You've got mail!

This may sound stupid, but my latest task is to stop receiving supermarket ads.

I realized the other day (when I cleaned out my mailbox) that this is the single largest volume and weight of paper that passes through my hands and my life these days, and I never look at the damn things. In the past the wisdom seemed to be that anything addressed to POSTAL PATRON LOCAL (or anything that shows up via what's called a "carrier route sort," whereby it's not addressed to you, they just stick one in every box) can't easily be stopped. I reject this; just because someone wants to send you something doesn't give them a right to do so.

And this shit weighs a lot.

The thing about carrier route sort is that you can't get "off the mailing list," because there isn't one. The business calls up the post office, and their mailing is priced according to the number of addresses on the route and the weight of the pieces, and they give the post office that number of pieces, none of them addressed to individual humans or even individual houses.

I did an extensive search through the postal regulations and publications and can't find anything that says I can't stop delivery of this stuff, but I have to admit that most of the publications I found were directed at businesses who might want to send me shit I don't want, and ways to make that easier.

Anyway, I have the number for the local postal inspector, so I'll call them and see what the procedure it is to basically tell the post office, "look, I never want to see anything in my mailbox that isn't addressed to a human being's name."

No one named "Resident" lives in my house.
No one named "Our friends at" lives in my house.
No one named "Safe driver at" (hi, GEICO!) lives at my house.
No one named "Single person at" (hi, TOGETHER DATING SERVICE!) lives at my house.
No one named "Or current occupant" lives at my house.

Thus, I don't want their mail. Or, if I get it, I want those names to show up and dispose of the shit, so I don't have to.

Of course, I told Suzanne about this the other night and she said, "well, yes, but I can use those things for rabbit bedding." Since she had agreed we would not receive the local paper to use as a place for the rabbits to whiz, I guess she should have some alternative. I'd just be worried that those morons would see the pictures of lettuce on the SuperFresh flyer and decide to eat it. They already like to eat phone books.

One of them whizzed on me the other night for no apparent reason.

I don't whiz on them...