FREE OFFER

I didn't have "Free Stuff for Kids," although I would have gotten it if I'd seen it. I had a book "1,001 Things That You Can Get for Free" that had lots of good addresses for requesting free stuff. Also, I sent for information from weird ads in the back of magazines so that I could find out about the Rosicrucians, Patented Double-Hernia Trusses, Italian Wolf-Killer Stilettoes, a Van derGraffe Static Generator guaranteed to generate in excess of 300,000 volts in your spare time, Sea Monkeys, Moon Rocks, and information about amazing cream that would make a woman's breasts up to two full cup sizes larger. Since I am fond of trading, perhaps I'll send an excellent specimen of obsidian, several coins from strange and foreign lands, and similar doodads and geegaws that might fit into an insulated, bubble-wrap lined plain brown wrapper in exchange for one of the advertised commemorative stamps. The USPS has a series of bat stamps out now, and I've been meaning to go to the Oficina de Correos to obtain a frame or two.

It was printed on cheap yellow paper and stapled in the middle, and it had a twin of specifically governmental offers that had a hideous Uncle Sam on the cover. I think I ordered them both from Johnson-Smith. I made one massive order when I was young, right before they stopped offering neat anachronistic stuff and focused on fart-themed T-shirts and quack health products.

The quality of free offers was a little worse than in Free Stuff for Kids, but the addresses were live and there were a hell of a lot more of them. Also, anything is more interesting when it's printed in almost unreadably small type on bad paper. I think this is the secret to many of the more popular religions.

When I said "pipe bombs," I also meant "dog feces." Dog feces are something else I would not like to get in the mail.

I've seen a few of the old Johnson-Smith catalogs online. There is a Johnson-Smith site that has current products, but it's nowhere near as mysteriously kitschie as were the original newsprint editions. I appear to have lost the map to the buried treasure, and so cannot find any strange foreign coins, other than a 1964 silver Kennedy half in G-E ondition, but not F or M. Also, a block of four set of 1992 Space Shuttle stamps, an end of an obsidian tendril, exterior covered with calcium-like powdery crust, a red&white Pontiac Indian head logo key chain, and a small flashlight(battery not included). So, that's about what will fit into a mailer, I reckon, to be posted about six hours hence. I don't have any dog feces, rubber or regular; but there are some Jamaican cigars that look just about like that.

Someone at the HPLFF asked me what the coordinates were upon receiving a sticker, and while I stammered and tried to remember, they put forth the theory that they might be the coordinates of Providence, RI. I said yes and ran.

That's why I asked what they were later that night.

I had a Minie ball, but it wasn't free and it was gotten at Gettysburg or one of the other numerous Civil War sites I was made to visit as a child.

I failed to mention that the stickers we were handing out had, instead of HPL's birth and death dates, the following coordinates:

47° 9' S
126° 43' W

Longitudinal departures are measured from the Greenwitch Zero Meridian, I like to pronounce it Green Witch just to be annoying. Local grids vary, most using a Northing and Easting, although Army Corps of Engineers ACE maps sometimes have Southings and Eastings instead of Latitude and Longitude. Often, local site construction or survey maps will designate a point in the lower left extreme as 10,000N and 10,000E so that navigating around a project or piece of land won't involve negative numbers. I got three Mark Leyner books today, "Et Tu, Babe", "Tooth Imprints on a Corn Dog", "My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist"

I reread some of My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist again recently. It wasn't as good as I remembered, but I remember the novels being much more consistently good. There is also one called The Tetherballs of Bougainville.

I like my cousin, my gastroenterologist. It's da bomb.

Due to years of sad experience, I am compelled to explain that SASE means "self-addressed stamped envelope." This means that you take an envelope, write YOUR address in the middle, use Anna's address as the return address (upper left corner), PUT A STAMP ON IT (upper right corner), fold it and put it inside another envelope. Lick and seal. Mail both envelopes to Anna.

Thank you.

Yes, despite getting somehow embroiled in a veritable plethora of media specialists, spin-control pilots, and TV Newstime celebrities, personalities, and machine handlers swarming the Juvenile Detention Center for the upcoming matriculation of the younger of the two alleged now-captive snipers, I was able to wade through/fend off the suits and uniforms to gain access to the Post Office purchasing bat stamps, loading a mailer with various stamps, coins from three separate sociopolitical entities, a Pontiac key schmuck, workable obsidian, and an SASE, although it occured to me at the time that a standard biz-size return sobre carta might not be of conforming dimension necessitating foldage and creasage. They kept yelling at the news people not to run as it would make it difficult to tell if something were actually happening. Dogs were barking. Yes, a letter within a letter, bearing frankage.

It wasn't clear from the above comment, but I looked it up in the thesaurus: you're only supposed to lick and seal the outer envelope. (something new every day.)

I guess so about the licking, just the flap on the outer envelope.

Yes, they're sunken R'lyeh. There are twelve stickers, no two exactly identical, but half have dates and half have latitude and longitude. I did the lettering and gluing by hand because I was in a mood. They're all very slightly different sizes, too.

Different sizes due to the vagaries of Mo the Cutter, perchance?

Because I always like to ruin alluring enigmas, I looked up that latitude longitude. Seems to be well into the Pacific, somewhere between southern South America and Australia.

That would account for the sinkage. I think that's about 13 hexameters due East of Gilligan's Island.

that's darn nifty

I was talking to one of my Teamsters Union buddies today and he had this to say: "If they are going to work me like a horse, I'm going to walk around with my dick hanging out like a horse." Dang! I must be a Teamster! Even though I'm hung like a mule. But I do know the name of the horse in the wheel on the Teamsters Union logo. Which I'm not going to tell you! Pay your dues! And show up on time. Give me weed, whites, and wine. I've driven every kind of rig that's ever been made, driven the back roads so I wouldn't get weighed. Six days on the road and I'm taking little white pilz and drinking 40w erl. I think that I'll make a pit stop and get a lot lizard to drain my transmission. Meep-meep!

If you have any stickers left you should go down to your local library and slip them into random books.

I was bought up on SAE's which were Stamped Addressed Envelopes myself.

Yippie! I finally have my very own H.P. Lovecraft stickers! Wahoo, as for S.A.S.E... sorry, I blame it entirely on my dad.:)~ THANKS ANNA!