Ugh, so first Carle and prairie dog get a letter from a loopy anti-choice activist, then Greg gets a phone call from an irate lady furious at the language in our anonymous, reader-submitted Queen City Confidential, which this issue has the word “fucking” in it. He handled it perfectly: brief, concise, polite, thanked her for the call, extricated himself, etc.
So naturally she calls me. And naturally, I, foolishly, answer.
She’s a ball of rage! She’s offended! Our vulgar, disgusting paper shouldn’t be distributed in public! It shouldn’t be available in restaurants! It shouldn’t be freely available in a city with innocent children, at all! (Where should we distribute? Casinos and Liquor Board outlets? Sorry, after the Sask. Party got in we got kicked out of both adult-only venues. A coincidence I’m sure.)
It’s “pornography” she says! What about the children? she wails. Think of the children!
And she’s phoning mayor Pat Fiacco to tell on us! (Seriously, she said that.)
And what would the mayor of Calgary think??
(I don’t know, I told her. But Calgary has its own alt paper, FFWD, and the current issue has one article with the phrase “shit-show” in a subheadline. So we’re pretty normal for this potty-mouthed business. And anyway I imagine Calgary’s mayor is used to bad language. Fuck, he’s an Alberta politician–how the fuck could he fucking not be?)
So yeah we talked, she didn’t agree with my reasonable points about freedom of speech, the language adults use to converse, that not everyone shares her prudish tastes in reading, that many readers like the occasional naughty word and they certainly know how to use them in conversation, and that our paper is intended for adults, that it’s up to parents to protect their kids from the scary‘dog, blah blah blah.
She was insulting, hostile and abusive, and just a belligerent jerk (and I’d know). So finally I told her to write a letter, gave her our e-mail, asked her to keep it to 300 words, and I hung up on her.
I did not, however, tell her to fuck off.
Probably should’ve though. She’s telling the mayor on us.
(Sheesh. Sorry, sir. It’s my fault the crazy lady is phoning your office.)
