Don't call, don't send

Editor's note: Michael Ackley's columns may include satire and parody based on current events, and thus mix fact with fiction. He assumes informed readers will be able to tell which is which.

Yes, we have added our name to the "National Do-Not-Call List," thereby eliminating most – though by no means all – dinner-hour telephone solicitations.

We still receive charity solicitations by phone, but these are relatively rare. (Though we do notice that there seems to exist an unusually large number of deputy sheriffs' organizations.)

TRENDING: Nancy Pelosi's election-rigging H.R. 1

Now, can we move on to the mails and establish some "Do-Not-Send" lists?

One of these would apply to charities and would be called the "Do-Not-Send-Me-Any-More-Return-Address-Labels List."

We already have enough return address labels from organizations like "Save the Naked Mole Rat" to assure the external cover identification of our postal correspondence from now until our decease or the 22nd century – whichever comes first.

You might discard the correspondence that comes with them, but say what you will about these self-stick labels, you can't just throw them away unless they are really, really ugly, (e.g., those illustrated with pictures of naked mole rats.) However, because the things arrive by the hundreds every day, we have had to seek out new uses for them.

For example, you can cover old coffee cans with them, fill the cans with holiday cookies and give them as hostess gifts at dinner parties. The recipient certainly won't forget who brought them.

As the labels are colorful, they make a delightful substitute for wallpaper. Many an overnighter at our house has commented on how handsomely the stickers have transformed our guest bathroom.

Your suggestions in this line would be gratefully received and relayed to our readers.

But let us move on to other items for the do-not-send list:

• Do not send breathless announcements that we have been "prequalified" for a new mortgage. We are not interested in mobilizing the equity in our home, consolidating our installment debt or remodeling the bathroom. (We've taken care of the latter – using return address labels.) There must be an amazing amount of uncommitted capital in our economy, given the number of companies insistent about lending us money.

• Do not send us a new credit card just because we have purchased something from your store. Do not send us a new credit card with a "low, introductory interest rate." Do not send us a new credit card with "no fee for the first year." Do not send us a credit card displaying the emblem of our college, high school, reform school, fraternity, service club, sewing club, athletic club or car club.

• Regarding our existing credit cards: Do not send us checks that we can use "just like cash" to draw on our credit line. Did you marketing geniuses ever consider what might happen if these were misdelivered to the address of some felon?

Now, we have heard that you can block junk mail, but some of the "junk" is helpful. We want to know if the supermarket plans a sale of peanut butter or beefsteak, or if the sporting goods store has a special on running shoes. Therefore, a blanket embargo is not in order.

We were tempted to add catalogs to the "do-not-send" list, but some of them provide interesting diversion. For example, if I didn't still receive some of my late mother's catalogs, we wouldn't know where to obtain bundles of white sage for the "purifying smudge ceremony." We don't know what a smudge ceremony is, nor are we motivated to find out, but just knowing it exists is a stimulus for the imagination.

(One day, Mom complained that she was swamped with catalogs. When we asked, "Why don't you just throw them out?" she replied, "Well, I haven't looked through them yet.")

What do you want to put on your "do-not-send" list?

Angela Foley, followed closely by Kevin Kiser and Mark E. Edmiston, were first across the line with the correct identity of Doroteo Arango, who was the given name of the Mexican bandit-revolutionary Pancho Villa.

Wrote Foley, "Doroteo Arango took over the original Pancho Villa's name and gang and became the quintessential 'illegal alien.' He was continually crossing from Mexico into the United States and back, robbing from the 'rich' to give to the 'poor Mexicans' and trying to combat the Mexican dictatorship.

"Like half of the illegal aliens that sneak across, he was very hard to capture. It is ironic to note that he made a deal with the Mexican government to enrich himself."

Kiser said, "I can't think of a better name for one of (California Assembly Speaker) Fabian Nunez's factotums than the given name of Pancho Villa."

Edmiston commented, "It is not odd to find a bandit in the California bureaucracy."

Another writer, Chuck Nixon, asked trenchantly, "D. Arango: deranged?"

Back to do-not-send: The tragedy of hurricane Katrina is bringing out the best and worst of America. The latter inevitably will include phony "relief organizations," preying on the good will of those who wish to help.

Please be careful. Sending contributions only to reputable organizations with good track records in disaster relief.