Newspaper offices are nutter magnets. The vast majority of people who contact newspapers are sane and rational, but there is a significant fringe group of nuts.
Classic behavioral symptoms include irrational abuse, attention seeking and pure wackiness. The latter is the most amusing, although the others have their humorous moments.
A few months ago I received an apparently random letter from someone in Florida wanting us to report a particular story involving her family. The story had no relevance to Kalgoorlie at all and was simply addressed to “The Newspaper”.
Today I finally succumbed to a summons from the post office. Two weeks ago I received a slip in the mail saying there was “person to person” registered post waiting for me to collect. It could only be picked up by “The Editor” and I was required to provide identification.
Well, it’s been a crazy fortnight, with a new computer system being installed, and I didn’t have 15 minutes to walk to the post office and stand in a queue.
This morning I received a final notice. It was a quieter day, so I went to get this top-secret package. As foreshadowed, I had to line up for 10 minutes and wait another five minutes while the clerk rummaged through the bowels of the building to find my special delivery.
I had to produce photo ID and sign twice before I could take receipt. There was no name for the sender, just an address in Tasmania.
Naturally curious, I opened the envelope. It contained several type-written sheets expressing various opinions on the Federal Election (which when written was still to be held). There was a strange photo of a group of people with no names or any description. And that was it.
I only scanned the documents, which contained “the end of the world is nigh” type stuff.
What a waste of time. My only consolation walking back to the office was wondering how many other editors had been similarly duped into signing personally for this rubbish.
Regarding other nuts, an extreme right-wing group regularly sends me anti-Catholic propaganda, suggesting the Pope is in league with Jews and the devil. I like the cartoons in that one.
My favorite “nut case” is the Eros Foundation, which sends me their illustrated newsletter championing the open distribution of adult sex paraphernalia.
Twitter: delmerw
says:
I have an old PC monitor I’m willing to give away to anybody that will come by the house and pick it up.
Are you saying, then, it would be a waste of my time to run an ad in your paper?
(Folks from Florida have many problems … not the least of which was screwing up their election process which helped lead Dubya to the White House the first time around.)