Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Do you receive catalogs?
I don't live in a city; I'm a rural shopper.
I receive catalogs.
About 100 different kinds, with all their varied mailing schedules, dribble in by threes and fours every mail day.
When I'm shopping I either drive in to find it in town first, or, if it's not locally carried merchandise, go online and find the item/latest specials instead. When no store carries it, and I request lots of items online, well, over time that activity generated lots of CATALOGS!

One Step Forward:
Lately when I get a catalog, I think, "What a waste of paper. What a waste of time -- I don't even look at catalogs, even when I think I will, and set one aside just for that purpose. I need to get on my computer and end this madness."

Just before Christmas, I'd taken off the back page off every catalog we received, to efficiently prepare for a change. Furthermore, I'd alphabetized the label pages to get ready. (How else do you think I knew I had 100 catalogs?)

The technologically-challenged believe they can write one email and put every single catalog's www. name in the "To" space. That's me.
It didn't work. You can't just take the catalog web address and send out an email to www.catalogname.com.
You have to mail someone, or some department, with "@" in their address.

So, I figured there would be time-consuming steps involved.
I would have to go to each individual catalog's website Contact area and ask them to stop sending out their catalog to whatever variation of my name and my address they happened to be sending it to now.
And I would have to type or cut and paste that name/address-variation information into my request. Penance for all those material purchases, probably deserved.

I started the online process Friday morning. No more waiting for me. No more evading technological solutions in 2007. I thought, "I'm getting on that computer, and getting results."

After the first twenty emails or so went out, confidence-eroding hints started rolling back in. Levenger wrote "If you do not wish to receive unsolicited mail of any sort, may we suggest that you submit all the mailing labels from your unwanted mail to:
DMA Mail Preference File
Direct Marketing Association
1120 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036-6700
The Direct Marketing Association will take care to add all the different spellings and address variations represented on the labels to its database. (It usually takes a few months to become effective.) All responsible mailers, such as Levenger, take care not to send mailings to those on this list. We are concerned with our valued customers' well-being and try very hard to comply with such requests as quickly as possible."

Well.
My technological clarity begin to waver...
But... AHA! I already had all the catalog labels removed! I could bundle them off to New York! Piece of cake!

And... not only that, (Second Step Forward), this package would not fit in the Outgoing slot on my post office provided rural mailbox, so I COULD FIGURE OUT THE USPS AT-HOME LABELMAKING POSTAGEPURCHASING SYSTEM TO DO IT! What an opportunity for double bonus technology-learning advancement.

The usps approach to mail is if you simply have a postal scale at home, you can pay for postage and print out a label for your packages. I'd bought the postal scale, and then -- I admit it -- avoided usps online altogether.

No more. I figured out the usps piece also Friday morning, packaged the catalog labels, wrote up an enclosure note, weighed the package, set up a usps account, printed out the postage, prepared everything.

(Mental dusting of hands)


With the most recent catalogs tossed and my antidote -- knitting -- in place, and several knitting projects, like Lucie's scarf (with matching scarf for her doll, LuLu), and Cayden's newborn hat, on the positive side of things,








and the ongoing challenge of fixing Barry's handmade ski hat (which had not "snugged up" during washer agitation for a closer fit as planned, but transformed into a veritable Lake, fitting droopily loose instead), listing toward the negative side,

I drove into town with the "Stop Catalogs" package

and found I'd inadvertently left the prepaid postage label at home.

Drat.
Deflated, I returned home to more company email responses for "EndCatalogs," ones that provided proof for my One technological Step Back. Anthropologie said "To ensure that you will no longer receive unwanted mailings from other companies, please visit the Direct Marketing Association’s website, http://www.dmaconsumers.org/consumerassistance.html and fill out the Mail Preference Service Form."

Drat.
There was a simpler solution online.
I taped the label printout on my package.
My brain fogged over and I went and had a snack.

I have yet to go online and look at the Mail Preference Form.

I guess I'll do that, just to check on how many address variations I'd have to type in, right after I take my package with that postage I paid for online back to town and pop it in a usps mailbox so it will go to New York.