I have very important news for you. It’s a little outdated, because when it comes to writing I delay deadlines like a Barry Bonds steroid trial, but it is very funny news that only calculates into my hilarious life. But first, like all stories, the background:
A few months ago, my school’s Varsity Soccer Team had a car wash to support funding towards our program. And like all car washes in my town, it is custom for the team washing cars to dress in—for lack of a better word—underwear. We wore spandex Under Armuor as pants, and took our shirts off as we paraded up and down Main Street with holding signs. We would yell “sexy car wash” and point at dirty cars. If anything, we took the same “Sex Sells” mentality used in alcohol, cigarette, and perfume commercials and brought it to a community scale. It was tradition in my town for every team to do it. The football team does it, the lacrosse team does it, and even the slutty cheerleaders do it.
Well, unfortunately, it was OUR carwash that got all the attention, and there were dozens of emails sent into the school complaining about our lack of clothing. There was even an article written in the town newspaper about our shenanigans. The next day at school, the athletic director pulled me and the other captains into his office and asked that we write an apology letter in response to all the criticism. So I did. This was the letter:
“Dear citizens of Arlington,
Saturday the 20th of September, the Arlington Boys Varsity Soccer had a car wash outside of the high school. Unfortunately, what we thought was fun and games turned out to be very offensive. Children of all ages saw us strutting around in our sports shorts, and with an event such as Town Day happening a block away, we didn’t consider the consequences of such immature humor. Kids our age have been having high school carwashes to support our teams, and what we thought was the norm turned out to be disastrous.
Obviously we assumed that people would take things lightly, but in retrospect we see that being in public with a large population is not the proper place to be so exposed. No one thought of the repercussions of acting the way we did. Many people enjoyed the fun, but there were many more that deemed our actions to be juvenile and inappropriate, and for that we apologize. Years to come, our behavior will certainly be fitting and we hope not to scare you away from something we enjoy doing and will be doing again.
Boys Varsity soccer invites you to come and watch us play to prove to you that we are not a bunch of hooligans who dance around half-naked in hopes of getting car wash sales. All of us realize that what we did was unintentionally offensive and we promise you it will not happen again. Little children should not have been exposed to what they saw, and many of the emails the school received were from concerned parents hoping to put a stop before things got too inapt in the future. Like the mature kids we are we sincerely express regret for what we did and thank you for helping us fix our mistakes.
So as the captains of the varsity soccer team, I hope you accept this apology. Arlington is the town we love and we are proud to represent our pride through a sport we love, and we would never mean to offend you. Clearly we will act more mature next time we have a fund raiser, and we hope we didn’t scare you off. Kindly accept this apology.
—Sincerely, Boony and the entire Boys Varsity Soccer Team”
The letter seems good right? It thoroughly apologizes throughout the entire letter, and it even encourages people to look past the car wash event and see us play soccer. The athletic director loved it, and I even got it published in the paper as a response to the angry editorial. The publisher I sent it to even said, “I’m sure this wasn’t an easy letter to write, and I commend you for doing so.” You like it right?
Okay good. Now, look at the same letter, only write down the first letter of every sentence. I highlighted them for you:
“Dear citizens of Arlington,
Saturday the 20th of September, the Arlington Boys Varsity Soccer had a car wash outside of the high school. Unfortunately, what we thought was fun and games turned out to be very offensive. Children of all ages saw us strutting around in our sports shorts, and with an event such as Town Day happening a block away, we didn’t consider the consequences of such immature humor. Kids our age have been having high school carwashes to support our teams, and what we thought was the norm turned out to be disastrous.
Obviously we assumed that people would take things lightly, but in retrospect we see that being in public with a large population is not the proper place to be so exposed. No one thought of the repercussions of acting the way we did. Many people enjoyed the fun, but there were many more that deemed our actions to be juvenile and inappropriate, and for that we apologize. Years to come, our behavior will certainly be fitting and we hope not to scare you away from something we enjoy doing and will be doing again.
Boys Varsity soccer invites you to come and watch us play to prove to you that we are not a bunch of hooligans who dance around half-naked in hopes of getting car wash sales. All of us realize that what we did was unintentionally offensive and we promise you it will not happen again. Little children should not have been exposed to what they saw, and many of the emails the school received were from concerned parents hoping to put a stop before things got too inapt in the future. Like the mature kids we are we sincerely express regret for what we did and thank you for helping us fix our mistakes.
So as the captains of the varsity soccer team, I hope you accept this apology. Arlington is the town we love and we are proud to represent our pride through a sport we love, and we would never mean to offend you. Clearly we will act more mature next time we have a fund raiser, and we hope we didn’t scare you off. Kindly accept this apology.
—Sincerely, Boony and the entire Boys Varsity Soccer Team”
That’s right. My apology letter has a secret message that spells out SUCK ON MY BALL SACK. I know, it’s funny. It’s straight up hilarious. It is literary genius. Apparently, it’s illegal. When the letter got published in the paper, I told my teammates. They told people, who told people. In time, the entire school knew, and then teachers knew, and then my coach knew. As discipline, I became the only captain in Arlington Varsity Soccer History to have his captainship “indefinitely suspended”. It was given to my friend Mike, who deserved it, but didn’t want to accept it as a substitute.
I didn’t really fight the issue; there were only two weeks left in the season and I figured that I deserved it. All that is proven by this situation is that if you do something amazing that deserves to be bragged about, wait a little bit before telling everyone about it. Part of me wishes I never did it, or changed the hidden message to something less immature; but the other half thinks that this proves my creative writing style and I am happy to show people what I am capable of. The days after the letter hit the school and people found out that a goofy stunt like that lost my captainship, I was approached by dozens in the hall praising me for such a cool act. I had stuck it to the man. I had slipped one past authorities. I had suspended my captainship for comedy.
1 Comment
Sunday, November 16, 2008 at 10:15 pm
The letter is on the Advocate’s site:
http://www.wickedlocal.com/arlington/news/opinions/letters/x1776795560/Letters-from-the-Oct-16-2008-edition