Chain-Reaction Letters I Never Sent

Dear Connecticut Light & Power Company,
Thank you for sending the crew to trim trees in my neighborhood. As you know by the repeated angry phone calls, our block has a tendency to lose electricity whenever someone in the vicinity sneezes too violently. However, the twigs your crew snipped off could barely take out a chipmunk let alone a power line.

Dear People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA),
I do not endorse the bludgeoning of chipmunks but to put your furry-minded minds at ease before I snap, I suggest you come immediately and liberate every little Alvin, Simon and Theodore residing in the Swiss cheese they have made of my lawn. If I were you (but I'm not because I consider cheeseburgers an essential food group), for added critter safety I would also put all the Chip and Dales from the surrounding properties into WITSEC.

Dear Neighbors,
Something tells me that this year you're all going to have bumper crops in your vegetable gardens. Feel free to bring some over during one of our inevitable blackouts and I'll pan roast them alongside some tasty cheeseburgers now that our new standby generator is online.

Dear Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy,
Hey, homeboy – whad uuuuup? Generating some new income by kick-starting the Connecticut tourism industry with an invigorating marketing campaign is a grand idea. Cha-ching! Can't wait to see these new, exciting "Connecticut: Still Revolutionary" ads!

Dear Fancy-Pants Manhattan (Manhattan!?) Ad Agency,
I could wait to see some better, more exciting ads promoting tourism in our state. (That state would be Connecticut. I know. We are forgettable.) Placid coastlines and rivers. Snore. Symphonies and old folks tasting wine? Yawn. The aerials of the Goodspeed Opera House and Gillette Castle are pretty to look at but to outsiders you are showing only unidentified building exteriors, not their dynamic. If I didn't live here, I'd look at the ads and think, "Jeez, Connecticut sure has an ancient infrastructure of creaky buildings and steam trains."

Dear Metro-North Commuter Railroad,
The Essex Steam Train featured in those new "Connecticut: Still Revolutionary" ads seems downright cutting edge compared to your ancient fleet. If you don't pick up the pace on getting those modern commuter train cars up and running, tourists are going to start wondering why you bothered removing the cowcatchers and smokestacks on the current ones.

Dear Potential Connecticut Tourists,
Haha! Enjoy those staid gag commercials? This is what you should have seen: Crowds packing into the Westport Country Playhouse (cameo by resident Joanne Woodward) balanced by a couple enjoying a quiet breakfast at a waterfront B-and-B; an American Le Mans race at Lime Rock Park contrasted by a young family sailing at Candlewood Lake, etc., etc. We will leave in the zip-lining scene and the one with the couple riding the motorcycle except in the new cut they would not be wearing helmets. Our state doesn't require that of people age 18 and older. That's not revolutionary, it’s fool-hardy but it's why hardcore, chipmunk-squashing bikers love the Nutmeg State.

Dear State Representative and Senators,
Please reform our helmet laws to get these hardcore bikers off our highways before I sic PETA on you. Anything is possible now that you folks finally spirited us out of the Puritan era by passing a bill allowing local stores to sell alcohol on Sunday.

Dear Grade A supermarket on Hope Street,
Feel free to play again -- at any time -- those in-store enticements about enjoying your establishment's fine selection of cold beers. I no longer have a reason to start cursing aloud when I hear them as I roam your aisles on a steamy summer Sunday afternoon. Moreover, I apologize for those past outbursts. To make it up, during the next blackout send your staff over to my house for tasty cheeseburgers and pan-roasted veggies.

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