About once a week, for the past two months or so, I receive a letter from Maria. She's a psychic and she knows that I need her help. And she's more than willing to help me. With a money-back guarantee.

Some letters have contained images of talismans that I am to keep close to me. To attract good luck of course. Just last week, three "fortune" cards were slipped into a mailing, and Maria was nice enough to have the printing company inscribe the meaning of these cards directly onto them. The use of the scripty font was very convincing.

It was cute, the first few times. But now I'm annoyed. Trees are being cut down so that I can receive cheesy psychic form letters, where my name appears in random locations with pleas to respond before particular dates in order to take full advantage of the spectacular karma that I can only connect with through a personal session with her.

Seriously, she wants to come to my house. It makes since as she already has my address.

Of course, if Maria were a true psychic, would she not pick up on my immediate recycling of her letters? Would she not tremble with the distant shred of her jiffy-printed documents? How about when I turn to DH and say "Oh damn, it's another one."

How do you solve a problem like Maria?

Indeed.