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My Word's
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My Word's
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v. 2, #44, June 13, 1997
MAIL BY THE TON
You know, like most people, I have an official job description. It even bears some resemblance to what I do most of the time. It's just that a fair amount of my work falls into that last item on the job description, "other duties as assigned by the director." One of those duties, over the years, has been to sort the junk mail that comes into the library. We get a LOT of mail, and an astonishing amount of it ends up in my box. Now, this is a box that accommodates about 10 reams of paper, and it generally gets full to overflowing in about 4 days' time. There are all the things you'd expect--updating services and publishers' catalogues and invoices. But there are also any number of product offers from people who, because of the journals we subscribe to, believe us to be tennis players, nuclear physicists, opera singers, physical therapists, FBI agents, and such. So, as I came back from vacation, to two boxfuls that nonetheless remained, somehow, MINE, these are some of the things I found:
Magazines I asked for,
and magazines I didn't--
American Atheist!--someone thought
we'd like it. (They must be kidding.)
Voice of the Martyrs is at least
a little more our speed,
though we don't need that either,
nor do we want a guaranteed
memento from the cold war
which the Russians are now selling:
"GIANT BORDER GUARD BINOCULARS!"
and other tools for quelling
unrest in sundry captive states,
dissent among the masses.
The ACS wants us to buy
their books on inert gases.
There are catalogs for everything:
gold leaf and kozo paper,
bath chairs for the disabled,
easels and electric erasers,
busy boxes, music puzzles
pretty green golf-putting carpets,
videos on Napoleon and
the old LaBrea tarpits.
The Tailhook Association
thinks we'd like to give them money--
so they can have another party and
hire a Playboy bunny?
Into the circular file it goes,
with ads for books of jests
and order forms for handcuffs,
yellow tape, bulletproof vests.
There's a spanking new edition
of every Harvard classic.
There are books galore on dinosaurs
and other things Jurassic.
Would I please fill out a survey
(it will only take a few
short minutes) telling publishers
what subjects they should do?
We could subscribe to Sources and Trends
for Today's Senior Markets.
We could also buy a dog sled, or
at the very least a parka
(blessings on thee, L.L. Bean,
I think I'm going to pass).
There's a video course on calculus,
or I could take a class
on how to write HTML
or operate a LAN.
Nutritionists are not convinced
I'm getting enough bran.
Popular Science wants to know
if we're going to renew.
Another firm reminds us gently
a balance is past due.
I'm invited to a seminar on how
to manage multiple projects!
(I think I know already, thanks.)
Another teaches Object-
oriented Program Language.
And do I want to order
Digestive Diseases and Science?
Give to Doctors without Borders?
There are videos of interviews
with Mick Jagger or Anne Tyler
I could also buy a seesaw or an
automatic dialer.
The Register's on CD-ROM,
also encyclopedias.
By this point, things are starting to get
seriously tedious.
There IS some gold among this dross,
which it's my job to find,
because it's one of many "other
duties as assigned."
My Word's
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NOTE: My thinking is always a work in progress. You could mentally insert all my columns in between these two sentences: "This is something I've been thinking about," and "Does this make any sense to you?" I welcome your thoughts. Please send your comments about these columns to: marylaine at netexpress.net. Since I've written a lot of these, some of them many years ago, help me out by telling me which column you're referring to.
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