Junk-mail: A coping strategy

I promised myself that I wouldn't use this blog as an arena for ranting, so I shall have to be a bit careful with this. Anytime someone mentions junk mail, you can almost hear the sound of someone's blood pressure going off the scale.

Luckily, this is a handy hint for anyone who wants to find a therapeutic way to deal with all that crap that lands on the doormat amongst the nice stuff (birthday cards, letters from mad relatives, tax rebates etc.)

I can't claim this idea as my own, but after hearing about it from a work colleague I was delighted to adopt it.

1. Open the envelope.
2. If the envelop has your address printed on it, tear off the address and shred it but hold onto the rest of the envelope. If it's a windowed envelope, just hold onto the envelope.
3. Sort the contents of the envelope into (a)stuff that has got your name and/or address on it, and (b) all the other advertising literature.
4. Shred all the stuff containing personal information.
5. Recycle all the advertising guff, except the inevitable reply-paid envelope which the sender should have thoughtfully included to help you apply for whatever nonsense their pushing.
6. Fold up the envelope all this garbage arrived in, and put inside the reply paid envelope. You can also enclose some of their own literature, or even better, something from another junk purveyor.
7. Double check that there's nothing included that can identify you as the sender.
8. Seal it up and post it back to the people who foisted it on you in the first place.
   

It doesn't clutter up your dustbin, it wastes their time when it arrives back at their offices and it provides work for the postal service.
How satisfying is that?