Dear dimwit on the phone

You should have told that person that the Cubs were playing right after the National Anthem and before the post-game press conferences.

 

Dear Swim Team Parent,

No, I don't have a bias against your swim team. Your swim team has a bias against me. Because I don't know what else can explain the fact that every year I tell the coach and/or the designated "give-the-stuff-to-the-newspaper" person that I can only come by and cover a meet if I receive a schedule so I know when they're competing. I'm not driving by the pool every Wednesday night to see if they're home this week. I also tell them that I can't print any results if no one brings them in.

But don't worry: They'll win their ninth consecutive league championship this year and let me know about it two weeks after the fact. Just like always.

If the swim team coach doesn't think it's important enough to let me know what's going on, you probably shouldn't worry about it, either. At least as a parent, they have to tell you when they're competing. Right?

Sincerely,

Apeman.

 

Dear Self-Promotional Yutz Running a Football Camp:

No, for the second time, we're not going to come out and cover your camp. Because, as I explained the last time you called, we have about a dozen others going on in the area and we're not going to highlight one over the others unless there's some sort of interesting angle beyond "we're having a football camp because it's all about the kids." And no, kids competing in an NFL-style combine doesn't count. Every year the NFL Network televises soon-to-be pros participating in the actual NFL combine and I'd rather watch a gallon of water evaporate than subject myself to that. So I'm not going to spend time, effort and space on kids running a bunch of drills. If our photo staff isn't too busy, maybe we'll send a photographer and get a stand-alone photo. Talk to you next year when you -- and your fellow self-promotional yutzs who run the other dozen camps in the area -- come begging me for coverage again. Have a nice day.

Sincerely,

The Hacker

 

That looping song in the video is worse than the bigotry.

 

Dear Person Screaming in my ear wondering about coverage for a lawnmower race,

You want to blow your money sponsoring a damn racing lawnmower? All good, but please don't yell in my ear, asking about coverage for a race when I've already made an appointment to speak with the driver you're sponsoring on my day off no less.

Thanks for the call,

SS.

 

Dear softball mom,
No, we at the Podunk Press are NOT planning on doing a story on the Podunk High's softball coach being named coach of the year by the Bigtown Banner. What you're asking me to do is akin to asking a Wal Mart worker to run through the store screaming "These things are 10 percent less at Target! Shop there instead!" Rather, you should be asking them, if the coach is that good, why they didn't staff any of their games this year, including the regional title game. In case you didn't notice, we were at all the home games, all the playoff games and even live-blogged the championship game.

 

Dear mother of 2 and a 1/2 year old,

When you submit your child's birth announcement to us back in 2008 to run in the paper and on the web, don't call and bitch to me in 2010 that you want your child's information removed from our website.
What you are looking at when you google your daughter's name is called a cache, it's not on our server anymore...we can't do much about it.
Yes, I understand that your child's name, your name, her grandparents name, picture...blah, blah....are on there. You made the decision to have it run in the first place. How is this our fault? No, my feelings aren't hurt because you had another small human and don't want to run the birth announcement...cause I don't give a shit.

 

I always take a quiet satisfaction in explaining things like Google caches to people who don't understand how 'puters work. Imagining me getting to explain it to that angry caller gave me a warm feeling.

 

You should end this letter by letting this mother know that, in 16 years this will all be moot and her daughter will be on whatever the current version of Facebook is at that point getting railed by two dudes who don't know her name but are experiencing their first Eiffel Tower during Spring Break week anyway.

 

Dear mother of a little kid going through a custody battle:

Yes, we ran the photo of your five-year-old with his father holding up the first fish he ever caught. He brought it in to us, with the information on it, and we ran it. That's what we do as a small town paper.

But no, we're not going to run the photo again, with the kid having your last name on it. And we're not going to print a retraction, or a correction, because you think the dad gave us the photo on purpose with the kid having his last name to poke fun at you. That was the information we had, and we assumed that the father would know the name of his kid. It's one of those logical things.

So please don't get us in the middle of your little custody battle. We don't care. We're here to report the news, not play relationship counselor. It's not our fault that you decided to spread your legs for a jerk and then decided to have a baby with him.

Sincerely,

Not a Relationship Counselor

 

Dear reader,
Please learn how to read. I did not write your school had no .... I wrote that I will concede that another school had more... than your school.
More is not none.
If you're going to complain to the editor in a letter, at least go back to your old school in order to understand not only reading, but comprehension, so you can whine about the right thing.
F-tard...