Thursday, November 17, 2011

Simple Suggestion #101 ... Reduce your junk mail


Dear Little Brothers of St. Anthony,
         I might be a good Catholic, but honestly, I'm getting really tired of your unsolicited snail mail appeals for charitable donations. This is the second one I've received from you this month!
         And do you really think that putting "St. Anthony loves you" on the outside of your appeal is that convincing? Of course St. Anthony loves me. Saint Anthony loves everybody; that's why he's a saint!
         Moreover, mailing out a whack of information and a little metal "charm" that I can mail back to you with a donation (in your postage paid envelope) so you can ensure that it is put on St. Anthony's tomb and that prayers are said for me seems like a pretty silly occupation for busy guys like you -- not to mention a colossal waste of resources! Why don't you just pray for yourselves and the people who have actually asked you to pray for them? That way you could save a heap of postage, and all the paper, envelopes, metal work, employee hours, effort and fossil fuel this silliness requires, and call yourselves good stewards of the earth.
         I don't know where you got my home address -- though I have my suspicions, and may cancel my involvement with that group because they promised not to share my information with anyone else -- and I certainly don't remember asking for your prayerful patronage in the past. Just for the record, I share my charity dollars with lots of other nice people and groups that I've known personally or locally, and have supported for many years already. You don't even know me! And you send me a gift that I'm supposed to send back? This is surpassing strange.
         Since you seem like kind (but sadly mistaken) gentlemen, I am using this postage paid envelope to ask that you please remove my address from your data base. And I'm sorry, but if you send any more appeals like this one, I may consider doing as the fellow in the video below suggests for Wall Street. I wish you well with your honourable work, and God bless you, too.

Sincerely,
Maria K.

P.S. Banks and credit card agencies, I'm sorry, but I won't be as nice to you the first time around! At least the Little Brothers are trying to do some good -- your appeals are only for your bottom lines! You'll get the wood shims right off the bat!



P.S. Looking for more Simple Suggestions? Try here.

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