Monday, April 19, 2010

Fan mail

The risks of a columnist are many.

As I've mentioned before, I have filled in on our newspaper's new feature, "Five Spot." These are designed to be gentle jabs at the sporting world, without harming anyone.

OK. I wrote the column for today, and came up with this item after the start of hockey's postseason:

Higher seeds have had their problems during the first few days of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

It now looks as if the Sabres-Bruins winner will take on the winner of Murray State-Northern Iowa in the second round.


Well, it's nothing Woody Allen or Larry Gelbart would put it in his scrapbook, but it filled the purpose. Then I got this note in my e-mail today:

Bud:

I'd like to comment on your Five in today's paper.

Comparing the Sabres and Bruins to college hockey can only tell me you have a problem. Whether you're just looking for e-mail or your JUST PLAN STUPID.

You better stay with the little people, you haven't grown up yet.


In that short note, our letter-writer showed that he:

1. Can't spell my name.
2. Can't spell plain.
3, Can't use "you're" correctly.
4, Doesn't know Murray State and Northern Iowa were references to huge basketball upsets in the NCAA tournament.

To quote Bill Simmons of ESPN, "Yup, these are my readers."

2 comments:

Lisa said...

...and hopefully they're not one of my students!!

Glenn Locke, The Tall Thin Guy said...

And hopefully Lisa isn't teaching English, as how could "they" be "one" of your students?

It is amazing how irony impaired much of the world is!