Volunteers in Canada scoured letters this weekend to make sure no more obscene mail would reach kids who had sent correspondence to the "Write to Santa" program, according to the Ottawa Citizen. Because of a "rogue elf," as the unknown writer is dubbed, about 15 odious letters were delivered.
The rogue elf breathes new meaning into the term, "poisoned pen." Language is an instrument God gave us, and it's tragic when it fouls instead of comforts, encourages or engages. But haven't we all been guilty of being roguish writers (and talkers) like the nasty scribe in Canada? How many tart e-mails have we sent without thinking? How many petty criticisms have we uttered? How many wounding words have we laced within a joke? How many times have we armed ourselves with words for exhilerating revenge-moments?
In You've Got Mail, the character, Kathleen (Meg Ryan), tells her e-mail pal (Tom Hanks) that she regrets dressing down her business rival, before she realizes the e-mail pal and the business rival are the same person. Here's an excerpt from Kathleen in Nora Ephron and Delia Ephron's script, which is posted on Drew's Script-o-Rama: "I was cruel, and I'm never cruel. And even though I can hardly believe what I said mattered to this man -- to him, I'm just a bug to be crushed -- but what if it did? No matter what he's done to me,
there's no excuse for my behavior."
When we sound off as we please, without prayer or love, without responsiblity or forethought, we are like the rogue elf in Canada who sprinkled kids' letters with the raunchy pepper from his heart.
