Most public relations flacks stop inundating me with unwanted press releases after I kindly ask them to. But others… others just don’t learn. And sometimes, like today, those others send me PR mails about sappy poems for pregnant women. (Seriously.) And then I have to write them e-mails like this:

My dear Karen,

On Sep. 26, in response to your e-mail, I sent you a link to my policy on unsolicited PR e-mails.

Your latest love letter, however, troubles me deeply. It’s not that it’s again unsolicited, or that it still contains no way to opt out of future communications, or even that it contains bad English — “all expectant mother’s should have” is not, in fact, a possessive construction, but a simple plural. That much is roughly par for the course. No, the troubling part is that you’re sending me a letter about poetry for new moms. Are you trying to say I look fat in these khakis?

Surely you didn’t write to discuss the book’s themes — the miracle of life, God’s plan for the family, or the birth of an angel — given that I believe neither in miracles, nor gods, nor angels. (With the exception of Angel, the brooding vampire with a soul and a heart of gold in Joss Whedon’s Emmy Award-winning TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Have you watched it? Angel’s badass.)

So I suppose the fact you sent me this letter is in itself a kind of miracle: a miracle of unbelievably, mindbogglingly, hilariously bad targeting. Don’t you guys have databases for this stuff?

Karen, clearly our illicit and torrid e-mail affair left a lasting impression on both of us. It seems like only last month that I whispered sweet nothings — of the “please send me nothing more” kind — in your inbox. But you know things were never meant to be between us. You have to be strong and move on. I have.

Maybe if we had tried couples counseling in time?

Love always,
Ivan.

No word yet from Karen. I think I broke her heart.