Thank You USPS

I just got a rejection in the mail from a journal who will remain nameless. Again, fine with me, their name goes on the list for the next batch that I have ready.

But what annoys me is that I was lucky to get the rejection at all. I say this because when I started sending out a few years ago, I failed to put something on the cover letter saying something like, "Please recycle any unused portion of the manuscript -- just notification is fine." AKA: Shred the pages and send me just the rejection slip if you don't like them.

This aforementioned journal, however, in their quickness to return a response (which I do appreciate greatly), forgot to read that at the bottom, or didn't care. Written on the fat SASE, since they clearly included the 5 pages of poems included in my original submission, was "Postage due .17" and I'm not sure I would've delivered that to my mailbox has I been the postal worker / delivery person. Who paid for that seventeen cents?

And the thing is, had they trashed it, I probably would've queried in three months, to an email back that said, "We sent a rejection two months back." Journals expect us as writers and submitters to take the time and follow their format and submission guidelines, but they can't read the necessary information we write to insure we at least get our rejection back. Not cool.

I don't know. The whole thing just annoys me. And a word to the wise -- even though it may not help, clearly -- if you're not writing something like that on your cover letter, you should. That's the reason why I did it: multiple envelopes returned with "owed postage," though the USPS was nice enough to deliver it, when they didn't have to in the first place.