The Rural Voice, 1996-11, Page 16The World from Mabel's Grill
"I guess I better go collect the fire
starter," George McKenzie said as he
prepared to leave the round -table
session at Mabel's last Monday.
"Pardon?" asked Wayne Bruce,
who's unfamiliar with things like
wood stoves.
"The mail,"
explained
George.
"Mondays I
get so many
flyers I can
start the fires
for the rest of
the week."
"My record
is 17," said
Cliff Murray.
"Beat you. I
got 21 one day
before
Christmas last
The world's
problems are
solved daily
'round the table
at Mabel's
year," said Dave Winston.
"It'd be niae if you could just take
the whole pile and throw it straight in
the stove," said Cliff, "but you never
know when there might be some real
mail mixed up in it."
"Yeh, it sure would be bad to
throw out one of those government
subsidy cheques," said Wayne, who
runs the shoe store up town and likes
to get under the guy's skins.
"Now those were the days," said
Dave. "Those cheques are even rarer
than good weather nowadays."
"So what are you going to do for
fire starters when Canada Post stops
delivering junk mail?" Molly
Whiteside asked George.
"May have to get a gas fireplace,"
George said.
"I don't think you're going to get
off that easy," Wayne said. "I was
talking to the women at the post
office the other day and they said
Canada Post will keep delivering to
the rural routes unless somebody
comes up with a private delivery
service."
"I knew there was a catch!" said
Dave. "It sounded too good to be
true."
"I don't know," said Cliff, "If they
stopped delivering the junk mail they
might also stop bringing my Co-op
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12 THE RURAL VOICE
me from the WalMart and the food
flyers."
"I figure if Canada Post is getting
out of junk mail there must be a
reason. Maybe they know something
we don't," said George. "Maybe the
future is in electronic flyers or
something."
"It's already here," said Wayne.
"Don't ever tell somebody you have
a fax machine. You'll get reams of
messages all night long, not one of
which you want. It's a great advance
in technology: they send you flyers
and you pay for the paper."
"Probably next somebody's going
to come out with one of those listings
of E -Mail addresses and you'll find
your E-mail full of junk you don't
want," said Cliff.
"Isn't that what the Internet is, one
big list of flyers?" said George.
"Only people spend hours a week
leafing through information that
they'd throw in the stove if it came to
them on paper."
"I saw this thing on the TV the
other day that showed companies
weren't going to be wasting money
on flyers anymore anyway," said
Molly. "They want to target their
audience. Every time you go into one
of those stores with an electronic
scanner, they have a record on their
computer tape of everything you buy.
then if you use your credit card,
they've got your name and they can
get your address.
"So they have their computer sort
through all the stuff you buy — sort
of like sorting through your garbage,
only cleaner — and they can tell
what kind of things you're interested
in. Then they can sell the lists to
companies that want to send you a
letter to get you to buy their stuff."
"Good grief, it's like having a spy
outside your window watching
everything you do," said Wayne.
"I guess the one solution is to pay
cash for everything so they can't get
your name," said Cliff.
"Good luck," said Dave. "They'll
probably ban cash soon so they can
get everybody using cards. Every-
body'll have to use plastic money."
"Hey, " said Wayne. "I've got
customers who are ahead of their
time. They've been using rubber
cheques for years."0 4