Sigh. I didn’t post anything on this website yesterday, a weekday rarity for me. Usually I can whip up something even if it’s the literary equivalent of a jelly sandwich (sloppy and missing something), but yesterday my attention span buckled under the heft of my brain’s ponderosity.
I wanted to rant about the Sierra Club, the grassroots environmental group that sends me thick envelopes on a semi-annual basis, extorting me to become a member. Last week’s envelope had a message scrawled on it: “Take a stand against the timber industry!” Really, Sierra Club? Really? You waste reams of paper sending untold thousands of people bookmarks, address labels, and polar bear stickers along with double-spaced treatise about how a $35 membership will save Planet Earth… and you want me to take a stand against the timber industry?
Maybe you can’t make an omelet without cutting down some trees, but… I hate the Sierra Club. I apologize to any Sierra Club members out there, or any living thing or plant that has actually benefitted from the efforts of the Sierra Club, but oh. Nothing burns me more than looking through my mail and seeing a fat piece of wasteful junk mail from the Sierra Club.
I forget exactly when I received my first Sierra Club mailing. I remember being sorely tempted to join for whatever Sierra Club schwag they were dangling as a membership gift, so it could of been 8-10 years ago, when I was going through my Proclivity for Free Crap phase (around the time I joined PBS for a free tote bag).
And despite changing addresses 8 times in the past 10 years, the Sierra Club’s thick envelopes continue to follow me. Is it my AMC membership? My REI membership? My Trustees of Reservation membership? Has the Sierra Club drilled a GPS device into my brain so that my migratory patterns can be tracked?
Anyway… yesterday I was going to scan and post a photo of the Sierra Club envelope along with the relevant content of this post, but the envelope got lost in the stack of recycling-bound paper. This totally deflated my enthusiasm, and I gave up on the Sierra Club. I ended up scrunched up in a ball on my bed, snuggling with my husband as strange hot winds gusted against the bedroom blinds.
