Suburban Rant: Pennysavers - The Bane Of Our Driveways

Every Saturday, come Hell or high water, rain or shine, the publisher of The Pennsaver distributes their weekly publications to every house in my neighborhood - and all 2 million homes on Long Island.


If you've never had the pleasure of reading the Pennysaver, it a 'savings packet' that contains a bunch of classifieds for used cars, announcements for garage & yard sales, a crossword puzzle a deaf, dumb and blind chimpanzee could finish in 2 minutes, ads from people selling their used mattresses and other junk from their basement, unlicensed handy-men posing as contractors-for-hire, prayers to St. Jude, color supplements from every supermarket within a 35 square mile radius plus K-Mart, Wal-Mart, Kohl's and Target circulars encasing two coupon booklets...all rolled up in a .0002 mil plastic bag that splits open if breathed on.

All right, I admit, I checked it out 4 years ago when I first got to the neighborhood and quickly placed it in the round file.

From the second Saturday since I moved in 'til this past weekend, I've had 572 of these damn things (which I've chosen to not read), tossed in the general direction of my house. Apparently, a retired couple driving a beat up old blue Ford station wagon takes turns throwing them from the passenger window of their jalopy, using the 1/3 a penny salary they get for each unit packaged and delivered to subside their rent at the local trailer park.

God, I hate them. Not the old people who deliver them, or for that matter the bargain hunters who read them regularly - I literally despise the "Pennysavers" themselves. At least once a month half the crap in the bag spills out and proceeds to blow around all over the neighborhood. By Saturday evening, 3/4 of the people on my block still haven't even bothered to pick them up or throw them away. For those whose laxness or ignorance of the weather forecast leads to fetching their copy following rainfall, they're left with the equivalent of disposable diaper taped to the bottom of a neglected infant with an overactive bladder. Contemplating the reams of newsprint that are wasted annually brings to mind clear-cut rain forests dotting the Brazilian landscape.

Can a person hate a publication as much as I detest these unsolicited weeklies? Sure, right-wingers have gallons of bile stored up for Mother Jones and liberals begin flailing their arms at the mere sight of National Review - but neither group has stored up the blind rage I have for Pennysaver. "All right", I say to myself, "I'll call the publisher and advise them I wish to opt out of the free weekly "delivery" of their complementary circulars." Needless to say, that was about as fruitful as pissing up a rope. It seems their subscription policy has an ironclad no exemptions rule.

Several more weeks of tripping over these damn things strew on every sidewalk and shaking my head at the copies that missed their mark and ended up in either the bushes or gutters of a sizable number of homes from here to Montauk, lead to my ratcheting up the opposition. "What if I call and ask a local legislator if this is even legal?" I mean maybe a lawmaker will agree that Pennysaver has no right to toss unsolicited litter in the general direction of my home while their competitors; Carrier Pigeon, Shopper's Guide, et al., pay the USPS to deliver their circulars to my mailbox. After contacting a staffer for my local representative, all I got were questions how much I planned to donate toward Congressman Douchebag's next campaign.

OK, I've decided it's time to take matters into my own hands. Next Saturday when Herman and Lilly come down the block in their 1968 Ford Country Squire, (I'll know they're close when I hear the muffler dragging down the street), I'll wave them down and politely ask them to save the toss. Well, needless to say, that didn't offer any results either. I guess my neighborhood couriers take their tossing responsibilities very seriously - or Alzheimer's precluded their remembering my request. My next step, wait for them to come down my block. The moment they toss their packet of crap toward my house, I'll pick it up and toss it right back into the window of their car. If it beans Granny in the head, or knocks the Chesterfield King right out of her mouth, ce la vie.

Viola, success. No more Pennysavers. Well...not for that one proceeding week at least. Turns out the only lasting result of my throwback was Grandpa rewired and duct taped the muffler so as to afford himself the element of quiet, stealth-like delivery; leaving me unable to detect his next weekly round.

This is getting insane, Pennsaver has turned me into Bill Murray hunting gophers. I know I'm making way too much of this but it's becoming an obsession. My logical side says, "just pick them up and toss them away, stop trying to reinvent the wheel, there are more important things in life." My emotional side shouts back, "This is important; stop worrying about getting laid, screw politics, to hell with the Mideast...you can't let them win!"

Provided this rant doesn't calm me down, my next move is start collecting all the unread copies strewn in front of my house and most of the other homes in town and start warehousing them in my garage. (Screw the Mustang, I'll park it out on the street for a couple weeks in the rain). Then, I'll charter one of those huge fire fighting helicopters with the big hopper underneath, fly to the corporate offices of my new found nemisis, the Long Island Pennysaver - and dump their unsolicited garbage right into their parking lot.

If that doesn't work, I guess I'll just move us back into the city, where my heart is anyway.