Galvin crop

A recently received solicitation opened with a blunt accusation.

“You,” it inculpated, “have not responded to our previous letters — and we think we know why.”

Well, they were half-right.

I, in fact, had not responded to their previous attempts to rile my righteous indignation over some heinous act that powerful anonymous forces were, as we speak, plotting to carry out.

Yawn. Powerful anonymous forces are always plotting to do something or carry out heinous acts — it’s in their job description. What else would they be doing with their time … sorting through junk mail?

Which, of course, is what I was doing (being neither powerful nor anonymous) when I ran across the mass-mailed warning — the same that might await you on your kitchen table, unopened.

As to the other part — thinking they knew why I hadn’t answered their previous missives — well, they were dead wrong.

They surmised that I didn’t believe their account of what was happening behind closed doors (of, in this case, Congress), and therefore ignored their urgent pleas to thwart said heinousness.

Nope, not in the slightest. In reality, I didn’t respond because I just didn’t want to waste my time … or a stamp.

Not necessarily in that order.

It has fallen upon me these days to wade through the continual stream of unrequested mail that lands on our kitchen table. I literally spend dozens of minutes ritualistically slicing sealed envelopes with a letter opener, then cutting out and trashing the cellophane address windows before dumping the rest in recycling.

Occasionally, I’ll even read what these folks have to say about why I was pre-approved for credit cards for which I’ll never apply, or how I truly need additional life insurance.

Now that we’ve reached a certain, none-of-your-beeswax age, life insurance come-ons are one leg of the stool that now clogs our mailbox. The others being invitations for hearing tests, and enticements of free dinners at which we’ll learn the ins and outs of financial planning.

I’m tempted to go to the dinners, then apologize for not being able to hear the sales pitch.

The mundane task of disposing of the intrusive influx of OG spam leaves me with little more than paper cuts, except for those mailings that come with a “gift” — usually in the form of a notepad or a sheet of mailing labels.

I made my notes for this week’s piece on one such notepad, which had a typewriter motif. Pads with cats and/or dogs are popular, as are birdhouses, flowers and butterflies.

Those same designs dominate the address labels as well, along with nature scenes, flags, lighthouses, and flags on lighthouses.

Our junk drawer also has quite a collection of labels adorned with a capital G in elaborate fonts, none of which we’d ever use ourselves.

There aren’t enough bills to pay or enough holiday cards to send to use up all these labels — but we keep them nonetheless, just in case.

Just in case what, we haven’t a guess. They sit in the drawer with the notepads and, I suppose, contemplate the futility of their utility.

Lately, though, those behind these letters have tried a new tactic … money.

Visible through the cellophane of one recent solicitation were four nickels … 20 whole cents! We could make two phone calls — if we could find a phone booth, and this was the 1970s.

Along with the nickels, came a check for $2.50, the purpose of which (in case you are holding one in your hot little hand) is to build a database of those recipients who couldn’t resist the temptation to cash them.

Ours was summarily ripped into 16ths and tossed into recycling with the cellophane-windowless envelope. If they want our names on their database, they’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way — spy on the websites we visit on the internet.

We also got a penny. It was stuck in place next to this plea: “Return this penny to help save a life.”

Too bad those folks didn’t stake claim to reading my thoughts. Or else they would have just kept the penny … and skipped the middle man.