Dear Annie: I read the letter from “Daughter-in-Law in Louisiana,” whose father-in-law was spending a fortune on mail-in contests. My mother was spending $400 to $500 a month on these contests until I wrote to Mail Preference Service, Direct Marketing Association (dmaconsumers.org), P.O. Box 643, Carmel, N.Y. 10512, and asked to be removed from direct-mail solicitations. It takes about three months, but will substantially decrease the amount of mail received. — Lawrence, Kan.

Dear Communist:

Years ago, when I was a boy, I’d sit in a tree in my father’s front lawn on hot summers’ mornings. A gnarled mimosa, purple and pink and heavy with flowers, the drone of delicate things buzzing and chirping, living and dying all around me and below me. A bottle of Barq’s cooling my hand as I scanned the horizon.

And always the Mailman. Blue shorts, light blue short-sleeve shirt, a pregnant bag slung over his shoulder, he’d come strolling around the corner down below me at the end of the street, strolling up to each house in turn, whistling, filling each mailbox with miracles. I remember watching him shuffle below me to our front door, then shuffle on down the street. God, what a shitty job, I remember thinking.

Sometimes he’d come at nine in the morning; sometimes it was closer to noon or 4; sometimes he wouldn’t come at all as I remember, especially on really humid days or if the sky was clouded up. So it wasn’t all bad.

Years later, after I was a grown man, after uncounted tears and disappointments and missed opportunities–after I became dead inside–I laid down my hopes and dreams and took up the mailman’s bag. Don’t take that away from me. It’s not much–it’s less than that, it’s nothing, it’s a paycheck, a way to afford cable tv and beer–but it’s all I have left.

Let this man have his junkmail.

–Annie’s mailman