I Need a Plumber.

I walk out to my mailbox with a sense of dread, every time. There’s this overpowering sense of destitute that washes over me as I close in on my destination. Fear grips my heart like icicles hanging from my aorta. I open my mail box and there it is. Crap.

I don’t know about your mail, but if I’m not missing my guess, you get crap too. A lot of it. All over. This has been happening as long as mail has been delivered. Not only that, but it has begun to spill out into new technology. As if we don’t see enough crap on TV, or listening to it on the radio, there it is, waiting on your computer monitor and in your mailbox. We must do something, and fast.

Let’s start by categorizing the crap in your mail. You’ve got your useless magazines. The ones that you didn’t ask for, that have things you would never buy inside of them, and flowers on the front of them. Lots of flowers. Pink ones. They are usually about home decorating, ethnic shopping, or urban architecture. I’d rather read the religious pamphlets some cult-like church stuck in my box than those magazines. At least the pamphlets make me chuckle. Ah Scientology. Heh heh heh.

Up next are the AOL installation CDs I get once a month. This is the worst advertising campaign I’ve ever seen. Like if they keep sending me their CDs, at some point I’m going to say, “What the hell? Why not just shove this circular thing in my computer and see what chaos could ensue.” What we really need to do, instead of just tossing them, is to give them new jobs. Get some use out of the crap. Coasters are an old tradition. Skeet shooting can be fun. Also, and my personal favorite, use a half dozen of them to put under that chair or stool in your house (you know the one) that one of the legs is shorter than the other.

The best crap is other people’s mail crap. This is when some dumbass company can’t figure out that John Thompson doesn’t live in your rental house anymore and four years later still keep sending him mail. You know its crap when it says on it “For John Thompson or current resident of 123 Sesame Street.” Yeah, so now I have mail sloppy seconds. I don’t think so, Scooter.

Then you get your computer crap. Ads for penis enlarging, naked girls, and monetary scams, you know the drill. My favorite is the letter from General Aji Magi Boombagi’s son, Bart. Apparently the general keeled over whilst pillaging some East African village and the only way his son Bart can collect his $2,000,000,000 of inheritance money is to split it with you. But first you must send him 9 easy payments of $5,000. And then half of the inheritance money is yours. Sounds like no strings attached, where do I sign up Chief? Yahoo mail does a pretty good job of diverting this Spam (email crap) to your bulk folder. However, other types exist that aren’t so easily foiled.

The worst emails are the ones you get from your demi-friends. These are the people you met in college, or at some old job, that you really don’t talk to, but accidentally made the mistake of giving them your email address and they forward junk to you. They add you to their Address Book of horror and then email half the Western Hemisphere annoying religious chain mail, urban legends (did you know Elvis isn’t dead? He’s sitting in a tube of formaldehyde waiting for someone to find a cure for obesity), and those excruciating snow ball fights. That’s when someone creates an ASCII picture of a snowball and tell you that you’ve been hit by a snowball and you need to send it to everyone you know within thirty-eight seconds or you’ll be hit by a Greyhound Bus and the IRS will take all your worldly goods and sell your wife and children into slavery in Saudi Arabia (I get a lot of email crap). I’m tempted to freeze some water in the shape of a bowling ball, find out where the ass lives and smash his skull with my snowball.

So, please, stop sending crap. Don’t add to the problem when you can be apart of the solution. Don’t buy shit from ads you find in your mailbox. And for the love of God, don’t send Bart any money. His real name is Bill and he owns Microsoft.

*D.S. Trosdahl~~