old commercial mail database by doing some innocuous things such as establishing a cable television hook up, opening a savings account, ordering products from infomercials, using a discount card for grocery purchases or, the worst of them all, making a donation to charity using a personal check.
The way mail order marketing works today, by the time they have zoomed in on who you really are and what you are likely to buy, you have probably moved. In all reality the anonymity of your actual retail desires are fairly much preserved by the fact that, as a moving target, you personally are not worth tracking down. At least via mail, which is something of a fading art form. Most times your purchase of Thigh Master has done nothing to actually tweak your own identity. It has merely made your neighborhood that much fatter.
And it doesn’t get much better if you actually do hold still and not move every two point three years. I take my own case in point. Per the junk mail I am on the receiving end of, I am a 90 year old Republican Catholic. Now, that’s not particularly my neighborhood, which is demographically three or so decades younger and not entirely Tea Party like. No, that’s me. That’s three years of random mailing research defining yours truly.
I am actually not a 90 year old Republican Catholic, although I might share the tastes of some of this grouping. Part of the issue may be that I did some consumer product research pieces for the website’s Ajax Telegraph section. That got me on a bunch of contest lists and other scams. Some of it may be a result of my buying habits—my love of Big Band music, for instance, or books in general. Both purchases mark me as a geezer. (I am not statistically a Geezer, over 50, as yet.) Much of it, however, I have to attribute to certain charitable offerings I have made.
Donate to one charity and soon word is spread hither and yon that you are a font of bounty awaiting tapping. Thanks to my really rather meager charitable donations to various causes with pathetic faced children needing something-or-other, I now get about five times the mail that everyone else at my address does. Combined.
If I were the type to send Christmas Cards—which, as a single male, I am not—I would not have had to purchase any this year. Should I ever become this type of person, I now have over 200 such cards (mostly religious in nature) in my ready arsenal. I will not be buying Christmas Tags this year, largely because I was able to collect enough cards which were not all that religious in nature that I can use as tags. In fact, unless my circle of pals and family expands exponentially and/or I become predisposed to becoming the type of person who sends non religious Christmas Cards, I now have a five year supply of such.
At first I thought it was amusing. And somewhat thoughtful. Sure, the charity lists its address and works and such on the back of the card, but the card itself is free. Providing me with the card is a service of sorts, thus I don’t feel all that bad if my postage in some way might be carrying a small advertisement as to the charity’s meaningful mission. I felt this way all the way through the end of October.
They didn’t stop. Holy crap. I am averaging ten cards a day. I’m no longer sorting them, as I once was. Nor removing the envelopes—which my cheapness tells me can be used for other stationary purposes. I now have more non-number 10 envelopes than I am every likely to have utility bills for. Should I suddenly strike a romantic relationship calling for the sending of mash notes, I have more than enough envelopes to cover flirtation, thanks for the whatever, proposal/response to your Order of Protection event cycles several life times over. Cut it out, already.
Even during non-holidays (which for us mail order Catholics does not exist), I receive about three letters a day baring gifts, usually in the form of small change. I now have several dream catchers, all of the Catholic Medals, a fine Holy Card collection , numerous calendars (thus I know that there are no non Holidays for us Mail Order Catholics) and two computer printed and stitched micro-fleece throws, which are now my official car blankies. Did you know that there are four shrines to Saint Jude, just in the United States? (For a small donation, I could have a cardboard cut out of one, suitable for I am not sure what.) Also, should my entire family as well as the families of everyone I know die, I have ready made cards which will inform the survivors that some army of monks is praying for the salvation of the deceased. But mostly I get change, about 40 cents a day.
Why would someone send me change? I’m not sure. The letters generally go on as follows:
Forty cents. To you and I, forty cents may not seem like much, but to Nadia it is the difference between life and death. Nadia came to us as an infant with a birth defect/malnourished/missing pieces and has been living here at the Virgin Mary Saint Somethingorother for the past few months. Her mother was raped and had her limbs torn off and then became a coke fiend. We have been taking care of Nadia ever since her grandmother threw her at us. Could you perhaps spare as little as 40 cents a day or even 60,000.00 so that we can build a shrine in Nadia’s village to convince her that there is a kind and just God?
And the next thing I know I am writing a check. Not for much, mind you. But I am a total freaking sucker. Wave a kid at me and I just start throwing cash. Again, it’s not much and I am hardly ashamed of it, but it does get me on some odd and off the wall lists.
This one arrived just the other day. It’s the check in the mail trick. Behold, someone has written me a petty check. This may be what inspires some to even open this letter. As I advised in the Ajax Telegram feature, NEVER, EVER cash these checks. Although I can’t say anything about the charity itself*, this check is particularly dubious.
Item one. This check arrived mid December with a 45 day use by date printed on it. Yet the powers that be have dated the check for November. So even if I wanted to cash it, I would have to do so ASAP. The letter which comes with the check is also dated mid December. One wonders why they sat on this check so long, if they really wanted me to cash it. Or why they put a use by date on it at all.
Item two. It’s not a check to me at all. It’s what is known as a Barer Draft. As opposed to being a check a made out to me, the person whose name is on the check, it is actually made out to ANYONE who might present this check to be cashed. There isn’t a reputable bank in the universe that will actually cash this type of check and none which would knowingly issue one. Even drug cartels know better than to issue Barer Drafts. And there really isn’t a good reason for issuing one. That’s two strikes, so no sale.
No sale to this dude, too. First, it came in a plain brown wrapper, like porn. It even had the special just for the porn industry reverse facing interior envelope. If I didn’t see the charitable postage, this would have been sent back to sender.
As opposed to porn, it was hate mail in the form of a survey. I get these from time to time. In general, it’s a fake survey with leading questions followed by an appeal for cash.
This one kind of crossed the line with me. I don’t care what you think of illegal aliens. Don’t take it out on their kids. That such misanthropy should be used in a political pleading is utterly disgusting. Especially at Christmas. I suppose it would have been more vulgar to send me a card showing Santa tossing Mexican children out of his sleigh as he flew over the Rio.
And in this last batch before Santa hit came the above.
Now, I am a conservative. I suppose I deserve this stuff, after a fashion. What irks me about this page is that every single statement on it is a deliberate lie.
Maybe this is what I get for not sending out my Christmas cards? To make up for it, I will buy the next cardboard Saint Jude shrine that comes my way. But please make the bad men stop first.
*This charity took some pride in stating that they only take 10% of funds collected for operating expenses. That’s FIVE HUNDRED PERCENT of the standard 2%. No sale to you going three times.
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