Dear Mr. Berthiaume:
This is your condo writing. No, not your conscience, which you clearly sold to the devil when you signed that juicy, six-figure ESPN deal, your condo.
Remember, that place that you occasionally sleep from November through March and rarely ever bring any women home to, well, ever? Yeah, it's me.
Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed having time to myself lately, with you cooped up in your swank Bristol studio talking nonsense about the Cardinals, Reds, Pirates, the teams that play on the west coast whose names I honestly don't (care to) know and more or less ignoring your moneymaker, those filthy Yankees and angelic Red Sox.
I like feeling the rush of water as it goes to adjacent condos whose owners actually, you know, live there. I love listening to the stories being told inside their walls, smelling their scents and basking in the glow of their homeliness, something that apparently I don't have enough of for you.
But that's neither here nor there.
The reason that I'm writing to you today is because I heard that you made some comments about the Red Sox - Yankees rivalry being dead. Which - while I don't disagree with - is essentially heresy on that campus. Somehow, those words were published and now lots and lots of people are talking about them.
I'd like to suggest that you go on air tonight and atone for your indiscretion as soon as possible. The Yankees and the Red Sox, we all know, have singularly kept ESPN going every summer for decades now, and are the lone reason that your fat paycheck is able to pay for you to pay for me.
And, to be honest, I like the space. I like the peace and quiet, I like being able to keep the house at the temperature that I prefer, and I certainly am not too upset about terrible-smelling things being cooked in my kitchen.
I don't have any interest in being foreclosed upon, in being left to rot away from the inside out while the homes around me house families, emanating warmth and love and peace.
And I certainly don't want some other brute to come in here and take me over and fill me with terrible furniture or a dog who craps all over or a cat who coughs up hairballs in my corners - you can't see those corners, but I can, and I'm very self-conscious of them. I don't want the place to smell forever like the remnants of HotPockets and 70s porn. I'm very happy having the space to myself while you go out and propogate atrocious ideas that any reasonable, lucid being in the employ of ESPN would never posit.
Besides, I watched the game last night. Without you. Alone. And you know what? That rivalry looked pretty alive to me. Just because Varitek isn't facewashing A-Rod or there aren't pitchers kicking at their opposition while pressed up against the netting doesn't mean that it isn't a rivalry.
The day that the two best teams in a league battling game-in, game-out for first place in their division isn't a rivalry will be the day that I open my windows and doors to Sharon, the crazy cat lady, on the fourth floor.
And since that ain't happening anytime soon, you should probably start watching your words.
Best,
Your Condo