The Blog of David M. Conte

“My Snarky Fan Mail Response from Author David Sedaris“

I wrote a letter to David Sedaris, and he replied

Photo by Nathan Engel on Pexels.com

I’m a fan of the author David Sedaris. Not in the he-can-do-no-wrong kind of way, but in the way that his storytelling and humor bring a smile to my face. So, I’m just your regular fan.

As one might do, I got the idea to write him a fan letter one day. The only other fan letter I had written was to Jim Carrey in the early 2000s after reading an interview with him in Playboy Magazine. Several months after writing him, I received an autographed headshot in the mail signed, “Spank you very much, Jim Carrey.”

Back to David Sedaris. So my letter to him went as follows:

Dear Mr. Sedaris,

I’m writing to congratulate you on actualizing your tremendous talent. It might seem rather odd that I’m doing this now since you’ve been a successful, famous writer for over two decades. But I would imagine that there is no greater occupation on earth for someone with an aptitude for writing than that of a working writer.

So please keep up the good work until you’re at least ninety, will you? I thoroughly enjoy reading your stuff.

Oh, and I’ve written a thing or two in my day as well, such as the following poem:

There was a man named Jim

Who wasn’t very slim.

Once he jumped up in a roar

And broke his goddamn kitchen floor.

Sincerely,

David Conte

Two months later, I received a Roald Dahl postcard in the mail with the following handwritten words on it:

David, David, David,

Poems have a meter. They’re not just sentences of random lengths that rhyme. You need to rethink the poem you sent me.

Just a suggestion.

Sincerely,

David Sedaris

Recently, I was thinking, Well, it’s been a couple of years now. Perhaps I should send Mr. Sedaris another poem. Free verse, of course.

  • “A Forgotten Illness”

    What is ME/CFS and why is it so stigmatized?

    The human body is pretty amazing. It can also be a catastrophic nightmare if something goes really wrong. I’m a little disappointed we all didn’t get an owner’s manual, with a section on troubleshooting.

    I have a chronic illness called ME/CFS (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis), also known as CFS or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and I mainly talk openly about it because of the surrealness of the condition — in very severe states, it is compared to having end-stage AIDS, but for months, years, or even decades — and for the fact that there is no approved treatment worldwide and, of course, no cure.

    Few of the experimental or alternative treatments for it are covered by health insurance, hospitals don’t treat the condition nor do they accept patients who have it for extended stays, doctors are not taught it in medical school despite the disease having been around since before the 1950s, and the general public is largely unaware that it even exists, despite it afflicting up to 30 million people globally.

    In 1955, there was an outbreak of the disease at the Royal Free Hospital Group in London. Fifteen years later, two prominent psychiatrists decided, without proper evidence and having never seen a patient, that the disease was “mass hysteria,” psychosomatic, all in the person’s head, and that stigma spread and persisted for decades … and, in some circles, it is still believed today. However, research in recent years has shown that ME/CFS is indeed a very real, serious, biological disease that affects multiple body systems.

    Sadly, funding for the disease by the NIH (National Institutes of Health) in the US has been historically low. Abysmal, actually. Several years ago, I read that more research funding is allocated toward male pattern baldness each year than to ME/CFS.

    The experts who currently study it today, whether via government or private funding, all agree that it is an extremely complex and difficult disease to solve. The estimated recovery rate for someone with ME/CFS is a mere 5%. And those who recover, each seem to recover in various ways that aren’t necessarily replicable.

    Sometimes, we don’t even know why these patients recover or if they even truly had ME/CFS in the first place, as there are currently no biomarkers for the disease. There are a certain set of symptoms one must have to receive a diagnosis, however, the prominent ones being PEM (post-exertional malaise) — a worsening of symptoms upon mental or physical exertion — unrefreshing or nonrestorative sleep, cognitive dysfunction, and persistent, unexplained fatigue for more than six months.

    Most patients fall ill with this condition after a viral infection. In my case, it was a virus followed by two weeks of severe emotional stress that triggered the illness.

