Oct 23, 2009

I'm not your friend anymore. You're not my friend, you're my cousin. Okay, I'm not your cousin anymore. You can't quit being my cousin, you'll always be my cousin. --Noah and Aiden having an argument. Bella Rum commented that I should write a snappy letter to the editor, seeing as how I have so many great opinions and all. Or maybe she just figured it would keep me from blogging about my complaints. I quit writing those letters years ago because (a) no one cares, and (b) sometimes you hear from the a-holes that you write about. Case in point. Many years ago, a fellow on the Hooterville city council got himself in a jam because when he took out of town trips on city business, he treated himself like a rock star. He spent the city's money like it was going out of style. He did all the things he always wanted to do, but that his civilian lifestyle, one fueled by his piss-ant teacher's salary, otherwise precluded. To make matters worse, he was found to be charging his expense to his City credit card and then also submitting the same expenses to the City for reimbursement. Eventually, someone in government tipped off the Hooterville Daily Dish about his antics and they took him to task, front page style. His response was to claim that there was no written guidance to help him in making these hard spending choices, so he just spent whatever occurred to him. Not exactly his words, but his meaning. This caused yours truly to fire off a letter to editor, in which I recalled an incident where my mom sent me to the grocery store for something and I decided to spend her change on candy. After that, she sent me with exact change. I wondered in my letter if the City might not want to consider giving Mr. Important City Council Guy exact change on future trips. I was quite pleased with myself. The day after the letter appeared, Mrs. Sneed called me at work to say that Mr. Important City Council Guy had called our house in an agitated state demanding to speak with me and making vague threats. In the course of his conversation with Mrs. Sneed, he demanded to know where I worked and to be given my work number. She refused to give him the number but did tell him I worked at Tedious Systems. So I called the City Council office and asked to speak to him. He wasn't available, so I left a message asking him to call me on my direct line. Within a few minutes Mr. Important City Council Guy called me back. I asked him where the hell he got off calling my house and harassing Mrs. Sneed. He denied calling, but said, "I have some pretty rough friends, it was probably one of them." Nice. We had a short discussion about the letter and his attempts to justify his misbehavior. He said to me, and I will never forget this moment, "You work at Tedious Systems, you know how tricky expenses can get." "Excuse me? I didn't tell you I worked at Tedious Systems?" "Yes, you did." "No I didn't, but my wife did when you called our house. Maybe I will call the newspaper and tell them about this whole business." He told me to call if I wanted to and hanged up. I thought about calling the paper or the mayor or someone, but he did in fact have rough friends. Discretion being the better part of valor and all. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

10 comments:

Megan said...

Holy cow! Really???

(That was a rhetorical really.)

Pauline said...

it seems the lesson here is to get some rough friends and proceed to do what you want. things haven't changed much in the ways of humanity over the years, have they?

alphabet soup said...

I'm with Pauline here, but then again people have been known to tell me I have a bad attitude. That Mr Important City Council Guy was quite a piece of work wasn't he?

Ms Soup

Reya Mellicker said...

You pushed his buttons, oh yeah! See? Like I said, I wish everyone listened to you. Everyone!

Nan Patience said...

Are you kidding?!

Terri@SteelMagnolia said...

HI there!!!!! How are you buddy.... I've been FB'ing.. not blogging.. but I do keep pics posted... I'm having fun going around to see my old blogger buds!!
xoxo

Steve Reed said...

Maybe he's like Sybil, and his "rough friends" are his other personalities??

Bella Rum said...

Megan took the words right out of my mouth. Holy cow!

...and I said you should write a letter because of your fine writing skills. I enjoy hearing your opinions. LOL

I have to tell you, Merle, I've had a similar experience. After writing letters and offering info. to our local paper about our Mayor "doing favors" for his relatives which included abusing his powers, our family experienced several unusual incidents... a relative whose boss was was threatened if he continued to employ said relative. A cousin whose business became of great interest to the city...repeated inspections and fines ensued, etc.

Free speech isn't really free, is it?

Anonymous said...

We "need" govt. because we're all idiots, which is the same reason it never works, imhodo(in my humble oft disregarded opinion;-)

If that offends anybody, well, I done said I was an idiot, didn't I?

Megan said...

Need more Sneed. How's the rose garden coming along?