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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Drama / Human Interest
- Subject: Comedy / Humor
- Published: 07/14/2014
A Letter From Benjamin Franklin
Born 1950, M, from Clearwater/FL, United StatesMr. Benjamin Franklin
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
June the Tenth, in the Year of Any Given Lord, Seventeen Hundred and Forty Three
Acme Mail Order Suppliers
Boston, Massachusetts
My Good Sirs;
Satisfied as I have been in the past with the many fine products I have purchased from your company, I must voice discontent regarding several of the items I have recently received.
Firstly would be the kite. While the device itself is of utmost sturdiness and ingenious design, the twine that prevents it from ascending to the heavens was not of the type I had specified. I requested twine of a simple construct; hemp or cotton would have served nicely. While I can understand your desire to provide a first rate product, the metallisized twine you provided was not suitable for my purposes. Having flown the kite during a right stunning Philadelphia storm, lightning was predictably attracted to a brass key I had affixed to the flying device. Not so predictably, electrical fluid coursed down the twine and the resulting jolt knocked me on my well-padded derriere. While I am not pondering any manner of legal action, any future orders I place with your business most certainly will not include twine.
Next is the matter of the fireplace box. A neighbor ordered one of these units and it arrived fully assembled and in good order. Imagine my surprise when the unit I ordered arrived not only unassembled, but sans instructions. While I like to consider myself a clever fellow, I must confess to no small degree of consternation when I attempted to assemble the device. I built it using my stove as a template; when completed, it bore little resemblance to the picture on the crate in which it was shipped but, I must say, the strange manner in which I pieced together the unit does seem to promote greater circulation of heat than that of my neighbor’s. I have include a simple diagram of my method of assemblage with this letter; feel free to incorporate it into your design should you so desire.
The set of graduated glass bowls you sent had a finish that was quite rough and unacceptable. Being in need of the containers and feeling ill-disposed to go to the trouble of sending them back, I elected to smooth the surface of the glassware myself. Not having an overabundance of leisure time, I devised a mechanism to which I attached all of the bowls at once, which then spun them slowly through a trough of water while I applied a polishing compound with my fingers. Not only did this provide a degree of finish I would have expected from an honourable company such as yours, but it also caused the bowls to vibrate with a strangely serene tone reminiscent of that of a harmonica, but tolerably more fluid and melodious. While the contraption is admittedly somewhat less portable than a harmonica, it does have an advantage over its more diminutive cousin in that there is sufficient room on which to rest a goodly tankard of ale.
I was prepared to lodge a complaint regarding not just one, but the past two pairs of spectacles you sent. The first pair I received was designed for reading; the lenses of that pair each broke cleanly across the middle within a month of receipt, due not to imprudent use but an obvious flaw in manufacturing. The lenses of the second pair, meant to aid my vision in general, met with the same fate. Being desperate for corrective appliances for my eyes, I pieced the lenses together as best I could into a single frame, not realizing that I had, by odd happenstance, combined the lenses from the two different spectacles into one frame. When looking through the top lens fragments all appeared normal, but when I lowered my gaze and peered through the bottom pieces, all appeared blurred until I looked at the writings of Mr. Richard Saunders (an author of inestimable talent) and the print appeared clear and focused. I will withhold further judgment on the questionable quality of your spectacles until I further investigate this phenomenon.
Wishing to close on a lighter note, please allow me to share a rather odd dream I have had. I dreamt that one of those wily, dog-like creatures that are reputed denizens of the western frontier acquired an insatiable taste for the succulent flesh of some species of quick-moving, flightless desert bird that shares his domain. In my nocturnal reveries, this creature tries time and again to catch this fleet-footed fowl, only to have his ill-conceived schemes confounded by malfunctioning machines, many of which are of a strange design with which I am not familiar. These machines always fail at the most inopportune time, resulting in his being blown asunder with black powder or launched off a precipice, but never culminating in his demise. I awoke before the conclusion of this dream, never having found out how he came upon these inexplicably complex devices.
Considering the reliability of these contrivances, I can only assume he ordered them from you.