    Spouses, parents, family members, etc., are forced to become caregivers to their very sick family members, with no governmental support. Money is spent on alternative treatments and supplements and healing modalities, all out-of-pocket. Patients and their families can spend thousands, tens of thousands, and in some cases even hundreds of thousands of dollars on experimental treatments that come with no guarantee of success. Many patients set up GoFundMe sites to help cover some of their medical costs.

    I was fortunate enough to receive some generous donations through my GoFundMe campaign and have used the money for ongoing care with an integrative medicine specialist. I consider it nothing short of a miracle that I had improved for a full year in 2023 — from severe and bedridden to moderate and unbedridden — via treatment with said medical specialist.

    Now I’m back down again from a setback, in bed mostly, but I still keep hope alive. The year I’d improved, I hit six baseballs down at the field one day with my son after having been severe and bedridden for six years. I try to remember that.

    I don’t know what the future holds. None of us do. But I keep open the possibility, however small, of another miracle happening for me.

    I’m not an big advocate for this disease either, not by any means. Just a regular guy who wants a better quality of life, like the rest of us with this horrendous condition.

  • “The Stepfather”

    A weird time at a summer work party

    It was July of 2004 and I’d accompanied my then-girlfriend, now-wife to her summer work party. Kathleen was employed by a small financial services company in the city and had a boss who frequently pampered his employees.

    After an afternoon spent playing flag football and various games, while in between eating lobster and watermelon, we all congregated near the marina in Boston and took our seats at a long table in a sectioned-off parking lot area outside a quaint restaurant.

    Seafood and beer and wine were soon served. And I found myself chatting away with Kathleen’s colleague sitting across from me, an affable guy with jet-black hair who looked about my age.

    We were getting really buzzed from all the alcohol, and though I don’t recall exactly how we broached the subject, we instantly began bonding over the 1987 cult horror film The Stepfather, starring Terry O’Quinn.

    Now this guy was really into the movie. He started quoting the famous line Terry O’Quinn’s character says:

    “This is supposed to be — a family!”

    I laughed.

    But then he got louder and kept repeating the line, each time slamming his hand down on the table.

    I thought to myself, WTF? This is so embarrassing.

    He cackled loudly.

    Soon, everyone at the table began to take notice. Judging by the look on people’s faces, nobody knew what the hell he was talking about. “This is supposed to be — a family!” He slammed his hand down on the table once again, then laughed maniacally.

    Drunk and weirded out, I giggled uncontrollably like a little girl.

    The party of guests apparently decided to resume their conversations, however, pretending that nothing was happening.

    After a while, I seemed to get really comfortable with the situation, laughing with gay abandon each time he said the line. At one point, I even looked at him adoringly like he was my idol.

    This went on for half the dinner.

    Two weirdos, bonding over the movie The Stepfather — although him very much more so than me on that day.

  • “Dear Jasmine, Terry Stopped Showering and Now Cleans Himself Only With Baby Wipes”

    My follow-up letter to Jasmine in Australia

    Dearest Jasmine,

    I’m so sorry we weren’t able to meet up with you at Pride Day in Sydney back in February. Terry has become very antisocial, and not to mention a real environmentalist.

    Back in March, he stopped showering and now cleans himself weekly with only baby wipes. He said each person has to do their part to combat climate change, and this is his way of doing it — by not showering.

    Anyhow, he and I are sitting here at a coffee shop in Montana and —

    “For crying out loud, Terry, get your fingers out of your mouth, you disgusting slob.” I’m so sorry, Jasmine. Terry has really let himself go in every way imaginable. He has the manners of a ravenous raccoon rummaging through a dumpster.

    For the past two years, he’s been sending weekly fan mail to Crispin Glover. He said something about Mr. Glover having “all the answers to life.”

    Anyhow, do you think you can make it out to Montana for a few days, Jasmine? I know it’s a long way from Sydney, but we’d really love to see you.

    Ever since Terry and I moved out here two days ago, we’ve been at each other’s throats. He insists we need to downsize from our Lumberjack Weed-Pro 420 camper. However, I beg to differ.

    It’s almost like Terry’s become a different person since finding that Dwyane The Rock Johnson mask on the side of the road back in Ding Dong, Texas, where we lived for a short while. He wears it all the time. I just want to punch him in the face when I see him with it on.

