GRIDLOCKED

Manteo, NC -- Our society is not set up to deal with drifters like us. There is no clean way to go off the postal grid.

We now have a post office box in Delaware, but we want OFF the lists, not to have the junk FORWARDED.

Sure we could just ditch and leave the new owners of our house and business to shovel the deluge of paper, but, well, that seems rude.

For two entire years, we have called everyone who has sent us a piece of mail and asked them to desist. We have gone online to request removal from lists, returned mail with RETURN TO SENDER in red Sharpee. We have called again -- and again. I have called The Company Store more than I've called my own mother. You just wouldn't believe how much freaking time we have invested in erasing ourselves.

And still, the wine shop gets spammed with piles of trash. We bring the pile of trash to the boat and once again call, write, return to sender, lick our paper cuts.

Then, here's the worst part, we order something and have it delivered to a friend's house. Guess who now inherits our junk mail. AAAAAHHHHHHH.

Not having a physical address causes some odd dilemmas. This is one of my favorites: I went to my credit card's web site to stop mailings to the wine shop. No problem, I'll have them mail stuff to the PO box in Delaware. Problem.

There are three mailing addresses associated with the account: A card mailing address, a correspondence mailing address and a statement mailing address. One of them has to be a physical address, no PO box. So, stick with me here, I put the PO box as the card mailing adress and the correspondence address. I left the wine shop address as the statement address and signed up for paperless statements. Will this work? That remains to be seen.

A few weeks ago I tried to add Google ads to my blog to make a little money when you click here. Guess what? You can't use Google ads without a physical address. Post office boxes don't count.

If I were smarter I would think of a clever play on "I think, therefore I am."

Sigh. Don't write.