Dear Heat and Humidity,

We need to talk.  Right now I’m sitting perfectly still in front of a fan, and guess what?  I’m sweating like a fat man at an Indian restaurant.  I’m not generally a sweaty person.  In fact, my distorted self-image often conceives of itself as having transcended sweat.  If I were giving a fake name like “Mega T. Ron” to the hostess at Red Lobster, I wouldn’t break a sweat.  Sometimes when I go to the gym and get on the running-in-place-from-your-invisible-worst-enemies machine, I hardly break a sweat.  When I steal strange, overpriced, fermented drinks with floaty chunks in them from Whole Foods, I’m cool as a cucumber.  So how come right now, as I sit here, doing practically nothing except moving my fingers, am I sweating?  

Heat and humidity, your unholy alliance is an insult to benignly inactive people the world over.  I feel a good sweat should be earned, from things like lying to your loved ones, or cheating on your taxes, or voting republican.

I challenge you to a bout of mortal combat.  Untangle yourselves heat and humidity, and fight like a man.  Like a really small, lazy man.  Only then will I totally crush you with my half-assed muscles.  

Sweatily yours,

Cindy

Dear Starbucks and Borders,

Please join the 21st century and offer free wireless.  It’s one thing to be a giant, lame, corporation.  It’s another to be cheap and withholding.  I’m willing to overlook the former, especially when it’s hot outside and your air conditioning is turned to sub-zero for chilling the hearts of mindless consumers.  However, it has recently come to my attention that Copps, McDonald’s, and Casa De Lara have free wifi.  A grocery store, a greasy fast food joint, and a Mexican restaurant.  You are being outdone by places where wifi is beyond unnecessary.  And yet, here I am wondering if it might be worth it to chill out in the produce aisle with my McDonald’s coffee and a quesadilla, just to enjoy the lure of free wifi.

Free wifi.  Do it.  

Warmest regards,

Cindy

Dear Laundry 101,

I am writing because I feel your name is misleading.  When I enter a place of business that claims to have “101″ status, I imagine remedial, but reliable services.  However, of your 50 some odd washing machines and dryers, nearly 30-40% are, “out of order.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In fact, these machines have been out of order for at least several months.  I will be the first to admit that I know very little about the art of washer and dryer maintenance.  I imagine it requires an above average knowledge of electrical wiring and circuitry.  I do however know quite a bit about 101 level courses, and your laundromat, with its voracious apathy toward washer/dryer upkeep, should be more aptly renamed “Laundry 100.”  Yes, it’s a minor quibble, but one that I think would better advertise the true nature of your services.

See you in a month,

Cindy

Dear Gratuitous Hipster Moustache,

I realize that my lonely cry into the dark against the perseverance of the hipster crustache will most likely go unheeded, but I feel duty-bound to devote this mini-missive to those who would insist on taking what is at best a humorous nod to the 19th and early 20th centuries and allowing it to walk the streets of the 21st.  The hipster crustache, as it shall henceforth be known, looks eerily similar to those found in early 20th century portraiture.  

Fig. 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This image, though you may think it is a new indie supergroup from Montreal, is actually a picture of railway workers from the early 1900s!  These moustached gentlemen, with their fine waistcoats, ties, vests, and handkerchiefs, actually worked with their bare hands to maintain the early rail systems.  They wear moustaches as a symbol of their rugged manhood, genteel virility, and readiness to mate.  I believe the modern hipster crustache likewise endeavors to attach these qualities to itself.

Fig. 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately, the modern hipster crustache fails to achieve equivalent levels of manliness as established by their late 19th and early 20th century predecessors.  While this species of facial hair denotes a certain aloof yet overstated willingness to mate, the necessary corollaries of virility and manliness remain sadly absent.  

I am no expert on facial hair, being unable to grow any myself, but in the unlikely event that a super virus eradicates all men from earth except two, one who wears a hipster crustache and one who doesn’t, I am positive that the one without the crustache will get laid more.

Best Regards,

Cindy

Dear M. Night Shyamalan,

I recently paid money to see “The Happening.”  

You know those people who go through life thinking that everything happens for a reason, that whether it’s Fate or God or some Sentient Energy Stream pulling the strings, every single occurrence, from the sip of tea we take first thing in the morning to the mosquito you kill as its biting you at dusk, serves a specific purpose in Existence?  And that consequently, as we wither away into old age, we can look back on life’s events, from the most miniscule events to its most grandiose peaks, and have no regrets?  Well?  I am not one of those people.  In fact, I am often filled with regret, and after seeing your “movie”, I was not only filled with regret, but contempt.  

Now, I am not a filmmaker.  Why?  Because I would suck at making films.  I would wake up and say to myself:  ”You know what film needs to be made?  A film about a cataclysmic nuclear event where a family of stray Grizzly Bears swims in a contaminated lake and develop gills and webbed paws.  This family of water breathing grizzlies then takes to the open ocean, only to find themselves in an epic territorial battle against a school of great white sharks, who have likewise been accidentally gifted with the ability to foresee the future.  These prophetic great whites are being hunted by a team of evil Russian scientists, who are secretly being funded by a megalomaniac survivalist living deep in Alaskan interior, who is actually a deposed Croation Prince seeking revenge on the World.  Eventually, the Grizzlies and the Great Whites realize  (by looking into the future) that the only way to survive is to join forces, lure the Russians into a battle at sea, and eat them all.  

YES.  My film would suck.  It would cost billions of dollars to make, and scores of animals and extras would die in the process making my film.  But see, I have the foresight not to let this film see the light of day.  And I would definitely not want to be in my film.  

M. Night Shyamalan, all I ask is that you exercise restraint, take a break, take ten years off.  From my ill-informed perspective as a non-filmmaker, it is my theory that you wrote the happening while sitting on the toilet with your laptop reading headlines about how the honeybees have mysteriously disappeared.  Had you executed a number 1, The Happening might never have happened.  But perhaps an odd twist of fate–too much chinese takeout the night before or an allergic reaction to dairy–may have kept you on that toilet for 25-30 minutes, allowing you to build those headlines about honeybees into a whole movie script.  

Now I suffer the consequences.  I have to face my friends and family and admit that I willingly watched your film in the theater, albeit because of the company I was with.  But I’m not here to point fingers at anyone.  I’m here to let you know that if you ever, ever want to make another movie, please contact me first.  I have a very workable draft of “Grizzly vs. Great White” for you.  

Yours Truly,

Cindy

Dear Airport Food Court Restaurants,

Please stop the bad punning.  For the love of god, you have a CAPTIVE audience.  No one can escape your foul, grade D food product.  Once we’ve made it past those security lines there’s no way we can get any food other than what lies in your rank buffet lines.  So spare us your bad punning.  Mex and the City?  Really?  Was that the best you could do?  At JFK no less?  I just want you to know that the man looking so intently at your menu, you know, the one in the striped shirt–he’s hungry.  He wants Mexican food.  Even third-rate airport Mexican food.  And he’s going to get it from Mex and the City.  You want to know what else?  If you had named your stand “Handheld Ground Meat”, old stripey would have showed up.  He’s hungry and doesn’t give a shit because he’s been traveling for 8 hours on nothing but peanuts.  But you know what?  I won’t eat at Mex and the City because it’s just lousy punning.  If you want my patronage next time I’m trapped at JFK, please change your name to The Ground Meat and Greet.  Sincerely Yours,

Cindy