    Oh, Jasmine, I’m sorry. I’m going on about Terry and I forgot to tell you I —

    “Terry, what the hell are you doing? Get the fuck off me. I’m trying to write a letter here to Jasmine and I can’t do it if you’re cradling me and making crow noises.”

    Jasmine, listen, I’m so sorry. Terry’s been speaking in tongues and trying to lick his elbows ever since he took a high dose of DMT at the Dua Lipa concert in Albania.

    It’s just ridiculous.

    I mean, when was the last time you saw a grown man rub garlic aioli on his bare chest? Well, Terry did that to himself last week after his stupid friend Ferris dared him to. I swear, he’s so immature sometimes, Jasmine.

    By the way, I should probably tell you why I’m writing. I just — just feel so badly still about hanging off The Sydney Harbour Bridge that one time, and I —

    “Terry, knock it off right now, please! Stop doing The Sprinkler dance right in front of me. You’re not a rap star, Terry. I told you that I don’t know how many goddamn times.”

    Jasmine, I’m quite sorry again. Please do consider visiting me and Terry, will you? Montana has the best Bison burgers and cinnamon rolls in the country. If it would make you happy, the three of us could sit around Terry’s new battery-powered interactive teaching globe and listen to Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond” to our heart’s content.

    “Terry, you fucker! Stop eating the flower petals off the flowers I just picked not even a half hour ago. Have you no shame, you son of a bastard?”

    Jasmine, I really must go now. Please write back and let us know if you’ll make it to Montana. Maybe at that point, Terry will have stopped eating everything he looks at.

    OK, be well, dear Jasmine.

    Hugs and handshakes,

    Davidu

  • “Parenting with My Life-Altering Chronic Illness is Like Walking on Glass Both Barefoot and Naked”

    And you’re prepared for none of it

    Across from my bed, Charlie sat in the glider chair playing a video game on my phone. I’d been tasked with watching him, five years young, for an hour as I lay in bed. My wife had to take our other son to baseball and didn’t want to bring his little brother along this time.

    As I turned over laboriously on my left side in bed, I asked Charlie if he could stop for a minute and come give me a hug. He immediately obliged. When he climbed onto the bed and bent down to hug me, however, he accidentally kneed me in the balls. “Charlie, you kicked Papa in the balls,” I said.

    “Sorry,” he said, smiling.

    Later, I heard him downstairs having a meltdown. Instantly, I felt the urge to comfort him but because I was flaring with chronic illness symptoms and confined to bed, that wasn’t going to be a possibility.

    Or was it?

    Knowing Charlie was in distress and that his little brain couldn’t figure out how to manage his emotions, I immediately set a bold plan in motion. Slowly rising up in bed, I stepped onto the floor and panned the room like Arnold in The Terminator. No neighbors’ kids were lurking in the corner waiting to blast me with sawed-off water guns. No evidence of foul play, such as a half-eaten yogurt on my nightstand left by my oldest son, a bag of Cheez-Its on the floor, or a bottle of bad cologne on the dresser.

    I saw him hitting his mama in the shins with his small fists when I finally made it downstairs. “What kind of shit is going on — ?” I muttered to myself.

    “NO, Charlie. NO. Charlie? I said to stop hitting me. You’re hurting me. Charlie!”

    The lactic acid in my body was building up as if I were a Solo Stove portable fire pit. I walked over to Charlie, who was like Jake Paul training for his fight against Mike Tyson. Mama’s shins were getting pummeled.

    I managed to get down to his level without my GI symptoms rendering me motionless in the fetal position on the floor. His face was covered in dirt, he had green chalk all over his forehead and knees, and tears were streaming down his face.

    “Charlie, honey,” I said, grabbing his wrists mid-punch. “It’s okay.”

    He cried some more. “I’m going to take you upstairs, clean you up, and you’ll listen to some music with Papa and play on your IPad.”

    His breathing slowed and he began to calm himself. I put my arms around him and hugged him. “It’s okay, my son. You’ll come up with me.”

    Charlie wiped his tears and gave me a crooked smile.

    But then I suddenly remembered I was very fatigued and symptomatic. And that maybe lying on the kitchen floor for a respite and yelling, “At least my mama loves me,” wouldn’t be all it was cracked up to be.

