Incident studies in rejection
Dear Mr. Steffen,
We regret the need to send this letter. Your constant submissions to American Heritage Encyclopedia are rapidly descending into full-scale harassment. In addition, the content you continue to provide to our research team seems to be the result of some combination of fever dreams, an appalling public education, and the apparent ingestion of expired medication in what must have been staggering proportions. However, we are inclined to provide a few points of observation on your submitted “articles” before we end this chain of correspondence permanently.
1. “Tang”, regardless of prefix, is a registered trademark for an instant orange drink product. It has little if anything to do with the physical act of love.
2. Your recorded shouts of “Bush and Obama are puppets of the Federal Reserve!” and “You have to play ball!” seem both non-sequitur, and vaguely threatening. Enclosed and returned to you is your original cassette tape.
3. Your attempt at a timely submission regarding this week’s news is laudable, however:
a. The “Balloon Boy” story would be best collected into our yearly event almanac, as we are not a daily publication.
b. The aforementioned boy was not, by any measure or account, made of rubber, mylar, or other balloon construction material.
4. Setting aside the dubious issue of whether FEMA concentration camps exist today, there is no evidence (or possibility) that camps of any kind were sent back in time to house Japanese nationals during the Second World War. To be honest, this particular piece of content seems beyond the bounds of rational discourse, even by the standards you had previously set.
5. References to “going rogue” on us if we don’t publish you make little contextual sense, and, incidentally, further decrease your chances of publication.
We could go on, but knowing that the minutes spent responding to your baffling conceptions of reality are lost forever to the void of time makes such an endeavor bittersweet at best. We would suggest Wikipedia for future submission efforts, but perhaps a personal blog would be more appropriate… perhaps the backside of a bar napkin would be better still.
Please know that any further correspondence, recordings, drawings, or effigies sent to us from you will be received and retained as evidence of felony harassment, and the appropriate authorities will be notified.
Thank you for your cooperation, and may God have mercy on your soul.
Jared Pratt
Content Coordinator
American Heritage Encyclopedias