The New Yorker
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to consider your subscription renewal notice. While it was deftly written—and the lowered rate somewhat fiscally compelling—we’re afraid your magazine just isn’t a right fit for our mailbox. Besides, the mailing label is always upside-down, and that ticks the cat off. Please feel free to try again next year.
Boss
I was able to read over the Post-it note you stuck on my monitor. It was written in a very commanding voice, but I’m afraid I’m going to pass on sending you that status report. I’m simply moving in another direction. However, I encourage you to submit again, though you may want to reconsider your use of “A.S.A.P.”—as the overdue deadlines (which are somewhat frequent here, sorry) make it redundant. Also, the ellipsis in “or else …” seems, I don’t know … abrasively rhetorical …
High-School Crush
Thanks for finding me, Michelle. It’s really nice to hear from you. You still keep in touch with Randy? I always thought you two made a great couple, even if you both took dodgeball a little to far with (at?) me in P.E. class. Too bad we never hooked up. I always thought you were very pretty—before the gender reassignment surgery at least (you always were the pants in Algebra.) Hey, if I ever see you in a men’s restroom, I’ll know where to look.
Google
Thank you for the job offer! I guess eleventh time really is the charm. Shucks, but I’m moving to Alaska to live in an abandoned bus. Have you seen the movie Into the Wild? It was a book as well. It’s about a really cool guy who flips off society. Society is a grouping of individuals characterized by common interests and having distinct cultural institutions. I got all this information from Wikipedia (a really cool Web site that I found by using Ask.com). Anyways, good luck with the company. I like the logo.
Father
I got your message about coming home this weekend to water the plants, and my answer is NO. I told you very clearly: if you’re going to take mom on a six-week cruise to Antarctica, do NOT buy the rare phragmipedium exstaminodium “Gandalf” orchid that needs to be watered every 72 hours. I live a five-hour drive from you. Please refrain from making things difficult for me (the complexes are enough.) Gandalf will have to die, Dad; and no, I don’t owe you two hundred dollars now.
Harvard
Hi, Vard. I never did hear from you, so I assumed I wasn’t accepted. No worries, I took my 870 SAT score and 2.7 G.P.A. and got myself into a real school: Vern Hillweed Community College. And then I took my two-year degree (five years later) in Baking & Patisserie and got this job at Chili’s. So no, I’m not exactly aching for a Harvard T-shirt right now in my life; but thanks for the catalogue though.
Church
I received all forty-two flyers for the potluck, or as you’ve aptly put, “Rapture’s Reception.” Thanks for thinking of me—but I won’t be attending; I had your mayonnaise cake once, and it was not the one.
