2 March—The recycling bins in the Litchfield post orifice always and without fail overflow with, among the unread waste paper: a plethora of mostly super-heavy perfect-bound (glued) Uline catalogues; lavishly produced pretty heavy perfect-bound and less lavish, lighter, saddle-stitched (stapled) interior-design and women’s clothing catalogues printed on cheaper paper; medical, dental, optometric, and veterinary professional journals; begging letters from charities you’ve never heard of, many including unsolicited, usually useless crap you’re supposed to feel guilty if you don’t send a donation for; and solicitations for credit cards.

During political campaign season—in even-numbered years for federal and state offices and in odd-numbered years for municipal offices—the recycling bins actually disgorge onto the post orifice floor campaign mailings begging for votes and money, always in the same envelope. The PO box holders who pay through the nose to provide their own delivery service toss the political stuff with even less thought than they give to the other unsolicited crap. Actually, it’s all tossed reflexively.

Prominent among the unopened, reflexively tossed waste paper is religious stuff. (If we call it crap we’ll be consigned to hell, so it’s definitely not crap.) It’s mostly Christian, of course, predominantly Catholic, and always begging. (Why should the various orders and charities waste printing and postage just to say hello, after all? That’s what the Catholic Transcript is for. It’s also tossed reflexively.) And there’s more of it in the advents of Christmas and Easter.

Right now the Easter advent is going full steam, so the Christian postal begging is incessant. And it’s a crying shame that all the mailings containing unsolicited greeting cards with pictures of the Christ family along with inspirational and compassionate messages—as well as offers of spiritual benefits like daily masses, of course—aren’t even being opened by Christians (mostly Catholics) who can’t be bothered. Some mailings even contain rosary beads and other holy tchochkes.

The Easter advent is also the Passover advent. But the Jewish charities don’t send unsolicited merchandise they know will be tossed. Who ever heard of Jewish inspirational greeting cards or promises to say daily masses in a synagogue? And the B’nai B’rith doesn’t want to remind anyone that the Christ family were Jewish . . .