When I registered to vote I registered as an Independent. I wanted nothing to do with Democrats, or Republicans. A few years after I registered, Maryland legislators (all Democrats and Republicans) decided that they didn’t want the Independent party represented in Maryland, so they registered all Independent voters as Republicans.
We’ll ignore the eyebrow-raising aspect of all that and move on with the story.
All of a sudden I started getting flooded with mail from Maryland Republicans and the Republican National Committee. Every single day they were sending me loads of stuff, and frequently they would be sending me duplicate and triplicate copies of the same junk.
I was young and ignorant, and I thought that changing my party registration would end the mail, so I switched to the Green Party (in Maryland they’re like Liberatarians who care about the environment). No dice.
I continued to recieve more mail (still from the Republican party. The Greeens never send me anything, and if they do, it’s email) than I’ve ever recieved, or would ever receive, in my life. Finally, instead of recycling all the junk that they sent me, I took their business reply envelope (that whined “Please save us some money and use your own stamp!”) stuffed all their materials back into it, and mailed it along.
A month later I was still getting their crap. You’d figure 200 envelopes full of your own materials would cause some low-level mail-monkey to scratch their head and report to a superior, but I guess nothing happened.
So I started saving up trash in my bedroom that I could send to them. Empty bags of chips, old napkins and tissues, flattened soda cans, dried-up pens, whatever I had. At one point I tore up a whole page-a-day calendar into tiny little squares before stuffing it in the envelope with their materials. Still the junk mail didn’t stop.
Finally I took a marker and wrote “STOP MAILING ME YOUR SHIT, ASSHOLES!” with a fat, red marker on all their materials before mailing it back to them.
The mail slowed to a trickle, and then finally… almost stopped.
I still get mail from those dumb bitches from time to time, and I still send them invective laced trash back on their own nickel. At this point, I’d be pretty sad if it ever stopped.
What a cool blog! Do you have any other stories about your disgust with political parties? Bonus points is they are Republicans… more, please!
I too had a somewhat similar experience. The credit union I work for has two groups of people; Union workers (1776th or something like that) and of course management. When I started here I was part of the Union with the dues and all that. When I switched to management, I broke the chains of the Union worker. However, about a year after my escape, the presidential elections started. Guess what? I was receiving 3-4 phone calls a night and triplicate copies of the same brochures everyday from the Union telling me to vote the way they want me to vote. Forget the fact that it’s thier agenda being pushed and nothing more. I wasn’t even a Union employee anymore. I would do the same thing and send the stuff back in thier pre-paid envelopes and eventually I started sending back propoganda from the opposing party just to piss them off. I get a call from the Union rep (at work). I had to explain that I was NOT part of the Union anymore and hadn’t been for almost a year. It took another 6 months for them to stop sending me things.
You’d think the Green Party would be opposed to junk mail. Politics is politics is politics.
intherumbleseat- Sorry, I now realize that my transition wasn’t clear. I’ve updated the post to reflect the fact the it was the Republican folks who continued to send me junk.
Oh man, that is some funny stuff. Republicans also do a lot of those “robot calls.” Like I really want to sit there and listen to some stupid recording instead of eating dinner.
When I get a call during dinner and I tell them that it is not a convenient time for me to speak with them, they always ask me when they can call back.
I always say “You know what? Let me call YOU back. Say, Sunday around dinner time? How’s that work for you?” They usually sputter and apologize and then I ask them to take me off their list or face legal consequences.
ah fellow green.
i’d love to have a “do not mail” list. of course we don’t want any printers to go hungry thought :)
“…so they registered all Independent voters as Republicans…” Really? They did that? Oh my gosh, that’s awful! I think I would personally decide to become politically active if some legislature decided to change my registration. And I’m really NOT active.
I found your comment about the Green Party only sending emails pretty hilarious. Probably because I live in Oregon. :-)
love meagan
p.s. I found your blog through SuziChen at Special Fried Rice
When I registered signed up as “Independent”. I just read recently that Ohio now just associates your party affiliation with whomever you voted for in the last presidential election. WTF? What if I vote Republican for every local office (ok, never gonna happen, but pretend!) and then vote for a Democrat president?
More importantly I think that political parties are one of the biggest problems with government, and I’m pissed that any party can claim me because of 1 vote (which was probably altered or never counted thanks to Ken Blackwell).
/rant
to be or not to be.
I don’t know if your postal service is the same as here in England, but our ‘pre paid envelopes’ are actually pre paid by the weight. You’d assume anything with a standard first class thing on it would be the leaflet, normal weight. But what you do to piss them off is…
Wrap a heavy house brick from a building site in plain bown paper. Sellotape the prepaid envelope to it, and hand in at your nearest post office. The reciprient has to pay the full cost of the weight of the parcel, not just the cost of a standard first class normal letter. Believe me do that a few times & you’ll soon stop getting junk mail with pre paid envelopes attached!
That’s a great story. I’ve been having the same issue with Capitol One sending me credit card applications. I always write “stop sending me this &$%#” across the app, but they haven’t stopped the junk mail. I searched for their telephone number and called Sunday. Let’s see if it stops.
One of the candidates that ran in this past election was making his rounds in the neighborhood to “meet the folks”. Tarzan already knew about this guy and knew he was not going to vote for him and so when the guy asked whether he would Tarzan said “probably not”. This did not stop them from putting him on their mailing list.
So during this past campaign season we were assaulted with brochures from both parties every single day and several phone calls each day from each party. (This didn’t go over too well with me in the afternoon when I was trying to get Boy to nap.) We did not want to vote for any of them.
Oh, those naughty republicans. How presumptuous.
You ROCK, ACW. Sending back their mail…along with your own trash. Priceless!
Here’s a funny tidbit - i AM a registered Republican and I get nothing from them. Ever. In fact, I get stuff from the Democrats because I was nice to my State Senator when he was running for office. Go figure. I am seriously considering re-registering as Bull Moose or a Whig. Props to the obscure historical parties.
Down with Whigs! I’m a Torie all the way!
Mwah ha ha ha!!! Can I use this trick myself - I hate all the junk mail I get. Nothing from political parties, but I think I can adapt this to use on the even crappier junk mail that I get from banks, credit card companies, etc etc. Fabulous idea!!