All of us have had them. The envelopes are thick and look very important. The serious tone of the envelope, the fact that you don't recognise the return address, and the way your name looks sombre through the heavy-duty shine of the clear plastic window make your heart pound and sweat run down your back. You throw the envelope on the table and stare at it for a while, half expecting it to grow teeth. As you tiptoe away, you wonder if it's a really big bill you forgot to pay, bad news from the Internal Revenue Service, or a notice about how the world is going to end soon. You don't know the first thing about it. You're pretty sure that you don't want to know. You spend the next few days sneaking past the envelope. You decide that whoever said "ignorance is bliss" must have been looking at one of these envelopes.
You can't take it any longer. You take the envelope in your hand and rip it open. You reach in and pull out, with shaky fingers, pages and pages of brightly coloured papers.
Offers of credit cards!
We can't get away from them. They are everywhere. Commercials on TV with a lot of detail, brightly painted billboards along the highway, filling the pages of magazines, being tucked away in the bank teller's cubicle, popping up all over the internet, and hiding in the mailbox as a possible disaster. How many credit cards do companies really think you need?
The ones that really bother us are the ones that the Postal Service brings. We can forget about the rest. In the new age of credit card fraud and identity theft, you'll have to put it through a shredder and bury it in the dirtiest trash you can find. Even then, a determined person might still dig it up and carefully tape the pieces back together.
With its ominous tone, this credit card offer has cost you years of your life. And look, they sent one of those handy envelopes that are already sorted. It's hard to resist the urge to rip the packet of papers into a thousand pieces of confetti and stuff them all into the free envelope. You might even tear up some notebook paper and put it in the envelope. That way, when they open it back at headquarters, the envelope will explode and confetti will fly all over the office.
Even though that choice will make you feel better, the offers will still keep coming to your mailbox. Also, is it fair to take out your anger on the person who enters data and the people who clean the office? They're just doing what they have to do.
The best thing to do is put everything in the envelope through the shredder. Then you should call the credit card company and ask nicely to be taken off their mailing list. Be ready, because just because you asked to be taken off the list, it doesn't mean that the offers will stop coming. There's a good chance that the company has a whole warehouse full of offers for you. It will take some time to mail all of them. Give it six months. If you're still getting offers after that time, try again.
