Some of my junk mail packets include a pre-paid envelope addressed back to the sender, to be used for making a donation or ordering their product.  Normally, after stripping my name and address from the unwanted missives, I toss the entire package into the paper recycling box.  But sometimes I use those postage-paid envelopes.

Now I am a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, and that means frugal (some have said cheap or stingy).  There is no way I would spend so little as one postage stamp to express my political opinion, even for the luxury of taking a shot across the liberal bow of some of these solicitations.  But given the opportunity of doing it for free…  Today I had a bit of fun, twice.

The first item was a purported survey from the Republican Senatorial Committee, asking my opinion via a ”numbered, registered” questionaire about political issues.  They don’t really want my opinion.  They want a donation.  So I made a note on the blank side of it with a black marker pen and sent it back unused in the postage-paid envelope which they so kindly provided:

Please remove my name and address from your junk mail list. I have voted Republican for fifty years, but for a long time now you have failed to represent my conservative values, especially regarding illegal immigration. From now on I will only donate to and support individual candidates that meet my standards.

I really enjoyed writing the second one. It was an invitation to subscribe to the Washington Post newspaper. Now I have been turning them down at this address for over thirty years, but they still keep trying. So this is what I sent to them, at their expense:

Please remove my name and address from your junk mail list. There is no way in Hades that I will ever in my lifetime subscribe to your liberally biased newspaper, not even to use for

• a dead fish wrapper
• a wood fire starter
• a bird cage liner

The devil made me do it!