Dear dimwit on the phone

1,500+ posts and you still can't spot sarcasm? Wow this board must frighten you when you try to go to sleep. And I didn't "say" anything...I typed it.
Please note (in case you can't tell)...I am fucking with you.

 

Once had a news-side colleague "help out" by changing "Cardinal" to "Cardinals" in a story about Stanford.

 

Similar: Had to explain to a desk guy once that it was Pau Gasol, not Paul.

Of course, we've all stumbled on Elmont, N.Y., at least once.

 

In a semi-related note, we've made it to 100 pages on this thread. Kudos everyone.

Carry on.

 

To another 100 pages! May the frustrations of our careers never end!

 

Many, many years ago -- between my junior and senior years in high school -- I attended a very good two week journalism workshop in California, run by pros and college professors. One of the instructors was a big-time Parrothead. He gave us a handout instructing us to write up a story on "Jimmy Buffet." I spelled it "Jimmy Buffett" and he mocked me in front of the class for my inattention to detail. When he was done I pointed out that I was the only one to spell it right. He seemed fairly pissed at himself once he double-checked the actual spelling.

 

Unfortunately, I think this also means kudos to the dimwiths that have made this thread possible.

 

We named our winter sports all-star teams a couple of Sundays ago. For boys indoor track, the pick in the 500 meters won state in our medium-sized class and had the best time of the year in our area by at least a half-second. Another runner finished sixth in the big school state meet. So we picked the first kid on our team.

As I was finishing up one day last week, my phone rang. I let it go to voice mail because I didn't recognize the number. Then twice more withing 5 minutes the same thing happened, so I now have 4 voicemails. I listened to all three and it was the same mother complaining loud and long that her son had made the all-state team (top 6 in the state meet make all-state, apparently) and we didn't have him listed. She was unhappy, upset, blah, blah, blah ... and "I want a phone call explaining why he wasn't listed."

I was running late, so I decided to wait until the next morning to call her back. Easy explanation, this wasn't the all-state team, but our all-area team. But when I got in the next morning, I had another voicemail from her.

"Mr. Bundy, I apologize for the messages yesterday. I thought you printed the all-state team, but I see now it was the Daily Fishwrap team. I know the boy you picked and he was a little bit better than my son. Please accept my apologies and have a blessed day. You don't need to call me back.

But to keep this in the dimwit area, there was the phone call complaing that we didn't pick so-and-so in his weight class in wrestling. Kid was state runner-up the previous year and was off to a pretty good start this year, but there was this little matter about him flunking off the team at semester break, so he missed the entire post-season. (The guy we picked was top three in the state this year.

 

Just fuckin' with ya again.

 

He cannot have been that big of a Parrothead.

 

Call of the day:

Caller: Hi, I was wondering if you can do me a favor?
ME: Depends on what it is (chuckle)
Caller: Can you please tell me if an eagle is better than a double bogey?
ME: I can assure you without any doubt that an eagle is better than a double bogey.
Caller: Please tell my friend this! (proceeds to argue with friend over the phone, for like two minutes)
ME: (Shaking my head as the caller hangs up).