We all want our friends to be better people. Stands to reason, innit.
And let's be utterly frank, most of my friends are already better people.
But a couple of them, well, more than a couple, well, just about all of them really, simply don't understand the beauty of junk mail.
I have written about this before in the hope they will see reason and evolve.
But they just haven't, and it's frustrating.
Do you think I enjoy ripping or even sandpapering off the No Junk Mail stickers from their letterboxes after they have entertained me with an evening of food, wine and thrilling conversation?
No, I don't.
Vandalism is abhorrent to me. But junk mail directs my every working day.
Were this big international TTP trade deal everyone is jumping up and down about - loved Jane Kelsey on Seven Sharp when she filleted the wretched Mike Hosking and his illiterate TPP assumptions - to ban junk mail, like they are digging their spades into everything else, then I would simply move countries.
Finland is my current choice.
A lady who works at the Moray Pl post office recently recommended Finland and I like what I am finding out about this vastly underrated little country.
But yes, junk mail moves my life forward even more than medication. Father's Day is almost upon us, just 19 days away, and the junk mail people have been razor sharp.
Last week's fat pile contained a very flirtatious and multi-coloured pamphlet from Supercheap Auto with the memorable Father's Day catch-cry - Give Dad What He Really Wants.
These people are true wordsmiths, brilliant people; our council would pay a marketing firm $25,000 for a slogan this good, nailing, as it does, in just six words, a huge pestilence of concern, indecision, wonder and confusion for the children and the father both.
So many children never address this question, what dad really wants. Do they think he really wants socks or scorched almonds or breakfast in bed?
I hate breakfast in bed.
There is no room for all my breakfast stuff - food, drink, reading material, medication, reading glasses and cellphone.
I need a table for all this; I cannot balance all that on two knees.
Only Cirque du Soleil acrobats can.
Socks?
I now have two sock drawers because I have so many, though this is also because I don't keep them in pairs, so if I want to put on a pair of socks, I have to BUY a pair of socks.
Last week I bought five pairs from The Warehouse for $10.
That, Jimmy, is a bargain.
Scorched almonds?
Now we're being silly.
What I wanted for Father's Day this year was a new sound system for the Toyota Ist, currently inadequafied by a factory unit, no highs, no dynamics, no GUTS, which makes AC/DC sound like Michael Buble.
And as always, junk mail came to the rescue.
The Supercheap Auto pamphlet visits my letterbox most weeks and I must confess I rarely read their deals because I am not a car person.
Cars to me is the band I quite liked between 1978 and 1980.
But while idly flicking through this particular allure of junk mail, I happened upon some almost illegally seductive deals in head units and speakers, audio enhancement that would hopefully turn my eardrums into woodchips.
This is actually a very long story involving my travelling first to online sites and then other Dunedin retailers to see how the deals compared and being lied to, sent to the wrong competitor and quoted the wrong amount, and finally ordering shatteringly good speakers from Auckland that instantly became out of stock.
I am still waiting for the promised refund. In the end, ironically, I didn't even go to Supercheap Auto, though clearly my final purchase - JBL three-way speakers that can crack glass! - emanated from junk mail.
And, you'll be wanting to know, best AC/DC testing tracks?
Dirty Deeds Done Cheap and You Shook Me.
The new system makes it sound like the band are playing in the back seat. With Phil Rudd.
Now I've just got to get the cash off the children.
• Roy Colbert is a Dunedin writer.
