Psychic Clutter

I bought a book yesterday with my daughter at Barnes & Noble, and the clerk asked me, as they always do, if I had a ‘member’ card; to which I said, “No.” And then they always ask if I want to get one, to which I reply, “No” and tell her I’m not interested in paying Barnes & Noble for the privilege of a discount. They, of course, are banking (quite literally) on me spending money duped into thinking I am saving money. She then proceeds to ask if I want to give her my email so she can send me coupons, once again I say, “No thanks.”

This time I’m getting peevish, already having been in a peevish mood, and I say to the clerk, “Getting all those emails takes up too much psychic space.” And she replies, “No, they’re just emails.” And I reply, “But they take time to read and the space in my head while I’m reading them.” She takes my money, gives me my receipt and we’re out the door, my daughter looking at me like I’m crazy. “Mom, she’s just doing her job, they make her ask those things you know.” I feel bad, I do know, I’ve been in sales, and so I told my daughter, “You’re right, I’m just cranky today.”

But, I’m right too. And I’m tired of all the psychic and material clutter. I find that I get emails about the same things I’m getting things in my snail mail about. I didn’t know that being a grown-up in our culture, having a home address, phone numbers and email addresses leaves you open to receiving things from strangers trying to tell you or sell you something; constantly. How many minutes in each day of sorting through ‘junk mail’ add up to whole hours and days?

I’d gone to Barnes & Noble after being at the library, where I spent a good 10 minutes at the reference desk asking them to please stop leaving cranky messages about a huge fine that someone else who’d once had or given them my phone number had. The lovely reference librarian was able to ascertain that I was not the person in question. But she did find that not only did this person, with a $40.00 fine, but also another person, both had my home phone number listed with their name. My phone number was not listed with my name, you know why? I’m avoiding giving out my phone numbers to just about any entity anymore. It’s days like these that make me want to move to a village in France, change my name, and grow my own vegetables.