    I thought about asking Charlie if he might carry me back upstairs to my bedroom. At that point, Mama had left the scene and was presumably flying one-way, first-class to Costa Rica.

    I accidentally farted loudly. The pressure of the moment was getting to me.

    “Let’s go, Charlie,” I said, “sit with me here for a minute. Quick.” I safely made it to the dining room and sat on one of the crayon-stained, chicken nugget-stained, strawberry-stained dining chairs.

    I faced the chair next to it that looked like it had been previously shat on by a bison, pushing it back just far enough to put my feet up on it.

    I closed my eyes and started some slow nasal breathing. Charlie hadn’t stabbed me in the neck with a nearby blunt object, so I figured I’d be okay for a few minutes.

    When my symptoms started to abate, I knew it was time to haul my chronically ill keister back upstairs. Charlie came in tow.

    Back in my bedroom, I collapsed on the bed, totally worn out from the parental crisis intervention.

    “Alexa, play ‘Thunder’ by Imagine Dragons,” I heard Charlie say.

    “Just a young gun with a quick fuse. I was uptight, wanna let loose. I was dreaming of bigger things. And wanna leave my old life behind,” played from my Alexa. Charlie hopped up on my bed and started jumping around to the music.

    “Charlie, I’m gonna puke. Stop jumping, please,” I growled.

    Charlie kept jumping.

    “Alexa, play ‘I Go to Extremes” by Billy Joel,” he then said.

    “Good God,” I said, closing my eyes. “I gotta clean you up. Give me a couple of minutes. We need some baby wipes. Do we have baby wipes?”

  • “A Panic Attack Sent Me to the Hospital”

    I blame it on Todd

    Winter in Massachusetts. On Saturdays, in my younger years, I normally went out with my friend Todd. He was into skiing and winter sports, snowmobiling, anything that involved “powder,” as it were.

    It wasn’t my thing, winter activities, of any kind. Still, I liked the company, and riding around in his slick Infinity to look at new sleds and skis in those lodge stores, about two hours up north, if only to get out of the house during another miserable New England winter, was something I enjoyed.

    Once, Todd and I smoked a joint on the way to get his car serviced. But before we toked up, we stopped at Dunkin Donuts for iced coffees. It was summer. I must have been about 21 years old.

    I drank that iced coffee so fast, not realizing how much caffeine was in it — I wasn’t a regular coffee drinker at the time — and combined with the marijuana, it sent me into a full-blown, terrible panic attack, something I had never experienced before.

    The next thing I knew, an ambulance had arrived and I was taken to the hospital.

    The hospital bed was uncomfortable. I had a tube coming out of my arm, and my testicles were all sweaty. My father’s were too, I assumed. I would’ve bet anything on it. As much as I wanted to separate myself from my family — “I might be from them but not of them” — I couldn’t escape the sweaty balls commonality.

    “Your father gets that, too,” my mother once said, unprompted, after she saw me with my hand down my pants.

    My whole family was there — my parents, my brother and my sister, huddled around me as I lay in the hospital bed with black char all over my lips.

    When a drug overdose or a suspected drug overdose happens, they’ll give you this black char to drink. And you have to keep drinking it — and it’s completely repulsive — until all the drugs are out of your system. The black char slowly sucks the drugs out like it’s some medical vacuum cleaner.

    Not only was I feeling awful and vulnerable, but I was also completely embarrassed. It was the first time I had seen all four family members at once appear deeply concerned for my well-being.

    To add insult to injury, my brother’s friend Jim, a firefighter and EMT, was one of the people who happened to be working that day and brought me to the hospital.

    Years later, I ran into Jim at a bar. We shared a drink and he told me the story of how he could hear my parents, before they came inside the hospital to see me, bickering outside, as he looked down on them from the open second-floor window.

    “I knew it was them,” he said with a laugh.

    “Sounds about right,” I told him, and took a sip of my beer.

  • “Dear Jasmine, Terry Is Back From the Dead”

    For what reason, I don’t know

    Dearest Jasmine,

    This morning, I awoke to the crinkling sound of wrapping and saw a shadowy figure standing at the foot of my bed, eating a Kit Kat. When I inched closer, I immediately got a whiff of the halitosis and this meant only one thing.

