March 10, 2005
Hate Mail Bag As you
Hate Mail Bag
As you might imagine, dear reader, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” get bunches and bunches of e-mails. In fact, one of the interns here at “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly”—let’s just call him “Chip”—spends the better part of the day answering various e-queries.Most of these e-missives are fairly predictable. Nary a moment goes by, it seems, in which one of our rabid fans fails to tell us of his undying love for our humble “weblog.” Many devotees have informed us that our quasi-humorous animadversions have compelled them to change religions—or at least to change hair conditioners.
Although one might expect such e-epistles to be exciting, they can actually prove rather tedious. Sure, we love every one of our readers in a slightly off-putting way. And yet, how many e-mails a day could you read from women who inform you that they wish they had you as a daughter? Four?
Luckily, however, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” receive all kinds of e-missives. In addition to copious amounts of fan mail, we also happen upon a number of inquires from Nigerian businessmen we’ve never met. And, naturally, we receive the requisite number of sordid pornographic advertisements.
Yet nothing, dear reader, makes us happier than taking in the occasional example of hate mail. Our “weblog,” after all, is named “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly”: You’d figure that a couple of readers would get peeved by our delicate lucubrations.
It appears that we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have irked someone. A few days ago, we received a rather curt e-missive from one Andy Paleologopoulos. It concerns our kvetching about the sub-par advertisements that grace our humble “weblog,” and it reads as follows:
You might be able to offset the obtrusiveness of the web ads by eliminating the phrase “we, the crack young staff of “[sic] The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” every other sentence.
That was the whole message. No salutation. No warm wishes. That’s it.
Naturally, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” were perturbed. Much like Mr. Paleologopoulos’ mother, we aim to please, and thus we were distraught to discover that one of our precious readers was unsatisfied.
Accordingly, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” offered the following reply:
Mr. Paleologopoulos,
Thank you kindly for your constructive criticism. We are sorry that you have been slowed down by our constant references to ourselves. At least, however, our name is not “Paleologopoulos,” which would be a real bitch to repeat.
Cordially,
The Crack Young Staff of THMQ
We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” hope that this does the trick. But we’re not certain it will: We hear that the Greeks are touchy (both literally and figuratively).
UPDATE: Haven’t gotten your fill of the crack young staff for the day? Neither have we. Never fear, dear reader: Just head over to “A Fistful of Fortnights,” where we offer up our first attempt at guest “weblogging.”
