Email

A couple days ago I got this very funny email from a reader, Laureen:

I’m not one for commenting on posts but I just had to ask. . .how is it that the husband of the daughter of the Avon World Sales Leader may have the West Nile Virus? Don’t you have enough Skin So Soft at your disposal to kill a small horse, let alone repel one renegade mosquito?

Good point! Turns out Jon doesn’t have West Nile, according to the blood tests. Whew, right? AT LEAST THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN AN EXPLANATION. He has been in bed for seven days now, has had a constant migraine headache, backache, fever, and chills. And yet, YET! There is indeed a yet! The man cannot stop groping me. He is so sick that he can’t stand up for 20 seconds without needing to barf, but he can summon the strength to grab my butt inappropriately. If he dies before I do, I can guarantee that while I’m saying my goodbyes over his coffin he will reach up his embalmed arms and squeeze my boobs.

It’s been a long, tough week, and I thought it might be time to feature another hand-picked selection of some of the world’s most condescending hatemail. Because there’s nothing quite as fun as going back to read the email equivalent of hammering nails into your forehead.

Let’s start with this one from Anonymous Chicken Liver:

Jon needs to get a real job again, and you need to be a real mom and raise your child without letting Jon and the babysitter, and family do it. do you even know how to, most importantly do you want to? You know you have NO idea what it means to be a stay home full time mommy. you’ve had so much help and people step in when you failed you missed so much of what your daughter had to give.

Maybe the reason people told you to quit whining is, It’s all all YOU. You need meds for this, you’re a loon, and you go to the physo ward, you blah, blah, blah. You know you have so many people kiss your ass you wouldn’t know how to live without that kind of praise. If these people heard an everyday mother say how she couldn’t wait for the next ten minutes to be over, how her own child drove her nuts and she didn’t want to be around her. they would think horrible mean things about you. But because of blog celebrity they kiss your ass and hope you’ll come to their blog. You have Cancer and it’s sucks, my mother is 62 with four children and 11 grandchildren and she had Lung Cancer–she loves and raised us without my father who worked full time, without the help of others. She hasn’t even shared it beyond the walls of our home. You need and want the sympathy. Good god, Heather grow the fuck up already.

Don’t have more children; poor Leta is trying to figure out who’s the mommy, Jon or the babysitter. Get another dog, they only live for about 15 years and wont pass along on things you’ve done to them to screw them up.

Oh, HI! Sorry. I fell asleep after the first paragraph. Nothing quite as thrilling as a long-winded hatemailer. They are so much more fun to read when brief and full of eye-catching punctuation. Like this one from Ronald:

You dog is STUPID!!!!!!!

That’s a thoughtful critique, Ronald. The only adequate response to this would be: So is you mom!!!!!!!

Next up is one from Mia, a repeat hatemailer:

I mean really, do you have anything better to do with YOUR life than write about your dog licking plates and your husbands shoes? While I understand that cancer is scary (I’m 24 and had to have an ovary and a tumor the size of a grapefruit ON IT removed), you really cannot be suprised that people are a little put off by your tiny bit of “over drama” about a spot of skin cancer. I just think it’s silly that you are saying others have no life, when your life is (other than family, which we all have) writing a blog. Look at things from someone else’s point of view.

My only question is, why did she capitalize ON IT? Was that really necessary? The next time I want to scare the shit out of Jon I’m going to sneak up behind him while he’s changing clothes, poke my finger in his butt and say, “Grapefruit ON IT!”

This next one is from CB, also a repeat hatemailer:

Stop playing the cancer card, Heather. It was okay in that first long post about it. But how stupid of you to mention it in the same sentence as your husband’s clogs. You have no idea what it’s like to really have cancer. Your bump on your arm could be serious, but chances are it’s not. You’re going too far for the sake of having something interesting to say. Shameful, Heather.

Where have I heard that before? Shameful, shameful… let me see… oh, I remember! IN THE LAST 75 EMAILS SHE HAS SENT ME.

Here’s one from Tara:

You are not different then anyone else.
Maybe you doing better because you have a caring husband and a fruitful life style.
Why are you asking for money for doing what you do?
Why can’t I learn from your doings?

KIND REGARDS “‘ In sarcastic voice to myself”

Something tells me Tara doesn’t speak English as a first language.

This next one has to be one of my favorite hatemails ever, from Janet:

How dare you encourage people to help treat stress in their live with a desert? Do you not see how this is how America gets fat? They eat to make themselve feel better, and they gain wait. It’s not healthy, not at all.

I assume she’s referring to this post. I see a masthead in my near future: dooce, leading cause of obesity in America.

Or how about one from repeat hatemailer, Robert:

Have you ever thought about renaming your site to AllAboutLeta.com? At least that would be a more accurate reflection of the subject matter of your web site. I check in, once in a blue moon, to see if you have written anything that would be interesting to someone who isn’t raising a two year old. Your universe seems very, very small.

Once in awhile, you should just climb out of that rut and write about things beyond Leta, your perfect mom, the degenerate Mormons, and the like. There is a big world out here.

As an American I have a God-given right to believe that the world doesn’t extend beyond my living room. That goes hand-in-hand with my right to buy a semi-automatic gun on sale at Wal-Mart.

This next one is from Bill:

If I have to see another “Mom says something witty to their kid” journal, I’ll probably hit myself in the stomach until I vomit my Capri Sun and ranch-flavored rice cakes all over my monitor.

Hookers are a dime a dozen, but mommy attention whore sites are a penny a truck load. You could do the world a favor and delete your site to make room for more interesting mommy blogs such as: www.ibeatmykidswithaspoon.com or www.trainingmykidsforslavelabor.net or even www.whogivesashitaboutmykidsexceptme.cc. It might sound horrible, but much like the body of a motorcyclist wrapped around a telephone pole after he hit it at 90MPH, you just can’t help but stop and appreciate it.

In closing, please get off the Internet.

I was thinking more along the lines of www.BillNeedsAGoodOneUpThePooper.net.

Reader, Brooklyn, has some burning complaints:

I previously delighted in reading your blog for your motherhood opinions and discussions of real issues, but now it’s like who gives a fuck about the fact that boo hoo you have to have your sewer line replaced….please find the life you once had that had a more global outlook. I now check in occasionally to see your photos, which for the most part I believe are interesting photos taken by a talented woman. Please make an effort to make your writing the same. Oh, and for fucks sake, please move on…Chuck Fridays are miserably old…find a new theme. Perhaps you find your dog infinitely interesting, but the rest of us would like to see more photos that extend past your home and backyard.

Brooklyn, just for you, here is a picture of my dog in my backyard:

And another one from Mia:

Your site is boring now. You used to have so much to talk about, but in recent months, that has obviously dwindled. If you were writing this blog PURELY for yourself, you could say “Screw you, it’s for me”. But with the 272937 ads on the page, it’s easy to see it’s a site you’re using to make money. So please, do something for your audience, and write something a bit more thought provoking than how much your dog likes pizza and how you feed your child mostly chocolate. I suspect the reason people continue to visit dooce.com is to see if MAYBE you’ve gone back to your old self. Just like no one cares about a wedding except for the bride, no one cares about a kid, unless it’s theirs.

Whoa, wait a minute. Almost three hundred thousand ad units? I need to talk to my ad network. You’re only supposed to see a couple of graphic ads! Try emptying your cache, Mia. Or maybe? Maybe you should get up slowly and walk away from your computer. Into the loving arms of oncoming traffic.