    It was fucking Terry. He’s back from the dead.

    Apparently, he was so thrilled two people showed up at his memorial at the local dump — one a maintenance worker on lunch break — that he asked God if he could come back to life for a few days. And can you believe it, God obliged?

    If you remember the last time I saw Terry alive, it was in our backyard. He was playing with an injured squirrel, making crow noises again , and in between singing Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie.”

    To be honest, I wasn’t missing him all that much. A week before he died, he told me he’d eaten breakfast with an extraterrestrial he met in our backwoods near a muddy creek. Now that he’s back, I suppose I should want to make the best of it.

    I’ve planned for an evening at The Improv. Since I’m the only one who can see Terry’s shadowy figure, things might get a bit awkward when I start talking to the empty seat next to me. I hope nobody smells the awful Yeezy cologne Terry told everyone Willow Smith gifted him last summer when he showed up at her new Chanel eyewear launch event at the Malibu Village Mall. Willow was overheard saying to her assistant, “Girl, who is this weirdo? Just give him the cologne to get him out of here.”

    As if things couldn’t get more hokey, Terry has now requested we ride a tandem bicycle to The Improv, stopping first at a Chipotle to crush two chicken burritos with extra sides of guac, go halvesies on a cheese quesadilla, and order two Keto Salads Bowls to-go.

    Say, do you remember the time he embarrassed us at the town’s public pool by whacking those two Goth kids with a pool noodle?

    Their parents were horrified, but Terry kept at it, saying, “Billy Corgan from The Smashing Pumpkins is a recidivist who deserves to be back in jail for writing too many metaphorical lyrics!” We both know Terry was not a fan of literary devices such as metaphor, allegory, juxtaposition, and alliteration.

    Terry! Get off me, you animal! I’m so sorry, Jasmine. Terry won’t stop dry-humping my leg and whispering in my ear, “I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart.”

    Anyway, I hope we can catch up now that the 2024 US presidential election is over. Terry has a crush on Tulsi Gabbard and thinks RFK Jr is making the greatest conspiracy theorist.

    Sorry, Jasmine, I must go now. Terry just urinated on the kitchen floor for no conceivable reason.

    I can’t wait until he’s dead again.

    Your friend,

    Davidu

  • “Discount Furniture”

    It was 2010. My wife and I, new to living in New York City, were looking to buy a couch, but everything was so expensive.

    Searching the Internet one day, I found a discount furniture store in Brooklyn with some amazing prices. Bingo. This would be where we would set out to make our purchase.

    We planned a trip there for the coming Saturday.

    When we stepped off the train that afternoon and walked through the neighborhood of Brownsville, consistently named the murder capital of New York City–and where Mike Tyson grew up–we had the feeling that we weren’t in Kansas anymore.

    Gangbangers hung out on stoops, police sirens blared in the distance, two cops stood on a nearby street corner outside of their cruiser, pedestrians jaywalked hurriedly, there was ubiquitous poverty, and the smell of “something really bad is going to go down” hung in the air.

    I had never been so scared in my life. And, just our luck, the furniture store was a half-mile walk from the train station.

    As we strolled through the hood, I mumbled to my wife, who was whiter than a bar of Dove soap, to play it cool. “Let’s just start talking to each other like we don’t have a care in the world. Try not to stick out,” I said.

    At that point, I think her soul left her body because she didn’t say anything.

    I briefly thought of turning around and running full speed back to the train station, sans my wife. I figured she’d find a way out of there on her own somehow.

    Can’t do that, I thought. You stupid fool. Just keep walking. Be brave. You’re supposed to be a man.

    We both picked up the pace and started walking extremely fast. I thought of asking the nearby cop if he could drive us back to our apartment in Manhattan. No, that wouldn’t work.

    We finally made it to the store. They had one couch on display. After walking around for a few minutes and collecting our thoughts, I finally said, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

    Somehow, we made it back to the train station unscathed. And back to our apartment we went, where I immediately Googled the neighborhood and discovered that it was, in fact, the most murderous area in all of New York City.

    So much for random furniture stores.

