They come with regularity. Almost every other week one shows up in my post office box. Forty-five times they arrived during a recent 12 month period.
“They” are those long white or brown oversized envelopes, sometimes emblazoned with fluorescent stickers which urge me to open the fat postal missiles. Sometimes, besides the address that shows through the glassine window, my name is scrawled in fake handwriting, or in big, bold type across the front or back indicating they are “personally” directed to me.
What are the contents of these bulging envelopes? What is so terribly important that I receive mail from the sender? Why is it so important that I follow the directions immediately to rip open the envelope to reveal the contents?
Oh, yes. I forgot to mention, also emblazoned in words that demand immediate attention is another statement telling me “you have won . . . ”
Now you know. Everyone who receives computer-generated correspondence of this type, and who tears into, it will find a handful of very “important” information.
Usually there’s one of those “personal” letters that uses my name several times in the message. There are repeated urgings and directives in suggestive words: “You have won . . . ” but with that caveat “if your number matches” a certain number that is being selected by some anonymous computer at some anonymous place.
Also included, of course, are those countless offerings of various and sundry items or publications. And there are stickers and urgings to follow specific instructions as to where to place them. There is also that cryptic warning that in order to be the lucky winner of a million or a thousand or a hundred “you must reply” by such and such a date.
There are hidden stickers that must be placed in specific spots on the reply/order form, which also contains numerous very identifiable locations for order stickers. With the selections offered I can buy almost anything if I will just lick and stick.
If I order, I can be assured the merchandise will arrive. Perhaps that’s why I keep getting these highly personalized letters. It was years ago when, in a weak moment, I ordered some old time listening albums. That was way back before CD days.
Many years ago I began throwing those letters in the trash, but a few months ago I decided to keep track of the number of offers I received. The number of letters stacked up in a box.
I’m not sure why, but I decided to return the entry forms (without orders, of course). There was that million dollars dangling in front of me, wasn’t there? Surely my time had come. Returning them only required a postage stamp. That’s not much to pay to become a millionaire. I reasoned that with those winnings I could retire in luxury and do whatever millionaires do.
So what about now? A year has passed, and though there were no orders and no merchandise, the envelopes keep arriving, but not with such frequency. Maybe that computer somewhere is somehow beginning to crackle and sputter as itdiscards the no-order responses. Will it ever learn to take ‘no’ for an answer? Or will it blow a gasket or whatever innards a computer has?
I recently read one of those “guaranteed winner” enclosures that always come in the packet with the official rules and which spells out the odds of being the winner.
Would you believe the odds are 1,500,000,000 to 1? Did you read that correctly? That’s a billion and a half to one. The odds of winning the powerball are probably eight or ten times greater! Why, we’re talking federal stimulus figures!
Reading further, I note that most of the prizes probably won’t be awarded until some date far in the future, maybe two years from now. Can I hold my breath that long before I can collect that bask-on-the-beach check?
What do I do? I guess I could save my stamps, but the postal department needs all the help it can get. And since I’ll only have a few bucks invested in being able to trod down the dollarpaved trail, maybe . . . maybe . . . I wonder?
I also wonder just how many millions of other folks wonder the same thought: “Maybe, just maybe, I just might become that millionaire, if I just send in this one more entry.”
Hmmmmm.
We really like something for nothing, don’t we? Even if nothing amounts to a postage stamp. Besides, just think, I might get surrounded with balloons, and hoopla, and be shown on TV and all that stuff that comes with the million dollar check. Where’s that stamp? The post office does need the money.
But I’m not holding my breath.
News, Pages 7 on 04/28/2010