I got my first angry comment from a complete & total stranger. Thanks to my sister for pointing this out to me. I posted this thing a couple of months ago (on 11/24, to be specific) about a care package that my mom sent me. Just for those of you who might not have read it, this was one the items in said care package:

” * An article she cut out of the paper about Bret Michaels of Poison’s solo album. Dear god, will I ever live down the fact that I liked hair bands when I was 14? It was actually kind of sad, the article was a promotion for his upcoming show at The Dock in Jackson. The Dock, by the way (as anyone who’s lived in Jackson knows), is a tiny depressing dive of a place that’s been stuck in a time warp since 1985. Not entirely inappropriate for Bret Michaels’ target demographic, I imagine, but still. What a miserable existence. (I’m not sure if I mean him or his fans. Maybe both.) ”

Now, the angry comment from some person that I have never met:

” I just read your article about Bret Michaels, and I am PISSED at what you had to say about him and his fans. I am a fan and I got to meet and hang out with him in November and maybe before you badmouth someone you should know them because he is on of the coolest nicest human beings and for saying what you did you are a fool. ”

She left her email address in the comments section, so I just emailed her this:

“Hi,

I just found your comment on my blog. Actually, my sister found it & told me about it — I posted it almost 2 months ago, and I never look that far back to see what people have to say.

Just to be hopefully clear some things up, what I wrote is my opinion, it’s not an “article”. That’s the whole purpose of having a web log in the first place. I don’t know Mr. Michaels personally, and I have no idea who you are, so I certainly wasn’t going out of my way to attack anyone. But you know, my web site is just there for me to talk about whatever, and I never intend for anyone outside of my family or friends to read it. If you don’t like my opinion, I’m sure that there are millions of web sites out there that worship Bret Michaels, and you’d probably enjoy reading those much more.

Point being, I’m sorry if I offended you, but my piddly little web site is not worth the energy it takes you to get pissed.

Have a nice day.

Cindy”

I tried to be polite. I swear I really did. The “have a nice day” felt just the teensiest bit sarcastic & condescending, but I couldn’t bring myself to omit it. I was also tempted to write the word “pissed” in all caps like she did, but I thought that would be too much.

Hey, who even knew that anyone outside of my tiny little circle of friends ever read this damn thing? I wonder how many Google hits you have to go through before you find my site on a “Bret Michaels” search. Hmmm…. future geek research.