  • “Famous Author Joyce Carol Oates Offers Me a Few Words of Comfort”

    On Twitter

    The devastation, the tumult, the stress and uncertainty of having a severe chronic illness that’s rendered you bedridden for years. What does one do?

    I routinely seek out connection online, particularly social media, due to the isolation of being alone in a room all day, which at times is intolerable.

    On this particular day, I was on Twitter, responding to the accounts I found most interesting and amusing. American literary icon Joyce Carol Oates was on my radar. She’s prolific on Twitter. At eighty-six, she’s as sharp as a tack and very, very opinionated.

    A small blue, yellow, and white painting of the finish line at a race by an unknown artist hangs on the wall above my bed. My mother got it at a flea market and thought it seemed fitting because of my journey. But whether the finish line symbolizes recovery from chronic illness or the end of a life is not for me to say.

    Three plants sit in my room to give it flair — a large Dracaena gifted to me by a rich American friend in Sweden, and the other two, a snake plant and a small succulent, from my mother, who seems to have a present or home-cooked meal for me every time she visits.

    I’d clicked on Joyce’s post containing a link to her flash-fiction piece called “Hospice/Honeymoon.” Eloquently written and vivid prose, the hallmark of Ms. Oates’ writing, the fictional story is about the final days of her late husband Charles Gross, a psychologist and neuroscientist, and the topic of caregiving.

    I, of course, could relate to the experience since my wife is my caregiver. So I replied to her post:

    “Great piece, Joyce,” I said. “My wife has been my caretaker for nine years of chronic illness, seven of them bedridden. And it is no honeymoon for her, or for me.”

    “Well, it is,” Joyce replied. “Just an unexpected kind of honeymoon. But it is for both, it is not solitary.”

    Screenshotted photo by Author

    For those unfamiliar with Ms. Oates, she is considered by some to be America’s greatest living writer, having penned the novel “Blonde,” a fictionalized biography of Marilyn Monroe, which was turned into the 2022 eponymous Hollywood movie. But more famously, perhaps, she is known for her 1966 short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”

    At first, I dismissed the comment, thinking nothing of it. But then I let it sink in and eventually found Joyce’s words to be oddly comforting, even life-affirming. I would most certainly not want to be doing this alone.

    My wife had decided a long time ago that she was going to stick with me through this ordeal. And though many times she has wanted to quit, she has always hung in there, providing me with so many emotional benefits, as I fight for my survival on some days.

    Community, connection, leaning on the shoulders of the people you love — this is how one endures great, prolonged suffering, suffering that often feels meaningless.

    I thank Joyce Carol Oates for giving me her perspective. I thank her for being thoughtful enough to offer me a few kind words. It made that moment in my day less painful, less ordinary.

  • “Richard the Landlord, Me, and the Problematic Apartment”

    Over a decade ago, my wife and I lived in New York City for three years. From Manhattan to Brooklyn and then back to Manhattan, we lived in three different apartments during that time. Our last apartment, on East 93rd Street in the Carnegie Hill section of Manhattan, was just around the corner from the famous 92nd Street Y, also the former home to the great writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, where today famous authors, poets, and celebrities give engaging talks.

    The apartment was located on the fourth floor of a co-op building once lived in by the Marx Brothers. It came equipped with marble countertops, cherry-wood cabinets, and a tin ceiling in the kitchen. There were ceiling fans throughout, a large yellow and white artificial fireplace backdropped by a deep red wall adorning the living room, crown moldings on the ceilings, and respectable hardwood flooring. It also had a very impressive bathroom: an NYC subway-tiled shower and bath with large sliding glass doors and a toilet the size of a throne with a big silver French handle on it.

    Our landlord, a quirky, pseudo-intellectual retired UPS driver who loved to use big words and make obscure literature and film references, lived out of state in Florida but was previously a New Yorker for many years. Richard was the kind of guy who wore fluffy Christmas sweaters and, I’d surmised, had a copy of Tolstoy’s War and Peace sitting on his nightstand.

    On day one of the lease for our new apartment, we found him inside camped out on the living room floor. A sleeping bag, a half-pot of cooked rice, and some empty water bottles were scattered throughout. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, he perked right up upon sight of us. “David, it’s good to finally meet you,” he said, standing up. “And this must be Kathleen.”

