TBT #97: Reader Mail

It’s about time for The Best Things to come to an end. Clearly the writer lacks motivation, what with his newly-found bizarre dedication to nine-day-long weeks and meandering stories typed out between the Seinfeld rerun at 9 p.m. and the other Seinfeld rerun at 9:30 p.m. I’ve long planned to stop doing this at the hundredth edition, but now that that’s actually close I’m struggling with how to end this. I have a deep appreciation for spectacular things — fireworks, novelty-sized fruit, child contortionists that can shoot bow-and-arrows with their feet with deadly accuracy, etc. — so it’s only natural that I would strive for something spectacular in capping off this column. But, really, what could be a worthy ending for nearly two-years of thrills, spills, ills, and so on? I do not yet know the answer to that question.

But luckily I have three weeks to think of something.

Until then, I’ve decided to devote this week’s column to reconnecting with my readers. As such, it’s time to open up the reader mailbag, and tackle some of the hard-hitting questions sent to me in response to the past couple of years. You’d be a fool not to read it. A damn fool.

We could play Tetris DS

J. Girl writes to ask:

HeyThereCutie,

Haven’tSeen YouAround TheSiteInAWhile So I thought I would shoot YouALetter
AndSeeWhat’s Been Up?= StopBySoon and IPromiseI’llPlayWithMyself

LoveYa,

J

Dear J,

Thank you for your writing! Your spacebar is broken. Your idea is a good one, but only in the sense that it is not as terrible as going to the dentist or watching a non-contortionist child try to shoot a bow-and-arrow with his feet. I’d be lying if I said I was all that jazzed about visiting you again. I’d also be referencing the movie musical Chicago, but only slightly.

It’s time for honesty, J: I’m sick of watching you play with yourself. It’s boring. I find it hard to sit still and sometimes I find myself looking around the room for things to read. Once you had a Sears catalogue open on your bedside table and so I read the description of a Ladies Plus-Size Pullover Cardigan eighteen times. I still remember it vividly. It was mauve.

So whatever, J. I’ll see you when I see you. Unless you’ve learned some new moves (or have a new catalogue) I’m not really all that interested.

I’m also a little bit racist

Ramon Hogan in a letter titled “Good Timing” writes:

We receieved your request for information on natural suppressants to help lose weight.
Dr.Hernandez and our Nutritionist Ramon Hogan have found a
solution for your weight problem.

Solution:

Dr.Hernandez reccommends a 2-4 month supply of MS HOODIA.
Most of our clients have L0ST anywhere from 10-30 Ibs within 2-3 weeks.

Dear Mr. Hogan,

When I was a child I was really into professional wrestling for a while and as such tuned in to an episode of Hogan’s Heroes one time expecting something far different than what I got. Your letter reminded me of that, both because your name is Hogan and also because you are a horrendous disappointment to me.

There is no way I’m using a Microsoft product to lose weight. I wouldn’t even trust Microsoft (Some might say Micro$oft as they, unlike most other companies, operate solely for profit!) with the spreadsheet I employ to track, rank, categorize and graph the progress of my various friendships and relationships. I mean, I did, once, but the graph looked off to me. ‘Best fit’ my ass.

Also 10 – 30 lbs within 2-3 weeks is simply too slow for me. I am looking to lose a great deal of weight all at once — somewhere along the lines of 230 pounds in eight seconds. I’ve been told by many that this a wildly unrealistic goal but to those people I like to respond with some vague analogy about man landing on the moon. It shuts them right up.

All philosophical

Harrison Q. Ashley writes:

Instant d:ploma in just 5 days

URL removed

for immediate expungement go here : URL removed

Cells let us walk, talk, think, make love and realize the bath water is cold.

Hey Harry-Q,

I will tell you what I have told the many readers who have e-mailed me with greatly simplified paths to post-secondary degrees: where were you four years ago? If I had known I could get some sort of diploma in a scant five days there is no way I would have subjected myself to Introduction to Anthropology. Some of the stuff they taught in that class is still stuck in my brain, to the point where I find myself doodling little family tree diagrams — with the males as triangles and the females as squares — where I used to exclusively doodle pictures of a really cool dude with giant sunglasses and a backwards hat. His name is — I’m sorry, was — Joe.

