THERE'S A LOT to be said for the good old days. Rameses II was understandably irked by all those heaven-sent frogs and locusts and flies, but at least he didn't get letters from the Polish embassy, raffle tickets to save deaf rabbits and directions for deodorizing smelly garbage cans.

So, okay, the smiting of the firstborn may have been a bit much, but as plagues go the Egyptian pharaoh's woes couldn't hold a stick-turned-snake to that modern pandemic we are so familiar with - junk mail.

Rameses, his priests and the like (and his queen, a rather nasty bit of work who probably deserved the boils) could at least shut the doors to keep out the lice and the whiff of dead cows. There is no such avoidance of unwanted letters, leaflets, fliers, pamphlets, folders, magazines and dog food samples that regularly flood our cottage.

The postman and the newspaper delivery person have combined their wit - that is to say, one half wit each - to make sure the Webb manse gets its share of the forests that are pulped each day to inform us of the wonders of credit cards with 49.7 percent rates of interest and ways to insure your duck-billed platypus against the green apple quickstep.

The newspaper person, holding a couple of IQ points' advantage over our geraniums, ignores the green box with the hieroglyphic "newspapers" written in brass on it and shreads The Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail and assorted leaflets by trying to shove them through the front-door mail slot.

The postman, not to be outdone, passes up the mail slot in favor of the green box whose one-word label he translates as "Give me your tripe, your get-rich-quick schemes, your gimme-a-donation pleas, your 'for the occupant' correspondence ... "

Our junk mail supply today is a typical representation. I got a consumer products survey ("you could win yourself 5,000 pounds - just for completing this questionnaire!") and something from the National Distance Learning College about how to repair personal computers.

(My PC and I are barely on speaking terms, and far from repairing it, the next time I get an "Error 404" message two seconds before it crashes and takes with it five articles of my hard labor, I'm going to slap a second-class stamp on its screen and turn it into my own contribution to the junk mail plague.)

Oh, and there's a catalogue from something called Cotton Traders, offering to send along a "free remote control stereo system" if I just order up a couple of half-price chinos. I have no idea what chinos are, and if I get one more radio my wife Elizabeth has promised I'll get it shoved "somewhere where the sun don't shine."

I mustn't forget the South Northamptonshire Council, the local government busybody to whom my 103 tax bucks a month goes in part toward producing the SNC Review. The latest issue tells me that the eight tons of compost that the council has handed out to folks is, in fact, "a huge success." I'm ever so glad.

The SNC Review also instructs me that should I wish to set up a system in my kitchen for turning potato peels, leftover catfood, spaghetti bolognaise (or however you spell it) and anything resembling a vegetable into compost, "an empty ice cream tub or bucket with a lid is ideal for the job."

Building a compost heap in our kitchen is sure to do wonders for my marriage. Particularly if one more radio arrives in the newspaper box.

Elizabeth, for her part, received an invitation for a credit card from the people at Laura Ashley, which seems to make clothy things. My wife needs another credit card like Rameses needed another frog.

Anyway, I've wracked all three of my brain cells for months to try to come up with ways for dealing with junk mail. I've had no luck, but have a friend named Geri Ann who has arrived with plenty of gasoline to throw on the flames, so to speak.

Geri Ann observes that when we get those "pre-approved" letters for everything from credit cards to second mortgages, "most of them come with postage-paid return envelopes, right?"

Right. So, she continues, "why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in these cool little envelopes. Send a pizza coupon to Citibank. Or if you didn't get anything else that day, then just send them their application back."

She wisely advises: "Just make sure your name isn't on anything you send them. Heck, you can send it back empty if you want just to keep 'em guessing."

The possibilities are obvious: "If every household does this," she says, "eventually the banks and credit card companies will begin getting a lot of junk back in the mail."

The important thing is, "it lets them know what it's like to get junk mail - and best of all, they're paying for it. Twice."

This is the first suggestion I've heard that makes the prospect of receiving junk mail a lot of fun because it holds the prospect of a delightful way of disposing of it. In fact, it evokes fond memories of my battle with a telephone company down in Texas about 35 years ago.

Those were the days when those little IBM cards with the punched holes arrived with your bill together with a dire warning of an unmentionable but ghastly fate that awaited you if you violated their edict: "Do not fold, bend, staple or mutilate" their little card.

After folding, bending, stapling and otherwise mutilating the card every time I sent it back with a complaint about a wrong billing but eliciting zero response, I hit upon a new approach. I simply wet one end of the card between my lips, let it dry and sent it back.

Back at the office, those IBM cards had to go through a sorting machine with very close tolerances. When mine hit, with one end ever so slightly swollen by spit, it jammed their machine and threw several hundred cards all over the premises.

The phone company sent me a letter, written by a human being: "Mr. Webb, we do not know what you are doing to our cards, but please cease and desist immediately." I went to Vietnam instead, but the memory remains a fond one.

Now if you will excuse me, I have some junk mail to post.

Thought for the Week: If at first you don't succeed, blame someone else and seek counseling.

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