by "Varem-Sanders, Thierry" <TVarem@NRCan.gc.ca>
Editor's note: A while back on the Woodcarver Mailing List there was a thread about dealing with JUNK mail. This thead happened to appear on the List in close proximity to another thread to do with "Mailing Wood". Being the type of person that quickly identifies serendipity, Thierry offers the following humorous story.
Ainsley Pyne's comments about mailing wood reminded me of what Charlotte (my wife and certainly better half) did a few months ago.
Out of the blue, she came to me with a request that I cut up some 2x4 timbers to some very specific lengths. She was a bit hesitant about explaining why she needed them, but I became so curious that I bugged her until she explained.
We had been bugged repeatedly with junk mail from a particular publisher, constantly insisting that we subscribe to a magazine, or a record club... I'm sure you all know the type.
Well...
Charlotte noticed that these solicitations always included reply
cards with "postage paid by recipient" stamps on them.
She had tried to reduce the mountains of junk mail and solicitations
by simply writing a note on the reply cards requesting the publisher
to "remove us from their mailing list". However, apparently
the
publisher didn't take the notes very seriously, because we continued
to receive solicitations from them.
So she devised this plan. The dimensions which she gave me for the 2X4 offcuts exactly matched the size of the reply cards. As before, she wrote on the reply cards requesting that they remove us from their mailing list, but to add teeth to the request, she then glued the reply cards to the wooden offcuts, substantially increasing the weight of the cards, along with the postage cost. She then dropped them in the mailbox and left it to be sorted out between the postal service and the publisher.
When she explained to me what she was doing, I fell into a fit of laughter, and still giggle today whenever I think of it.
I don't know exactly whether the publisher removed us from its solicitation list, but we haven't received any further information from that particular publisher since. However, Charlotte has started an anti - junk mail campaign, and is sending chunks of wood to other solicitors, in the hopes that this also dissuades them. She is also getting very insistent. She has now declared that any solicitor ignoring her wooden block requests will soon be receiving bricks!!
Thierry
email: tvarem@NRCan.gc.ca
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada