Dear dimwit on the phone

Second-hand, but still funny. My ME got off the phone Sunday night and came out of the office:

"I just got off the phone with a crazy old woman who was demanding we do a front-page story on how her dog was raped...."
He tells us the story. The woman's dog was tied up on a chain and another dog came in the yard and mounted it. Instead of getting a hose, she got her camera, took pics and called us to do a story.
After heading this story, our paginator looks up and deadpans: "Maybe her dog is just a slut."

 

Nice...

 

Sad part is some papers would actually do the story.

 

The quarterback at one of our schools broke the state record for passing yards in a game at a playoff game, and his leading receiver just happened to be his brother, with a total that's in the top 10 in state history. So naturally we did a feature on the kids as part of the playoff package next week. That night, we get a call from a bitchy mom wondering why these kids are in the paper all the time, why can't we take pictures of the other kids and yadda, yadda, yadda.

The next morning, our chief competitor did the same story on the same kids. Picture was even similar to the one we took. I smiled about it, then pictured the whiny lady going out to pick up her paper and seeing their feature, followed by a major soiling of her undies.

 

Oh yeah ... was gonna bump this thead up anyway for this:

Dear Podunk Tech fan who caught up with me walking out of the gym: I've been covering your game for the last two hours, paying rapt attention to each play. I was in my seat behind the scorers' table the whole time. Not once did I reach for my cell phone and, because the office is only a couple of miles away, I didn't bring a laptop. So, I have NO idea what happened in the games in the rest of the bracket that were played at the same time this one was played. Check the state association's web site like I will for scores if I can ever get back to the office.

 

Unless he delayed you for, say ten minutes pumping you for information you clearly didn't have, I don't see what's wrong with someone looking for scores from someone who might now. He might be able to help you one day.

 

Yeah, you're right. Now, if he hadn't been the sixth of seventh person to ask me since the game ended ... plus before and after the game dealing with the soccer coach that just didn't believe I hadn't gotten the all-league teams yet ... and on Friday night, a half-hour before deadline, a youth wrestling coach calling to make sure I got a little team picture. Do people just think I sit on my ass watching ESPN my whole shift when their sport isn't in season?

 

Yes. Sometimes, even your bosses think that.

 

Buy a paper if you want a score.

 

A former co-worker told me the story of an irate caller who was hacked off that his paper had not covered the big game between Podunk Tech and Countrybumkin U. Co-worker covered the game and assured him it was there. Caller became more irate and called the paper every name in the book for not covering the event. Co-worker said 'sir I'm looking right at it. It's the centerpiece story. It's the story with headline -- Bumkin U. upsets Podunk Tech. Five second pause..'oh.' Click.

 

A slight tangent, but related to the above ...

When I was sports editor at a small metro daily in Florida back in 2001, I once had a guy leave me a voice mail message one Sunday at 6:30 a.m., saying we not only had the score backward in our coverage of the previous day's Florida-Florida State football game but we also had it being played in the wrong city, and more. On top of everything else, he called us a garden variety of insulting names, using the vocabulary of a waterfront parrot, and then hung up without leaving a name or number.

Imagine his surprise when I returned the call (thanks, caller ID!) and calmly and politely set him straight on every count.

After a brief pause, the guy on the other end of the phone -- whose voice matched that of the voice mail message -- mumbled something about how it must've been his brother-in-law, who drinks a lot, who called, and added defensively that he'd never call someone a "fucking asshole" over the phone.

I replied that I never said which words the caller used.

He hung up.