Junk Mail

Mark A. Mandel, © 1997
to the tune of "Windy"

What is this pouring out of my mailbox,
rising in heaps all over the floor,
blocking the doors and scaring the children?
Everyone knows it's junk mail.

Envelopes screaming "You are a winner!",
twenty-nine disks from AOL.
Grimy with ink and reeking of perfume,
everyone knows it's junk mail.

Don't care if it pays the bill, *
the stuff is a social ill.
I'm drowning in postal swill--
I'm going down! (I'm going down!)
I'm going down! (I'm going down! -- Aghhhh!)

Don't want to throw it into the landfill.
Can't let it crowd me out of my home.
But I'll survive a New England winter
heating my home with junk mail,
heating my home with junk mail.

* Dec. 2000: My uncle, an econometrician for the Postal Service, has informed me that junk mail actually isn't subsidized, as I previously claimed in this bridge, but on the contrary pays a lot of the cost of carrying first-class mail. I still hate junk mail, but in order to stay within the bounds of truth I've had to change the lyric.