Monday, September 1, 2014

Post-Journey Junkmail

I just returned from vacation.  I was away for two-and-a-half weeks.  It was a good trip--saw lots of friends and family, read some good books, got in lots of swimming and sightseeing.  All and all a success.  But every vacation comes with a price--and I don't mean the various expenses like lodging, meals and transportation that come with every trip.  No I mean sorting through the mail that has piled up while I was away.  Literally hundreds of e-mails (though I did keep abreast of them while I was away.  The blessing--or perhaps curse--of a smart phone!) and dozens and dozens of pieces of snail mail.

What struck me as I sorted through the snail mail was how much of it was a real waste!  A waste of paper, a waste of time, a waste of effort!  Very few pieces were personal.  There was a lovely invitation to a birthday dinner-dance in October.  And a very gracious thank you note for a memorial service I had conducted from a parishioner mourning the passing of her husband.  But other than that it mostly fell into two categories.  Bills or solicitations. 

The bills are self-explanatory.  While I've converted a number of paper bills to electronic formats, we do still receive some of them by mail.  Including some very confusing medical bills and explanations of benefits from our insurance company.  (Explanation is a technical term here--in reality nothing ever seems to be very clearly explained in such documents.  Who owes how much for what?)

The solictations often come with preprinted address labels.  Most of them get thrown into the recycling bin.  Some come from organizations we have supported for years, like Planned Parenthood, the American Cancer Society and Amnest5y International.  But others come from organizations we've never supported!  Here's a hint for such organizations.  Just send me your request.  Forget the free labels, the little cutesy pads of paper with my name on the top, the wrapping paper, the greeting cards.  Spend your money on the cause--not on the trinkets and tokens! 

So there you have it.  Post-vacation rant is over.  Thanks for letting me vent!

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