Trippin' Over an Un-Love Letter, Yo

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​Mt 24: Stay awake and be ready! For you do not know on what day your Lord will come.

I’m not going to lie. I feel more beat up than a Philadelphia-based poll worker counting votes last Thursday afternoon, you dig?
 
Oops, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to slip in that “you dig.”
 
In fact, the only thing I’m considering digging these days is a hole. A really big one. So I can jump down into it.
 
For days. Maybe weeks.
 
Mostly to hide from my mailman. He played a mean trick on me.
 
You see, he brought me a bogus letter the other day. I like to refer to it as a sort of, Trojan Horse epistle, if you will.
 
I mean, from the outside, it looked like a lovely hand-written letter from someone I assumed was a regular column-reader.
 
I based this supposition on the fact that the sweet little cream-colored envelope marked “Personal” had been sent to my attention via the newspaper’s headquarters and contained the name and return home address of the sender in the upper left-hand corner.
 
“Oh my gosh! Someone’s reaching out about ‘My Sentiments Exactly’,” I thought excitedly, hoping for a positively glowing review of my clever quips and keen turns-of-phase.
 
And by the end of it, I was, indeed, glowing. You know, from that certain hue of light yellowish green you turn right before you upchuck all over your loafers, yo.
 
Aw crikey. There I go again -- yo-yo-ing all over myself. Ding dang it. That’s what got me in such sea-sick shape in the first place, a’ight?
 
Hmm.
 
She didn’t precisely call out “a’ight”, but I did get her message loud and clear: my cutesy, comical commentary is not copasetic.
 
I digress. I think I’m still allowed to do that? Oh, shoot, I’m digressin’, anyway.
 
Bottom line: that allegedly sweet letter ripped me to shreds.
 
The opening seemed all love letter –but turned straight Shakespearean tragedy in exactly eight words.
 
“Dear, Patty, We enjoy your columns – except when…”
 
Thud.
 
I soon learned this was actually a scarlet letter – as in, the author stopped just short of suggesting I toss one around my neck in contrition and shame.
 
My “Friendly Complainer” (as she signed beneath her “Sincerely” closing) went on to chastise me for using phrases such as “anywho” and various other “teenybopper” idioms littering my otherwise fairly readable offerings.
 
“We hate these high school or ‘60s slang expressions…” she wrote, adding “How much cleaner and better your articles would be without them.”
 
Wow. Hate. It started to sink in. Someone out there hates me --or my phraseology, anywho-- enough to put it in writing and mail it to my person.
 
Gulp.
 
Madone! Who knew I was such a polarizing figure?
 
Oh yes, Madone! That’s a Pattyism I toss out when looking for a little divine intervention understanding something, you feel me?

Unsurprisingly, it is of Italian derivation. Speaking of my paternal heritage, my un-fan told me that even her Italian friends are tired of my use of a certain word in my column.
 
Sigh.
 
I am truly, deeply sorry if my puns offend anyone, anywhere, any time.
 
Shoot. Here I was thinking I was offering a little light-heartedness in a world of, how shall I say, crud-filled crappola?
 
In any event, I’ll try to do better heretofore. I’ll even apprehend my “Ahems”… at least for this week, Capisce?
 
Kimerer is a columnist who wonders if people really think she was a high-schooler in the ’60s? #OldButNotThatOld Contact her via www.patriciakimerer.com

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