I write. I write and write and write. But you never tell me anything. And I'm tired of your crap. Sick and tired!
I admit, that trip to Idaho didn't go so well. When I insulted your mother at the bed and breakfast it was completely within your rights to kidney-punch me like that. Like my pappy used to say, no pain, no gain. No love without the glove. No vanilla without the gorilla.
But the fact of the matter is I can't exist without you. You're the wind beneath my wings. The mechanic beneath my Camaro. The moldy quarters beneath my couch cushions. You're...my readers!
It's okay. Don't be shy! We're all friends here. I know your attitude when you pick up the Press everyday. It's a unique one for sure. A fragrant melange of distrust and despair.
"Gee," you say. "Can this middling university rag alleviate the crushing monotony that is my everyday existence?
"Gosh," you intone. "Am I really willing to sacrifice a whole four minutes of the time I spend staring at the wall above my professor's head to allow myself to be provoked into vague annoyance by the arrogant ruminations of the opinions page?
"Golly," you wheeze. "Have the lowlife scum of Tempe committed any errors comedic enough to momentarily distract and amuse me in the Police Beat?
"Santa Maria," you bray. "Dare I open yon fearful folded vellum lest my soul turn the color of smushed concrete and disappear in a poof of air-conditioned nothingness, never again to light up the sockets of my bleary, eyeballs?"
Yes! You know it's true! You mustn't hide your feelings. I'm here to help you. I'm just like you. My sympathy is no pose. In fact, I'm only working here to bring them down from the inside. They're already starting to suspect me. Yesterday I found a bullet in my cheerios. It was a grim time for me. There was a maze on the back of the box, though. That was pretty fun.
Anyway. The point is, I treasure my job. Behind cow tipping, writing is my favorite thing in the whole wide world. I like to write. When I write things, females swoon, bake me cakes, and stop making derisive comments about my shabby appearance.
Once when I was writing, a sex-crazed sugar mama burst into my small gray cell, threw herself upon my bed, held a machete to her throat, and demanded I make love to her lest she spill the contents of her jugular on my $14.99 Target comforter like so much raspberry Kool-aid.
But it wasn't meant to be. I was writing a column on the troubling racism in Scandinavian maple syrup commercials, and my devotion to duty was too great. But it's okay. I didn't even like that comforter.
So here it is. E-mail me and tell me what you think of how we - that is, the State Press editorial board and I - are doing. Ask, nay, order us to keep it up, shut it up, write about unicorns more often: you name it. What do you want to see addressed? How's life on campus? What's your least favorite pudding flavor? With luck, we can compile some sort of State of the Union for the ASU student body.
And ask questions, for they shall be answered. Next week, I'll print the least obnoxious of your dumb responses, mock them thoroughly, and scintillate you even more with my brilliant wit.
If you want to remain anonymous then say so in the e-mail, and I'll take your identity to the grave with me or face death for breaking the Journalist Code of Honor. And if I don't get enough feedback, I'm just going to make up something fictional.
Great, I'm glad we had this little talk. Let's never fight again.
Reach the reporter: matthew.neff@asu.edu.
