Impulse Writing

You know how therapists and anger management counselors often advise their patients to write letters to purge negative emotions? How there’s something about the act of putting pen to paper, or more modernly, banging away at a keyboard, that lets out the frustrations and negates the stupidity that you may have to encounter?

I wish I could take credit for this one, but it comes courtesy of a usually very mild-mannered colleague. This is the version of the follow-up letter that she did not send to a donor. I can’t imagine why; all of us in the office felt better after reading it and then cackling with glee.

Dear Dr. X:

Thanks for your recent letter. I am sorry you took up your cranky pen and stopped me from doing some worthy and real work today.

I should let you know that I personally monitor all of the airline and Amtrak schedules as well as the performance calendars of every single performing arts organization in the United States, and then highlight all of the concerts that feature students on scholarship. I then invite all donors to hear their scholarship recipients perform in their local venues. Alas, this is not true. I am not clairvoyant, nor omniscient and omnipotent. Additionally, I do not know who will get a particular scholarship before he or she performs in your local performing arts theater.

In the future, when our students perform at the Kennedy Center or Carnegie Hall, I will ask them to give you, and just you, a “shout out” from the stage, just in case you are in the audience or on the off chance that they are lucky enough to receive your scholarship sometime in the future.

I do hope you will make up for your cranky letter with a huge check. Perhaps you meant to enclose it?

Sincerely,
Jane Doe

Next time we get "cranky" letters, I'm tempted to send the first version of our reactions and not the second "polite" one. Who's with me?