The End of the 00s: Imagined Responses to Four Emails That I Sent, To Which I Have Not Yet Received a Reply, 2000-2009, by Juli Weiner

Dear Juli,

Received your query about the frozen chocolate chip cookie dough. You mentioned, quoting you here, "There were 24 cookies when I put them in the freezer last night, and now there is just one and a half-eaten bit of another." I feel somewhat responsible because I will completely admit to having two cookies. Totally and completely-that was me, those two, and believe me, I feel really gross about it. And the fact that you noticed the, again, quoting you here, "sandcastles of cookie crumbs around [my] bed" makes me feel even worse. Now of course, you'd be remiss to conflate my feelings of guilt with actual awareness about having done something wrong. It is one thing to take two cookies, for which I am so sorry, but quite another to take 22 and a half of a bit. It's disrespectful, is what it is, for someone to have eaten the remaining-okay, just, you know what?

Being completely honest here because my therapist/nutritionist [redacted] told me that this would help my [psychological disorder redacted]: I ate the cookies. All of them, except the one and that remaining half a bit. Enclosed is a check for $6.99.

Yours,
[Redacted]

Dear Juli,

Wow you know, that is so [redacted], ever since my girlfriend of two years and I mutually broke up about six months ago, I had been meaning to [redacted] to ask if you want to get together for drinks, dinner, a night of catching up at your apartment in [redacted] Heights, located mere blocks from my place of employment-really anything. I've also really valued the [redacted] and [redacted] rapport we've crafted over the past two years, and likewise feel that it's a fine basis for a [redacted] relationship. In fact, the only reason I did not email you sooner after non-messily breaking up with said girlfriend was because I wanted to make sure that you knew that there was a considerable period of time between the end of that relationship and the beginning of this, [redacted].

Drinks at Apotheke sound [redacted]. 9 PM on Saturday? I've already procured this extremely-hard-to-procure reservation.

Cheers,
[Redacted]

Hey,

That was weird, that thing I said to you the other day. Sorry for being such a freak.

Respectfully,
[Redacted]

Dear Juli,

It's completely fine that you missed this afternoon's seminar. I hope you feel better! And you know, even if you didn't actually have a migraine, I would still have understood if you opted to skip class. After all, it is my fault that discussions are generally banal, overreaching, and programmatic-and that's just when I can get students to participate at all! Ha ha! As I'm certain you're acutely aware, more often than not, the only words puncturing the ringing silence are mine, and they're usually: "So, no one agrees or disagrees?" I would definitely understand if you preferred sleeping to serving as mandatory audience to my own ineptitude for two hours this afternoon.

Best,
[Redacted], Professor of Comparative Literature, Columbia University

Juli Weiner writes at Wonkette.