I would like to ask all of you out there to pray for my mailman. He is going to need surgery to repair the hernia he is getting from delivering my mail. I'm sure that after bringing all this crap to me for the past 9 years he will be due for surgery very soon.
I started my morning today by walking out to the parking lot to bring in my paper recycle bin from yesterday's trash pick-up. Then I walked around to my mail box to collect yesterday's mail. Good thing I had the recycle bin with me because I had SEVENTEEN requests for donations stuffed into my mail box. Seventeen ? I'm sure most people. don't get that much mail in a month. Lucky me !!!
Included in this collection of solicitations from various cancer societies, missions, medical aid groups, homes for children in need, the blind, the deaf and Lord knows what else, I have received a garbage can full of FREE gifts. For some reason these charitable organizations seem to think that if they send me a gift worth one dollar I will in turn send them a check for $35 or more dollars. (The good old days of sending a check for five or ten dollars are long gone. The base amount of a contribution is now $35. All that for sending me a pen that doesn't work.)
But wait . . . The charities have gotten very creative these days. It used to be I would receive twelve bazillion address labels in the mail in the course of a month. (Half of which had.my name spelled wrong, all of which I tossed in the trash). I guess I wasn't the only one who had no need for that many address labels. The charities decided to get creative with their. gifts. Now I no l longer have 12 bazillion stickers, Instead I have 12 bazillion plastic grocery bags!!! I could probably stand outside of Publix grocery store for 24 hours handing out a bag to every customer going into the store and I would still have enough to come back another day. (I am actually thinking of sewing the bags together to make rugs for my living room and bedroom. Possibly the dining room too.).
Fortunately we are not limited to just grocery bags. Some of the organizations really have gotten quite creative. In yesterday's mail I received the following: 2 bleach pens for getting stains out of laundry items, 1 combination pen-flashlight-screw driver, A box of 6 reusable straws (I have no idea what that is all about but I will give them a try), 1 bowl scraper to use when I am baking the apple pie, fry bread and fruit pudding that I received the recipes for, 1 2027 wall calendar, a check for $1.95 and. a one dollar bill, (which I promise not to spend all in one place.).
Very creative indeed. Now you understand why I am concerned for my mailman's health. This mail all arrived in one delivery. If you multiply that by 6 days in a week, 52 weeks in a year I figure my mailman will be in need of surgery in about 37 weeks. If I send you all a letter asking for a contribution will you please send a check for at least $35 for the Mailman's health fund?
Sorry I don't have any more plastic grocery bags to add to my request but I gave them all away to different charities.