It is the close of your letter that intrigues me, however. It’s poetic, even to me, a man who would rather shave his armpits with baby alligators than take a bath. I’ve decided to interpret it four different ways in an concerted effort to appreciate every single layer of this poetry you’ve given me:

• ‘cells’ as in the very tiny globs of information that fly around inside of us, fight disease and are red and sometimes white. Just like Santa Claus. Just like my country.
• ‘cells’ as prison cells or other tiny little rooms that you would put a person in to stop them from, like, totally murdering or raping or insider trading again, for a while. I think prison cells are, in fact, the only type of this kind of cell. I’m not sure how prison cells help us make love and also I have never heard of a prison offering bathtubs. Though I bet some of the womens’ prisons do.
• ‘cells’ as in celluar phones. Admittedly this is a stretch but I bet there are cellphones with features that help you make love and check out the temperature of the bath. I got a cellphone the other week that can — hand to god — be used as a flashlight. It lights up like nothing else. How amazing is that?
• ‘cells’ as in copies of the Jennifer Lopez/Vince Vaughn movie “The Cell.” This interpretation does not make any sense until you consider the dichotomy of modernism and post-modernism. It begins to make sense only then because you are distracted by other things.

So, again, thanks for writing, Harrison! If I ever need a non-accredited diploma and have five days to kill, I will give you a call. I hope part of the degree program involves learning what the word ‘Expungement’ means. I think it might have something to do with the sense of smell.

You lazy jerk

Stacey Owens took the time to write:

Then I started ‘teaching’. You know, I’m a good teacher. (Well, maybe just an average teacher, but you get the jist). I know what good teachers do. Or I thought I did. I sat with the children at the computer. When they pressed the IntelliKeys’ keyboard or the Touch Window’ and the computer said the word, I repeated the word and then expanded on the word. After they had pressed the same word several times, I said, “That’s right, that’s a cat, can you find the dog?? Suddenly, I would see the child’s back get stiff, and before you knew it, he got up and left the computer. I didn’t understand. Just a few seconds ago, he loved it. What happened?

Dear Stacey,

What the fuck? People like you make disgust me. I don’t know what the hell kind of classroom you are running but I’m pretty sure the children are just sick to hell of sitting there listening to you try to teach them the fucking names of pets through nothing but button-pushing. I’d be pretty liable to get all stiff-backed and leave too if my teacher asked me to identify something as simple as a goddamned dog. Cats are different — there are all sorts of kinds of cats. Tigers and siamese and cougars and those Asian ones that fucking swim like all get out. But dogs? Identifying a dog is an insult to my intelligence. If I were in your class I’d take my stiff back and leave and maybe flip you off while saying “Fucking dogs, man, come back when you want to talk about D.H. Lawrence or the furthest known planet from our sun, Pluto.”

You’re a shitty teacher, Stacey, and I have always thought so. You’ve got fantastic breasts, though.

Pedantic

Sam, in a message with a cutesy emoticon in the subject line that is unfortunately NOT winking at me, writes:

You don’t need to talk to a doctor to get the sexual help that you need. Have a look here.
We sell all of the most popular erectile dysfunction medication at literally 1/5th the cost.

If you buy medication to enhance erections now, you really should check out:

removed URL

We back our medications up with a full 45-day guarantee. If you are not 100% satisified, we will refund you no questions asked.

Thanks Sam,

Your message is timely as I have been hoping lately – to little avail – to receive some information about viagara-type pills in my inbox. I swear, it’s like you have to be part of some sort of secret club to buy these things.

In any case, I’ve been looking for sexual disfunction pills not for me, as I have been described as both ’stellar’ and ‘adequate’ depending on my mood and the temporal proximity of relations to something good on TV. (This is a fancy scientist egghead type way of saying that I like to finish before CSI: New York comes on. I love the theme song.) I merely want the pills because I feel there is money to be made in reselling them on the street. I have been looking to get into drug dealing (perhaps some light prostitution as well, down the road) as a way to supplement my income and feel viagra and viagra-like pills would be a nice addition to my roster of drugs that already includes meth, speedballs, goofballs (like speedballs but funnier), angel dust, shrooms, eczema topical cream and gasoline in a paper bag.

I really appreciate the numbers you have given me. That your prices are literally 1/5 the normal cost is important to me, as I have been burned by many figurative and metaphysical costs in the past. In light of this, I am interested in buying some of your product. But I must warn you, I take such statements as ‘no questions asked’ very seriously. If I try to return your product and get so much as a “How are you?” from your customer service representative then I swear to god I am going to fly right off the handle. Literally.

Conclusion

That about wraps up reader mail for this week! As always, I am reachable through the ‘contact’ link at the top of the page. I do my best to respond to all messages but, due to the sheer volume and my tendency to ramble on and frame my responses as if they are from people entirely unlike myself, this can take some time. Please be patient as I craft a reply filled with faux-enthusiasm, non-sequitors and copius reference to vampires or steamships or whatever.

I’ll see you next week!

Matt