Return to Sender

I began to hit fever pitch with my outrage at all things bureaucratic a few months ago when I got into a passive aggressive fight with the person who delivers my mail because every day -- EVERY DAY -- I kept receiving this same letter from Comcast addressed to "neighbor" offering me loads of different cable channels. I do not own a television, and I was getting increasingly annoyed at the fact that I can't seem to stop getting this letter. I just find it intolerably irritating. Because of this mail, I have to then create a recycle pile --- that gets filled up within a week -- purely full of unwanted mail, which just seems ridiculous to me.

Anyway, after receiving this letter for over a year, I finally wrote on the envelope: "Return to sender. I don't own a TV." I put it in the mailbox. The next day, the letter with my note reappeared in my mailbox. So, this time, I hung it from an opening on the top of the inside so that when the mail person opened my mailbox, s/he would see the letter and not forget to return to sender. It did not get mailed out. Instead, the mail person left me a note on top of the envelope indicating that this cannot be returned to sender for some reason or another. This seems outrageous to me. I have to receive this pesky letter every day when I get home from work and yet, Comcast is exempt from receiving junk mail...their own junk mail included?!

When I was a kid, I loved the mail so much that I used to write letters to myself and seal them in an envelope and address them to myself. I would hold on to them for a few weeks so that I would forget what I had written. Then, I would tag along to the post office with my parents and mail it to myself. I was always so excited to get my own letters! I mean, obviously, I preferred getting letters from other people, but that usually only happened around birthday time.  So, I had to take matters into my own hands if I wanted to get mail.  I also used to sort out the family's mail when it arrived and organize it by person (usually simply mom or dad, but I still enjoyed this). The days of my past when I used to write letters to myself and wait for weeks to mail them are over.

I have now grown to hate the mail. In fact, despise it. My mail for the last few months has consisted of a daily assortment of: tons of rejection letters from most schools that I applied to, one acceptance package from Claremont Graduate University, a couple of nice cards, insurance medical notices from my bike accident, and of course, the weekly grocery paper and the comcast "neighbor" letters. Last night, I lost it. I got home to a package from the IRS regarding my 2010 taxes, which indicated that they were taking away my education tax credit...luckily, I'm finding out that they can't take it away, so I'll get it fixed, but still...  And a photo ticket in the mail.

Elvis knew my pain and wrote a song about it...at least I'm not getting returned love letters!