February 16, 2004

Stupid junk mail envelope blather

I already voiced a mild complaint, in an earlier post, that my mortgage company had sent me a special glossy insert sheet containing execrable poetry, as if doggerel would make me love them more. Well, on Saturday I received an envelope from AT&T that had on the cover, in addition to "Urgent Disbursement Notification" (yeah, right), the following legend:

POSTMASTER: If undeliverable, please process following applicable Postal Regulations

Am I really supposed to believe there are some pieces of mail that the postmaster does not process following applicable Postal Regulations? The aforesaid Postal Regulations, with their Needless Capital Letters, only apply to some pieces of mail, and not to all?

Do they really think I am so stupid that if they put this meaningless, redundant blather on the envelope I will be more likely to be interested in their junk mail, and less likely to guess that they want to bribe me with a fake $30 check to switch to their long distance service?

Has somebody out there been telling them that I am a total moron? Is that it? Eh? Does AT&T think I'm a dope, dunderhead, fool, addlepate, moron, simpleton, or absolute drooling, pea-brained, knuckle-dragging halfwit?

Posted by Geoffrey K. Pullum at February 16, 2004 09:43 PM