Waste not want not.

If there's one bit of morality that I can cling to in my increasing years of cynicism, it's that I consider myself somewhat frugal in the area of waste. I fervently recycle, making sure to rinse the putrid bits of cat food from the empty tin, fill and shake the milk jugs, rinse cans, etc. You get my drift. We save all leftovers, and I mean all. Last Thanksgiving I nearly fainted when I saw my bro scraping the last bit of broccoli casserole into the garbage. "It was only like two bites," he protested. "But it would have been the most insanely flavorful and tantalizing two bites that have ever existed in a Tupperware container!" I bellowed. I can't throw anything away that holds any bit of value, much to the constant chagrin of the wife. That's why I was aghast when I opened my insurance statement.

The second page was blank. At the top of the page was printed in a neat little box, This page intentionally left blank. What, exactly, is the point of putting in a blank page, and then telling us that they did it on purpose? Lest we assume that someone was sneaking around the billing office, maliciously inserting blank pages into all of the envelopes in some vain attempt to expose the offending insurance agency as a global glutton, wasting resources in today's ever green world. No. We did it this way, and we want you to know that we are so rich and powerful, that we think nothing of the extra cost of putting a blank piece of paper into your bill. Or something like that.

From www.conservatree.com; based on a mixture of softwoods and hardwoods 40 feet tall and 6-8 inches in diameter, it would take a rough average of 24 trees to produce a ton of printing and writing paper, using the kraft chemical (freesheet) pulping process. If a company like farmers has 1,000,000 clients, and they send out these things bi-annually, that could be like, lesse, carry the one...a lot of wasted paper. The conservative in me wants to send it back in an envelope and say why, WHY? But pragmatist in me just uses it for scratch paper anyway.