In Canada, we have attack ads. Essentially one party goes on television and is all “Did you hear about So And So in the other party? They eat puppies, barbeque kittens and are probably paying a pimply teenager to fricasee your hamster for dinner as you watch this. How do you feel about your tax dollars being spent that way?”

The other day I went to my mailbox expecting a package, but found an attack ad pamphlet from a Mr. Randy Hoback. Seeing as this is a wildly inappropriate way to both communicate with people and to talk about your opponents, I decided to reply back to the politician in kind.

Dear Mr. Hoback,

I decided to overcome the voter apathy of my generation to write and inform you that I received your pamphlet. Tragically I did not read it. There were a number of reasons. Firstly, the only correspondence I keep from politicians are those from men who I deem to be “bang-a-langin hotties”; you sir with your closed mouth smiles,

I swear it’s like the photographers consistently forget to remind this man to “say cheese”. (Photo Credit saskatoon.ctvnews.ca)

unfortunately are not my type. By contrast, I still have the delightful Christmas card that our toothy, grinning Prime Minister sent to my grandparents almost a decade ago. I could lap that man up like ice cream.

I keep this card next to my collection of pin ups of Jonathon Taylor Thomas.(Photo Credit: ctvnews.ca)

Secondly, I vote and back politicians based on the tightness of their six packs. Mr. Hoback, if you are truly interested in my support, my mailbox is always open to your shirtless, pinup style photograph application. Conversely, you could take to appearing topless on Facebook and in the news à la Justin Trudeau style. That too would capture my attention and potentially my support.

Sincerely yours,

A registered and frequent voter

(Now isn’t that something to cry over)

For the record, sometimes I write things to tick people off. It’s one of the joys of being a writer, it balances out the tragically underpaid aspect of our lives. The “lap that man up like ice cream” was one of those lines. I pictured Randy getting all blustery about receiving a letter like that. I felt it was his comeuppance for filling our neighbourhood’s mailboxes with a giant newsletter which conveyed absolutely no information but did manage to trash the other political parties.

Not that anyone is interested and even I don’t care, but I’m not a Liberal, I do however think Trudeau is exceptionally good looking and everyone needs a reason to be excited to open the paper in the morning. Also, Tex said the above letter was too mean to send, so I tried writing another one.

To the unfortunate and underpaid lackey of Mr. Hoback reading this message on his behalf,

Firstly, my apologies that Baskin Robbins wasn’t hiring. Secondly, please tell your boss that I take umbrage both with his spamming of mailboxes with useless information and his flagrant abuse of our resources. That paper could have been better used printing ice cream menus.

P.S. Thanks for saving me the postage on this letter.

I was all set to tuck this piece of prose into the pre stamped slip Mr. Hoback had sent when my husband asked what I was doing. Then Tex made an even more disgusted face at this next draft because now I was insulting the poor underpaid youth in Mr. Hoback’s employ, along with the tree felling, mailbox abusing politician. So I wrote another one which was serious and therefore didn’t warrant being put up here. But it was basically the written equivalent of “get off my lawn” and sent it instead. It grinds my gears when I open my mailbox to correspondence which are not cards telling me how wonderful I am.