'A dark and empty mind'

Son of a ghostly sea cook, on top of everything else, I have a someone from Lily Dale mad at me. That is not a good thing to have! This resident of Lily Dale left a message for me yesterday. Did I say a message? I meant a comment.

And it was not nice!

Especially the part about my not being a good writer. Zut alors, and here I am working on this book. What if this person is a medium and gets in touch with Leonard Pennario and tells him I am not a good writer? Now this. That is what Howard always says when there is something new to worry about.

The person also said I have a dark and empty mind.

Well, I will say this for him, he signed his name! I hate to say this but it makes me like him and now I feel bad that I offended him. His name is Bob. Bob, thank you for signing your name! I did not mean to make you feel bad about Lily Dale. It is just that Lily Dale's local industry is not compatible with my beliefs, also I like to joke around a little too much. Lily Dale is fun to joke about.

What about Lily Munster?


She is fun to joke about too!

See, that is what happens when someone signs his name. Both of you treat each other with a little more respect than you would otherwise.

I worry about the anonymity of the Internet. People are anonymous and they feel free to fling anything at you. And the Internet is instant. You do not have to type out an email address, let alone write a letter or find a stamp.

Which, finding a stamp is not anything anyone wants to have to do. Zut alors, I went to the post office the other day. My friend Diane is getting over cancer and I had this CD I wanted to send her. This was this little downtown post office near Channel 7, I think it is. Near WNED.

It was like China!

When I got there, there was one person in line. I got into the line with my little CD package. We were soon joined by a third person who did that thing I hate that people often do in lines. He stood not behind me but sort of next to me. As if he were challenging my place in line. Meaning that when I -- we -- finally reached the front of the line, the clerk would have to ask, "Who's next?"

The good news was that did not actually come to pass. There were two clerks on duty and at no time did either of them look up to meet anyone's eyes. They were busy with two customers and they stayed busy with these two customers. One customer was a foreigner who was there with another foreigner and I heard them saying in some accent that they had a lot of things to take care of.

The clock ticked and the line grew to 15 people. I counted.

I had to give up! I mean, I finally had to step out of line and go back to the office.

Diane still does not have her CD! And it is Freddy Cole. Freddy Cole is a long-running joke with us because once he hung out with us in the Anchor Bar and we could not even eat our chicken wings, we were laughing so hard at his jive. I could not send Diane this CD because our Post Office is like China. It is worse than China. It is like Mozambique.

Alas.

And now there is this medium mad at me and he is going to tell Leonard Pennario that I am a bad writer and my mind is dark and empty.

It is a strange and frightening world!