I wrote a column that was published Tuesday in which I heavily cited Zane Grey's Code of the West. I thought it was pretty good for a first local column effort, and I had hoped that I put the blame where it deserved--not really on the business or home owners but on the zoning boards and County Commission. I had a message from my editor this morning that there was a phone call from the owner of said business wanting to talk to the author.
Frankly, I'm feeling a little cowardly. The last time I had to deal with irate readers was at TOL when we got the panties of a bunch of Azeris in a...well...bunch. While those emails were indeed unpleasant, they were also entertaining in the manner of former Soviet state citizens whose English insults tend toward the pig-dog, lackey of the capitalist state variety. I'm guessing my phone conversation with this guy will not involve such amusing ill will. This is, of course, in addition to the fact that I did not *write* the TOL article. I merely edited and posted it. There's some ownership there, but not like there is when you loose some text fully formed out of your forehead. And then there's the notion that all those irate Azeris were either in Azerbaijan or spread out around the world in a great diaspora. This guy is in a neighboring town.
So I'm psyching myself up. I've written the requisite whiny plea for mercy to my editor, but in the end I'm going to have to call this guy. Maybe I'll do it on a cell phone. The nation's most reliable network is never that, so if things get really unpleasant, I can crackle some paper into the phone and say I dropped the call.
Perhaps this is why I could never pass the oral exams for the Foreign Service...