The Mail-Order Catalogs

Because the mother-in-law does not go out much (read: never), she does all of her non-grocery shopping by mail-order catalogs. She always gets a pile. Everyday, I'd guess, at least three catalogs show up in the mail box.

This is really good for her because she always has something in the mail. Nothing sadder than an empty mailbox. Plus, she is constantly cutting and pasting (the old fashioned way with scissors and glue, not a mouse) crafts and displays. She did it before she lived here, while she lived here, and now in the facility where she lives. This is good. Good, good, good.

But...
Everyday along with the catalogs, I'd hear how much paper was wasted, how much pollution was generated, how many trees were sacrificed for all these catalogs.
Conservation! Lots of chest thumping!
(You may begin to see a pattern to my issues with laundry and mail-call in my mother-in-law posts.)
She complained over and over how she's tried to get on do-not-mail lists. Oh, the number of cards she's mailed to get these catalogs to stop coming!

Well, hello lady.
You perpetuate this.
Everytime you order something, your name gets sold to at least three others.

Besides, you ENJOY this!

In the months leading up to her departure from our house, she worked hard to get all her mail forwarded.
But the one thing she lamented about the most was how sorry she was that I would inherit her bundle of catalogs every day.

I told her I wasn't worried.
"After they stop getting orders, the catalogs will stop coming. I give it a year."

But she was horrified!
All those catalogs!
Going to waste!

So, for the first two months after she moved out, I kept all the catalogs that came.
By the time we went to visit, the box was heavy.
And I took it with us.

She was horrified, again!
"Oh! I'll never get through all of these!"
"Then just recycle them," I said simply.

Almost immediately, the number of catalogs delivered to our house dropped to nearly nothing.
Those that did come I dumped in the recycle bin.

After all the preaching about conservation and pollution and waste, you and I know she went through that box of catalogs and had each and every one of them forwarded to her new address.

She didn't want to miss a single one.