Comedy Notebook 11

These are called Letters to Vague Recipients.

Dear people who are so shocked by shock,

Stop being shocked by shock. You're just encouraging shocking people to be more shocking. The more shocked you are by shock the more shocking shock will become. So stop being so shocked all the time.

TR

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Dear Asia,

Every two weeks you send us a new virus. Are you trying to fulfill some kind of a quota? What's going on over there? Are you having some kind of a problem with your refrigeration? We haven't sent you one virus. Ever. See what you can do. Thank you.

TR

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Dear people who can't walk and chew gum at the same time,

Stop ruining all of our sidewalks.

TR

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Dear people who drive really cool cars,

How do you do it? I mean day one must be great - a bunch of people come up to you and say, "hey, cool car." It makes you feel pretty cool. And everybody looks at you when you're stuck in traffic and smiles and nods with that look that says, "hey, cool car." And it feels great for the entirety of day one. I'm guessing Day two is pretty much the same. What's day 184 like? I'll bet that all day long during day 184 people still tell you what a cool car you have. They do. Don't they? "Hey, cool car."

So I just have one question to ask you. And I'll wait until day 573 to ask it. Are you still glad you bought that cool car?

TR

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Dear people who like meeting people,

People don't like meeting you.

TR

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Dear Philadelphia Sports Teams,

I hope you've been paying close attention. The Eagles recently lost their third straight NFC Championship game. And a couple of months later, we blew up their stadium. Veterans Stadium was also home to the Phillies. Here is what we are thinking. If the Phillies don't win the World Series this year, we are going to blow up their new stadium. And what about the Flyers and Sixers? We just might blow up their stadiums too. And that goes for all you Philadelphia area college teams as well. St. Joseph's is a mid-size college who has had a mediocre basketball team for the last 50 years. At some point this year they realized that they, too, were a Philadelphia team. Because they started playing like one. They got off to a great start. They captured the imagination of the entire city and got into the NCAA tournament as a number one seed. Then they were thirty seconds away from winning the game that would have put them into the Final Four. They could have been the sports story of the year. They were that close. And then they lost in heartbreaking fashion in the final seconds and left an entire city of sports fans in a state of depression. We are seriously considering blowing up their stadium.

TR

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Dear Pendulum, Please come back.

TR

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Dear Potential Voters,

There are some of you out there who weren't going to vote. Then you saw an advertisement for Rock the Vote. And now you're going to vote. You're going to vote because you found out that voting rocks. If a Rock the Vote Commercial is what pushed you into the category of wanting to vote - don't vote.

TR

Dear people who post on message boards and newsgroups,

If you want to condescend to someone, please stop using the word "um" right before you do so. Try to do it without putting an "um" in front of your putdown. The word "um" conveys so many things and is used in so many ways. You're throwing an "um" in there so that their slow brain can catch up to your fast brain. It's usually an "um" followed by the three dots. Those dots are each a second long and that gives them enough time to catch up to your thought process. Then you slam them. "Um" is a loaded pause. It announces to the person that you're about to point out to them how stupid they were in their last post. It also means that you're delaying the satisfaction that comes with pointing out their obvious stupidity to them.

Also, and this applies mostly to sports newsgroups, if your team beats the other team, it's not all that original to gloat about your victory by laughing at the fans of the losing team with a "BWAAAHAAAHAAHAA." The "BWAAHAAAHAAHAA" gloat is one of the most annoying by products of the Internet.

Do some google searches on the words "um" and "BWAAAHAAAHAAA" and see what happens.

TR

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Dear Universe,

I know this happened a while back but I've been meaning to write to you about it. What you did to Stephen King was wrong. He's one of the most successful writers of all time and he was in the middle of having one of the best lives of all time. I guess you didn't like that too much. And since you're the all powerful universe you had to take him down a notch didn't you. So you waited and waited for just the right moment. Then one day Stephen King was out taking a nice walk along the side of the road. That's when you said, "and, cue the swerving van."

What a mean thing to do.

TR

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Tom Ryan