A Slight Delay

Another letter, sent after the one below:

Mr. Wetauba,
 
It is with great and sincere regret that I read this missive on the loss of  your dear client. It is with further regret, however, that I must decline your generous offer.
 
Even a cursory inquiry, you see, would reveal that my credit is somewhat less than Sterling. It is, in fact–in the going financial parlance–something closer to “rust.” The road to this unfortunate set of circumstances is long, circuitous, and probably dull to the uninitiated. Therefore, I will lay it out in detail. Someone of your financial experience and acumen, I’m confident, cannot but be impressed. (more…)

I use Hotmail, the filtering on which is generally halfway decent. That’s a good thing, usually, but one side effect is that I don’t get those Nigerian letters anymore. If you’ve ever taken a class, or read a book, on creative writing, you know that they’re big on “writing prompts,” ranging from traditional exercises to things that could almost pass for Zen koans; those letters were great writing prompts. Here’s a reply that I wrote to one of them:

Mr. Oko,

I’m so sorry, but I’ve been burned so many times in the past giving to lost causes. I sent something to the order of seventy-five thousand dollars for hunger relief in Ethiopia, and they kept starving. Same with the Biafrans, back when aid to Biafra was all the rage. I’ve given to the Rotarians, the Moose Lodge (only to find out that the closest they get to a moose is the one over the fireplace; and here I thought they were helping those poor animals. The bastards). Even donated a substantial sum of money for a friend’s breast augmentation, because I knew it would make him happy… he changed his mind after others had also chipped in no small fortune for the hormones and the rest of the surgery. You can imagine our disillusion. (more…)