Letters to MAD, Part 2

And here follows the second letter I sent. Next: I learn how to post photos!

May 13, 2004

J. Whozit, Editor
MAD
1700 Broadway
New York, NY 10019

Dear Mr. Whozit,

By now convinced that you are not receiving my letters through the dreadful and inhumane Time Warner online recruitment “tool,” I have turned to the old-fashioned method of mailing you my letters myself. I’ve thrown in my prior letters for good measure. So there! Either you go through your Senior Editors like a scythe through wheat, leaving them weeping, pale husks of their former selves, or you still haven’t found a Senior Editor who will put up with your nonsense. Regardless, here I am.

In the past, I was prepared to offer you my cat, Potatoe, and varieties of meat products to sweeten my employment package (see previous letter for specifics). I am ready to up the ante, and offer you not one, but two (2) large turnips. One turnip is your ordinary, garden-variety sort of turnip. But the other, my friend, is a rather unique specimen. The two must remain together as a “package deal” for reasons that are of no concern to you.

I have been breeding my turnips in captivity since 1988, and I believe I’ve finally achieved my dream to build the “Über-Turnip,” which is familiar to every American schoolchild through those charming fairytales we all remember and cherish. (My favorite was “The Über-Turnip and the Unfortunate Engulfment of Little Buttons”—do you recall that one? Heartwarming! Grandpappy used to sit me on his knee and tell that story, ten or twelve times in a row, until I piddled in fright. But I digress.) Through a delicate process known as “turnip ‘n’ tuck,” I have created a turnip that comes as close as vegetatively possible to physical perfection. Not only that, it is clever and wily. It is smarter than you. It is better than you. Most strikingly, it is also bigger than you. My turnip measures 9 feet in height and 8.34 feet in width. Yea, verily may ye tremble before it!

The smaller, wizened turnip I alluded to in paragraph two will be delivered to your offices along with its godlike brother. Although it is dull and blotchy in complexion, I imagine that you will treat it well. (Will you? If not, retribution will be swift and unpleasant.) I have named it Lumpy. It enjoys a gentle pat now and then, and a patch of sunlight. The other is named Behemoth, but goes by Tubby in certain circles.

Neither turnip does anything at all, but they sure would look nice in the foyer of a professional office building! If you poke “Tubby” with a fork, you might be rewarded with a wee grunt…or a crushing blow to the duodenum.

I expect these turnips will “seal the deal” for my employment with MAD. Please let me know where I may send them and to whose attention.

Yours in perpetuity,
[my signature]