Spamming the Spammers

I have a fun little thing I like to do when I get my mail each day. As I suspect is fairly common in this day and age, aside from honest to goodness bills, most of what arrives is utter rubbish. I used to actually get real letters from other humans on occasion, but since the internets? Not so much. Anyway, I open everything, even the obvious solicitations. Postage paid envelopes are the big excitement after all. The really fun part is deciding what to stuff in them before I mail them back. If I have nothing interesting laying around I merely take whatever crap came to me, remove anything with my name on it, and mail it back. The selection process does get better though…

To be clear, there are a few rules to my little game. OK, maybe just the one: no harassing the not-for-profits. This is strictly enforced. However, due to various contributions I make, my name is on the sucker list, and I do receive a lot of mail from charities and environmental groups, especially. They provide excellent fodder to send to the mega-corporations. American Express could learn from the Sierra Club; Citibank could clearly benefit from the literature of the Jane Goodall Institute. And so on. I can’t kid myself into thinking my action is doing any "good," but it brings me no end of pleasure knowing that these companies have to pay for my amusement.