March 5, 10:04 AM

Dear Philip Sir,

Bud! Horrors! I am delighted we have established the proper tone. You may continue to correspond with me if you feel it exalts you in some way. You should not always expect to hear from me in an expedient fashion. I am working on a lengthy indictment of the 21st century, and this “electronic mail” is my first target. What could be more insulting to us working boys than to have our attention demanded at all hours of the day and night by these electronic notifications informing us that we have received correspondence from someone who has acquired our address through often unsavory means. Someone once posted my electronic mail address to a website entitled “asshats.com.” I should perhaps refer myself to your “law office” in order to receive adequate and past due compensation for the many medical visitations necessitated by someone’s vicious instinct to make public my personal address. Each time I opened those electronic messages from visitors to “asshat.com,” my valve would slam shut. Often, I had to miss a week of work simply due to the indignities rendered upon me by my valve. Though I was not pleased with your overly familiar tone, I must say that I was relieved to receive an electronic mail from someone who, in fact, seems to have read my work and not someone simply mocking the photo of me with my hot dog cart posted to “asshats.com” I cannot imagine the undesirables who are visiting such a website on a regular basis, but I will say that such depraved specimens surely could not comprehend the scope of my own project which does sometimes indeed involve rendezvousing with a hot dog distribution carriage.

I would continue, dear Philip, but my hands have at this moment been seized by a malady which has rendered them frozen into the claw-like shapes this personal computer keyboard forces them to contort into. I am now typing this missive with one finger, and if I do not stop soon, I shall miss my lunch, which does atrocious things to my valve. I believe I hear Mother creating a cheese dip.

Sincerely,

Ignatius J. Reilly