Everyday Canvas

Junk Mail

Prompt: Junk mail--What kind of junk mail do you receive? Have you ever thought of putting the junk mail to good use and creating something from what comes in your mailbox? If you haven’t, what do you think of junk mail in general and what do you do with it?

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We receive all kinds of junk mail. The one junk mail that is terribly annoying comes from the realty brokerage firms who want to buy our house, which isn’t on sale and neither do we have any inclination to sell it. Of course, that junk mail offer is followed by a phone call more often than not. What these gals and guys don’t know is that I am writing down their names and the realty brokerage firms they represent. If I ever sell my house or if someone I know sells theirs, I’ll make sure these brokers who throw their weights around and bother people will not get my business or my friends’ if I can help it.

Among the other kinds of junk mail are the charities who are asking for money or other donations, which I don’t mind. What I mind is any charity that sends me money, be it a two-dollar check, a dollar bill, or a coin of any denomination. If you are sending money haphazardly to just anyone on your mailing list, why do you think I am going to send money to someone who is used to throwing money around?

Then, we get the Christmas cards every single year starting from August. You’d think I’d be writing Christmas cards to a billion people every year. Nowadays, card writing has become passé, and most people connect with one another on the net. While I used to get hundreds and hundreds of Christmas cards each year 30 to 40 years ago, nowadays I can count those on my fingers. Then, why waste the paper, Charities? Instead, just let me know what kind of a charity you are running. For your information, I usually donate to Salvation Army and I have never received any silly gift from them.

The rest of the junk mail is offers or sales or catalogs etc., which I don’t mind at all. I don’t look through all of them because I am not too much into the coupon-clipping pastime, but from the offers and some of the ways they offer, I have written list poems and found poems, in the past. So, something can be said about the junk mail, too.

What happens to my junk mail? Most of the junk mail goes right into the recycle bin.