Regards,
Mr. Benjamin Franklin
A Letter From Benjamin Franklin(Phil Penne)
Mr. Benjamin Franklin
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
June the Tenth, in the Year of Any Given Lord, Seventeen Hundred and Forty Three
Acme Mail Order Suppliers
Boston, Massachusetts
My Good Sirs;
Satisfied as I have been in the past with the many fine products I have purchased from your company, I must voice discontent regarding several of the items I have recently received.
Firstly would be the kite. While the device itself is of utmost sturdiness and ingenious design, the twine that prevents it from ascending to the heavens was not of the type I had specified. I requested twine of a simple construct; hemp or cotton would have served nicely. While I can understand your desire to provide a first rate product, the metallisized twine you provided was not suitable for my purposes. Having flown the kite during a right stunning Philadelphia storm, lightning was predictably attracted to a brass key I had affixed to the flying device. Not so predictably, electrical fluid coursed down the twine and the resulting jolt knocked me on my well-padded derriere. While I am not pondering any manner of legal action, any future orders I place with your business most certainly will not include twine.
Next is the matter of the fireplace box. A neighbor ordered one of these units and it arrived fully assembled and in good order. Imagine my surprise when the unit I ordered arrived not only unassembled, but sans instructions. While I like to consider myself a clever fellow, I must confess to no small degree of consternation when I attempted to assemble the device. I built it using my stove as a template; when completed, it bore little resemblance to the picture on the crate in which it was shipped but, I must say, the strange manner in which I pieced together the unit does seem to promote greater circulation of heat than that of my neighbor’s. I have include a simple diagram of my method of assemblage with this letter; feel free to incorporate it into your design should you so desire.
The set of graduated glass bowls you sent had a finish that was quite rough and unacceptable. Being in need of the containers and feeling ill-disposed to go to the trouble of sending them back, I elected to smooth the surface of the glassware myself. Not having an overabundance of leisure time, I devised a mechanism to which I attached all of the bowls at once, which then spun them slowly through a trough of water while I applied a polishing compound with my fingers. Not only did this provide a degree of finish I would have expected from an honourable company such as yours, but it also caused the bowls to vibrate with a strangely serene tone reminiscent of that of a harmonica, but tolerably more fluid and melodious. While the contraption is admittedly somewhat less portable than a harmonica, it does have an advantage over its more diminutive cousin in that there is sufficient room on which to rest a goodly tankard of ale.
I was prepared to lodge a complaint regarding not just one, but the past two pairs of spectacles you sent. The first pair I received was designed for reading; the lenses of that pair each broke cleanly across the middle within a month of receipt, due not to imprudent use but an obvious flaw in manufacturing. The lenses of the second pair, meant to aid my vision in general, met with the same fate. Being desperate for corrective appliances for my eyes, I pieced the lenses together as best I could into a single frame, not realizing that I had, by odd happenstance, combined the lenses from the two different spectacles into one frame. When looking through the top lens fragments all appeared normal, but when I lowered my gaze and peered through the bottom pieces, all appeared blurred until I looked at the writings of Mr. Richard Saunders (an author of inestimable talent) and the print appeared clear and focused. I will withhold further judgment on the questionable quality of your spectacles until I further investigate this phenomenon.
Wishing to close on a lighter note, please allow me to share a rather odd dream I have had. I dreamt that one of those wily, dog-like creatures that are reputed denizens of the western frontier acquired an insatiable taste for the succulent flesh of some species of quick-moving, flightless desert bird that shares his domain. In my nocturnal reveries, this creature tries time and again to catch this fleet-footed fowl, only to have his ill-conceived schemes confounded by malfunctioning machines, many of which are of a strange design with which I am not familiar. These machines always fail at the most inopportune time, resulting in his being blown asunder with black powder or launched off a precipice, but never culminating in his demise. I awoke before the conclusion of this dream, never having found out how he came upon these inexplicably complex devices.
Considering the reliability of these contrivances, I can only assume he ordered them from you.
Regards,
Mr. Benjamin Franklin
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