Junk Mail, Fires and Telemarketers

I hate junk mail; I really do. I received a piece of mail from a friend yesterday, and I will be placing it at the bottom of this e-mail. I am sure several of you have received the same message. But I am not talking about forwarded messages (this one I would not classify as spam). I am talking about junk mail.

The one good thing about junk mail is that I can tell if our postman is not picking up or delivering mail on a given day – no junk mail, no delivery for the day. Because I get junk mail every day that I get a delivery. I think that's sort of amazing.

And I never respond to junk mail – although I don't count fliers from places I frequent "junk mail." If I get a 25% off coupon from Crabtree and Evelyn, you know I am going to use it. Every stinkin' time. But the charge cards, life insurance policies, mortgage refinancing, lawn services, etc., heck no, I will not do business with them.

If we had a fireplace, I would appreciate junk mail. I figure, it would save me some money. I would bundle up the junk mail, probably make a log a week, and burn them in the winter. Thanks Sears, thanks JC Penney's. You are helping me keep my tootsies warm in the winter. But we have no fireplace. And really, Georgia doesn't get that cold that I would need a fireplace for more than a month or so anyway. If we did have one, I would not even need to buy firewood. Unless we purchased the wood in such a way that hubbie would need to split it shirtless in the backyard. Yum. But I guess if he were splitting wood in the winter, he would probably have a shirt on. Foiled again. You can see why I hate junk mail.

Which leads me to phone calls. I don't like salespeople calling me. Yeah, we are on the do not call list. And it works pretty well. But if you are already doing business with someone, they can call you regardless, to try and sell you more crap and interrupt your dinner. My latest tactic is to sniffle once I know it is one of these people, and then say that my dog just died. I start balling, and the person on the other end of the line usually gives up quickly. They know they work on volume, and I will be chatty and not buy anything else. The worse is our local telephone service. I hate them, but I will not name them because they are evil and I think they actually monitor all of my communications. They always call when I am in the bathroom and hubbie answers the phone. And hubbie is a sucker. So I have to finish up quickly, pat off and then hobble to rip the receiver out of hubbie's hand, pulling my shorts up in the process. "We don't need any more services, and yes, jack ass, it is that time of the month!" It occurs to me that these people have our names and phone numbers, and I pray that some central computer just serves up the information so they can't call again.

I can see their notes in the customer database: "Wife is psycho bitch whore. Hubbie is easy target. Only ask for the man of the house." Sorry for the cursing. It's just these telemarketers get the best of me.

And the link mentioned is for the National Do Not Call Registry – a worthwhile thing, unless you like toying with people during dinner.

GAS WAR - an idea that WILL work. This was originally sent by a retired Coca Cola executive. It came from one of his engineer buddies who retired from Halliburton. It's worth your consideration.

Join the resistance!!!! I hear we are going to hit close to $ 4.00 a gallon by next summer and it might go higher!! Want gasoline prices to come down? We need to take some intelligent, united action.

Phillip Hollsworth offered this good idea. This makes MUCH MORESENSE than the "don't buy gas on a certain day" campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to "hurt" ourselves by refusing to buy gas. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them. BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can really work. Please read on and join with us!

By now you're probably thinking gasoline priced at about $1.50 is super cheap. Me too! It is currently $2.79 for regular unleaded in my town. Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a gallon of gas is CHEAP at $1.50 - $1.75, we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the marketplace … not sellers. With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of gas comedown is if we hit someone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas! And, we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. How?

Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying gas. But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war.

Here's the idea: For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY gasoline from the two biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL. If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit. But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon and Mobil gas buyers. It's really simple to do! Now, don't wimp out on me at this point...keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!!

I am sending this note to 30 people. If each of us send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300) ... and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000)...and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth group of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers.

If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it..... THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people. That's all! (If you don't understand how we can reach 300 million and all you have to do is send this to 10 people.... Well, let's face it, you just aren't a mathematician. But I am … so trust me on this one.) :-)

How long would all that take? If each of us sends this e-mail out to ten more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!! I'll bet you didn't think you and I had that much potential, did you! Acting together we can make a difference.

If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on. I suggest that we not buy from EXXON/MOBIL UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $1.30 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN. THIS CAN REALLY WORK.

Kerry Lyle, Director, Research Coordinator