    My wife immediately turned red, something that happens when she’s embarrassed for everyone in the room, including herself.

    “David, quick, let me show you something first,” Richard said, walking toward the fireplace. “This is the new play I wrote.” He grabbed a thick, handwritten packet of white paper from the mantle and opened it to the first page so I could see it.

    “Wow,” I said, feigning interest. “That’s impressive.”

    Afterward, he told us he’d been wandering the city by day visiting museums. When asked if he’d be cleaning the place and making minor repairs before our move the next day, he said, “You know, I meant to spend the day cleaning yesterday, but I got bogged down with other stuff.” He assured us, however, that he’d be gone before the movers arrived—a welcome relief.

    The first few months in the apartment were great. But then, things took a sudden turn. We started having issues with the heat; there was an exploding pipe; loose handles and knobs on cabinet doors, vanity doors, doors of all kinds; things just randomly falling off. A neighbor in the apartment next door beyond our shared wall did clumsy Tai-Chi sessions and organized furniture every night between three and five in the morning.

    And then, there were the mice.

    Because of the nature of our quirky interactions, the emails between Richard and me became more and more fanciful and ludicrous.

    On the day after the exterminator came, I wrote him an email:

    Hi Richard,

    I don’t know what Kathleen responded but I wanted to let you know the outcome.
    Yes, the exterminator, a very large man who, if you ask me, seemed to be posing as an exterminator, came out yesterday.

    He greeted me at the door by yelling, “Rent reduction, rent reduction!” and said the stairs were “too much.”I’m not sure what he did since it was such a quick visit, but that’s not the point. The guy was all about enthusiasm. “We’ll get the little fucker,” he kept saying.

    As for our mouse friend, it seems he’s trying to save face. I told him he has no business up here. Of course, he didn’t listen at first, continued to peek out from behind our bookshelf as any mouse would (some taunting going on, too), even feigned like he was sniffing out one of the classics.

    When he inadvertently brushed up against Kafka’s The Trail, however, that was it. His whole demeanor changed. I’m guessing he thought his prospects would be better elsewhere.

    Also, I’m happy to report that we’re now the proud owners of six mouse trap bags.

    -David”

    I signed off my iPad feeling accomplished.

    But the problems wouldn’t stop. Needless to say, we had had enough and wanted out. So, one day, I got Richard on the phone and we came to an agreement: Kathleen and I would begin the process of subletting our apartment and breaking the lease.

    But first, we would need the blessing of the head of the apartment building’s co-op board, a small, fiery Asian woman named Sherry. That’s just the way Richard wanted it.

    He and I began emailing again, of course, about the situation, and about Sherry. And each email became more preposterous than the last.

    Feeling silly and determined to get us out of the lease, I dug deep one afternoon. Richard, although a good, honest man, was a completely preposterous individual, so this would not have worked on any other person. But I came up with an email that would ultimately get the ball rolling:

    Hi Richard,

    If there was ever a time to remain steadfast to your position that the building heed your concerns, then certainly it is now. Sherry’s countenance — sufficiently peevish, no doubt — might well call to mind for you a character in the movie RAN, but one would be remiss in failing to understand her true nature.

    A complimentary encounter such as, “Oh, hi, Sherry. By the way, the flowers out front look great. Are those new shoes you’re wearing?” which I, with your encouragement, would so graciously initiate, might not reveal much more than what we already know about her, I’m afraid.

    Have there been misunderstandings? Certainly. Sherry and I have, by our own admission, been a complete nuisance to one another. Sure, righto, of course.

    That said, Kathleen and I are responsible renters and always have been so. “You guys are always on time with the rent. Wow, you keep the place so clean. You’re so quiet and respectful of the other neighbors,” they invariably say. (Or maybe that’s us just saying it to ourselves.)

    In any case, the decision to eschew a future sublet arrangement is yours, yes. However, I implore you to consider that in recognizing the co-op board’s fiduciary responsibility, the power might not lie solely with Sherry.

    -David

    After that, Richard fell in line quickly, as did Sherry and the others. And ultimately, we moved out for good.

    Now I’m just wondering if I should send him another email, thirteen years later, with wording even more ludicrous than the last.