Every day we are confronted by people who want us to buy something. Billboards want us to buy; radio commercials want us to buy; TV commercials want us to buy. As a matter of fact, almost every ad in our paper wants us to buy something. For the most part these types of advertising are not too obnoxious. And if they get too obnoxious, we can pretty much ignore them. We can ignore billboards, and tune out radio commercials, and click around during TV commercials and thus avoid any unwanted intrusions into our leisure time. Having said that, I still very much want you all to read this paper. As a matter of fact, it should be mandatory. But we very rarely have quizzes and so a “must read” rule would be difficult to enforce. And besides, most of our print advertisements can lead to genuine savings with businesses in our area and thus are a good thing.

There are three forms of advertising or promotion or marketing (call it what you will) that I find quite obnoxious and intrusive and to which I resent being subjected. I speak of junk mail, telemarketing and spam. Unlike billboards, or commercials, or advertisements, or sky-writing, the ever-present junk mail and telemarketing are downright impossible to avoid. Spam can be filtered out of your computer’s inbox but the bad guys stay up nights trying to figure out how to get around these filters.

I have already told you all about the little box I have attached to my telephone to ask telemarketers not to call back. It works well. But even with my little “don’t ever call me again” box, I still have to interrupt what I am doing (usually dinner), answer the phone, determine the nature of the call, and activate the box. It can be very annoying. Don’t get me wrong; I believe that everyone has a right to earn a living and I used to listen to what telemarketers had to say. I even tried to be polite with some of them. The plain truth is, however, that not one telemarketer has ever had anything to sell in which I had the slightest interest. And so, after a while I stopped listening and stopped being polite and just hung up. At least now the voice in my little box is polite before it hangs up the phone.

The darn junk mail is just as intrusive as telemarketers. I never dare throw it away for fear it really might be something important. This all stems from the time I received a letter from a company I had never heard of. In the letter was a check for a substantial amount of money. Since most solicitations from banks and loan companies include checks of one kind or another, I was just about to throw the whole thing away. By chance I decided to read the accompanying letter and to my great surprise found that the check was indeed legitimate and from the estate of an aunt who had passed away. Even though I was pleased with the bequest, it has created one rather big problem for me. I now find it absolutely necessary to open and carefully read every piece of mail that arrives in my mailbox.

But junk mail has caused another problem in my house. Since a majority of junk mail is credit card applications, blank checks to use for balance transfers, sweepstakes notifications and the like, I have had to purchase a paper shredder to be sure these things are not activated by someone with access to my trash. If that sounds a little bit paranoid, then so be it, but identity theft is very real and can happen to anyone. Of course the upside is that with all this shredding going on, we have plenty of packing material for shipping stuff I sell on eBay. I guess I resent having to go out and purchase a shredder just because a bunch of unwelcome mail shows up at my house every day.

I am aware that there is a company that can be contacted to request your name be removed from junk mail lists and there is a procedure for telling telemarketers to remove your name from their lists as well but I find these are pretty much being ignored by perpetrators of these marketing schemes. I really don’t know of anyone who enjoys receiving telemarketing calls nor do I know of anyone who likes getting junk mail. Why is it up to us to have to tell them not to bother us? Why doesn’t our right to privacy protect us from these unwanted intrusions into our lives? Why shouldn’t they have to get our permission before they can call us or send us mail that just has to be shredded? If we are going to have consumer protection laws, why don’t we get some protection from these obnoxious predators? If our lawmakers really want to do some good, why don’t they find a way to get these pests off our phones and out of our mailboxes? A little peace and quiet might even creep back into our lives. Now you must excuse me. An un-activated credit card just jammed up my shredder and I have to fix it so I will have enough packing material for my next bunch of eBay shipments. And that’s Small Talk for this week.

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