A Mother's Impassioned Plea Falls on Deaf Ears (Too Lazy to Think of Relevant Pun)

From an interested party, who asked that this be unedited/anonymous (but didn't ask that I not add my own responses/plus not sure how anonymous one can be when referencing puns AND Minnesota):

[You] heady kids need to transcend their pedantic, corporeal fascination with holding/shooting a gun and unleash their intellect (which they appear to possess in amazing abundance [agreed]) and make it sunday PUNday. That's totally a good idea except puns don't make loud noises and blow things up.

Puns are cool and witty and never hurt anyone. Except nerds in middle school. The streets would be safer, and parents all over (including Minnesota) would be able to sleep at night!! Eschew the raw power of metal and the stench of gunpowder and free your inner punster, I say. The rest will follow. The world would be a better place for having you in it adding joy one pun at a time, rather than shooting it up. This basically insures that we'll be shooting signs that say "pun." Like they said in Oregon, stop the hate!!! Value added, people.

Just how I feel. I hate sunday funday/America. And, in the main, I'm not a hater.

You young, childless adults (woo hoo!) will understand one day when your beloved offspring come to you and say, "I want to drink til I puke and shoot a gun at lobsters seated on a sofa, you ok with that?" As long as there are no puns involved, Johnny.

love to all, a mother.

What I Used To Do At My Day Job

After a few rejected submissions to McSweeneys in 2003 and 2004, I got this published at the now-only-archival Uber.nu:

An Open Letter to McSweeney's Internet Tendency Open Letter Chooser

Dear McSweeney's Internet Tendency Open Letter Chooser:

Remember those two letters I sent before, to persons or entities who were unlikely to respond? The first one was to Australia. Maybe you were worried that Australia was likely to respond, and that's why you didn't choose it. Or maybe you didn't feel like making an enemy of another nation; that was probably it. I said some pretty inflammatory stuff in that letter. But can you fault me? I was totally pissed at Australia when I wrote that letter.

(Remember that part where I made fun of Australian actors, like Nicole Kidman? That was awesome. Oh wait, no--you obviously didn't think so.)

But I was okay with that snub. I thought I had learned from it, actually. For one thing, it was probably too long (I talked about The Crocodile Hunter for 127 words, for Christ's sake!). At first I thought it might have been too inflammatory, or vulgar (like when I talked about Australians being fuckers), but then I read a recent letter you published that talks about pissing on a guy's head and doing his wife. So I figured I was in the clear on the inflammatory/vulgar bit.

What really hurt was the second rejection. Did you think the letter to my Grandpa was a joke? Granted, it might have been insensitive, but I didn't title the letter "AN OPEN LETTER TO MY DEAD BLIND GRANDPA," which I totally could've. I left out the DEAD part.

But seriously, he would 'watch' Wheel of Fortune religiously. How funny is that? Did I not play up that angle enough, the it's-weird-that-a-blind-person-would-be-interested-in- a-television-program-that-relies-heavily-on-sight-for-its-entertainment-value angle? I thought I did. (Did you ever solve a puzzle, Grandpa? Did you ever grimace when the lady from Spokane couldn't solve the Before & After puzzle, when it was staring her in the goddamn face? )

Hell, I even made reference to the fact that Chuck Woolery (I called him the ubiquitous Chuck Woolery, too! Priceless!) was the original host, not Pat Sajak. That shows I did my research!

That letter to my dead blind Grandpa was gold, and you turned it down. Why? Are you worried about the dead blind Grandpa demographic?

I'm sorry for putting you on the spot; I'm really not into confrontation. But I figured that since you were unlikely to respond, there's not much at stake.

Signed

An Open Letter to the Ford Motor Company

Dear Ford Motor Company,

Dude, do you use T9 when you're texting? I do. And lately it seems like the words it knows or doesn't know is getting weirder. Have you noticed this? Like even though the word "bourbon" is in probably 60% of my texts, it still doesn't know how to spell it; instead it gives me this, which has never even been a word.


WTF, you know? And it's not like it doesn't know any of the distilled spirits, which would at least make sense:


Then there's the words it knows that are barely ever used by anybody ever:


And then sometimes you want to write some words and it gives you other words to try and make you feel all guilty. Like when I tried to write "chalice":


I think T9 is trying some sort of social engineering, Ford Motor Company! What do you think? I mean look! I was just trying to type "duckpin"!


Anyways. What I was really writing about is that you own the Mercury Motors brand, right? That is hands down the coolest car name ever. It's the coolest element, it's a slow-working poison, it's an ancient god--what more could you ask for in a brand name?

What I want to say is that you're totally wasting Mercury and everything it could be. For starters, its cars shouldn't come in any colors other than silver. Second, the logo should be a dude throwing an arrow, or something. Anything is better than what you have. Third, make the cars awesome.

Sincerely,

DeffoTotes