For years afterwards, I’d get a small forest’s worth of paper every week from the ACLU, NAACP, Southern Poverty Law Center, MoveOn, NOW, Greenpeace, etc. I no longer give money if I can’t do so anonymously.

On the other hand, it was significantly less annoying than right after high school, when certain of my friends joined the armed forces and suggested to recruiters that I might be interested (NOT TRUE!). Those recruiters were like fucking bloodhounds. I can only imagine that it’s become worse during the Bush administration.

who the hell gives these people my information?

Everyone.  Utility companies, every single magazine to which you subscribe, every single charity you’ve ever given money to, every credit card you have, every “free” sweepstakes or drawing you enter…

My dad tells the story about entering a sweepstakes where he had “already won, guaranteed” an equal share of a $2M (or whatever) prize.  They sent him a check — for a nickel!  He was so mad that he cashed it, figuring it would cost them much more to process the check clearing than $0.05.  Clever scheme, though: how many people bother to cash a check for $0.05?  Less than 1%?  All of a sudden, the company’s $2,000,000 prize only cost them $20,000, because almost every check gets thrown away!

(Dad, did I mess up the story?)

I remember first figuring out the power of taxation at baseball games at the old, missed Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego.  The league would have a contest in which they gave four or five different numbers for the attendance that evening, and you were supposed to guess which was true (I never remember losing, oddly.  I’m pretty sure, in fact, that I was always right.)

I thought, “Wow, if I could just get a nickel, or even a penny, from each of those people!  They wouldn’t miss it, and I’d be rich!”  That’s how taxes, in their perfect form, work.

Pisses me off, too.  It says to me, “We don’t care about you, and we think you’re stupid, but we want your money!”

No, but seriously, who the hell gives these people my information? I also get mail from charities and religious groups. Haha, they send me tons of propaganda…in Spanish! I’m sure it’s pure coincidence though, you don’t think based on my last name, do you? … typical.

Sorry about that. I think I’ve been wanting to say that for a long time. Oh, that “handwriting” font is so impersonal, though they’re actually going for the opposite. It honestly annoys me.