An Open Letter to New York Giants Wide Receiver Plaxico Burress
Dear Plaxico Burress,
You almost certainly don't remember me, but I was the girl who sat in front of you in the third grade at Alanton Elementary School in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
I can't say we were friends. Maybe it was the way you poked me in the back all the time. Granted, this was more annoying than assaultive, as you had not yet attained your current Brobdingnagian size, which the internet tells me is six-foot-five and 232 pounds.
Back in Mrs. Everhart's class, I think you were probably about five-foot-four and a hundred-something pounds of guy-who-repeatedly-stole-my-pencil.
Twenty years later on the subway, I was reading the newspaper over someone's shoulder when he turned to the sports section and I saw your name: Plaxico. "How many Plaxicos can there be?" I wondered. At home, I googled you: the internet says that you were born August 12, 1977 in Norfolk, Virginia, which makes you, indeed, the gangly third-grader who poked me in the back, sometimes with pencils, and sometimes with my own pencil, which you had stolen from me.
The internet also says that you went to Michigan State, that your name is pronounced PLEX-ico (oh, well why not just go with the traditional spelling, then?), and that your "percent owned" is 100%, which is both mysterious and creepy to me.
I also read on the internet that you have a predilection for "talking smack" about other teams. I find this assertion credible, given my knowledge of your verbal propensities during the 1985-1986 school year. You recently said there was no way the Eagles were going to stop the Giants in an NFC East game at Giants Stadium, which seemed mere braggadocio considering that your team's receiving corps was operating at sub-optimal strength in the absence of "No. 2 wideout" Mr. Amani Toomer, whose ACL surgery and subsequent sabbatical from game play boded ill for the veracity of your predictions. Then I read on the internet that the Giants won the game 30-24 on the basis of your 31-yard touchdown catch. I do not know what any of this means, but you are making it difficult to gloat at you.
Plaxico Burress, why are you richer and more famous than I am? Is there no justice? Do we live in a state of nature in which life is, as Hobbes posited, "nasty, brutish, and short"? Does might make right?
Sincerely,
Jennifer Dziura
posted by JenIsFamous at 12/24/2006 01:17:00 PM
6 Comments:
Is Plaxico (sic) really famous? Jenisfamous!
Jen,
Look on the bright side--the Giants aren't going to the playoffs. Meanwhile, my friend Jeff's high school classmate and football teammate turned out to be a gay dwarf who nevertheless moved to Hollywood, made several million bucks in pictures, and talked a babe into marrying him. Large house, expensive cars, hot wife. Blah blah blah. Nice work if you can get it.
Then one day Jeff reads that the hot wife is divorcing the shrimp. Jeff is ecstatic, but the guy himself doesn't seem to care all that much, because according to the story he's already got some other senorita he's banging. And it turns out HER best friend is none other than Salma Hayek!
"The fucking guy is bullet proof," Jeff said to me one afternoon, by way of hello as he climbed into my car.
I had spotted him coming out of a check cashing place, where he'd gone to pay his cable bill, so I rolled down the window and beckoned him to let me give him a lift uptown to his apartment in Washington Heights, which was only slightly out of my way to the stadium. We'd miss the first inning, but Rudy and Judi are notoriously late themselves, and this friend seemed a little down on his luck.
"I tell ya, fucking 'Mapo' is bullet proof," Jeff repeated, tossing a folded-up copy of the New York Post next to me. "I get fired from my job because the drawer is ten dollars short--don't lecture me, kemosabe; I needed smokes and thought Herr Kommandant was going to the Hamptons for the weekend with his young trophy wife, but of course it rained--ten lousy dollars that I would've put back in the till the next day, for christsake, and for want of that now I gotta go sell my blood for the rent money. Meanwhile, fucking Cruise gets fired and a week later he's taking over U.A."
He leaned over to the minibar in the back of the limo, poured himself a double Belevedere on the rocks, went back to the couch opposite us, and raised his glass in a toast.
My date stopped fellating me just then, took her flute of Veuve Cliquot off the table where it rested, and we all clinked glasses.
"L'chaim," he said. "Even though it ain't goddamn fair."
"To life," I replied, zipping my pants.
It seemed ill-advised just then to add anything else about how sweet it is, so I just fixed my ascot and affected Paris' vacant stare as we drove on in silence.
; )
Merry Christmas,
Matt
Haha are you serious? That is so funny, I wish I had an NFL player in my past.
Nah, I took some creative license because 'tis the season to be jolly, after all, and I wanted to jolt our famous friend out of what struck me as her holiday doldrums. Of course, the Giants have not been mathematically eliminated from the playoffs yet despite losing to the Saints yesterday. That'll have to wait until next weekend.
Season's Greetings,
Matt
This inspired me to google former classmates, but all I found were trustfunds and bad poetry
Oh, snap! Dziura brings it!
Don't feel bad. Oswego is the "Home of Erik Cole," Stanley Cup winner and NHL player for the Carolina Hurricanes.
I don't even know whether it's North or South...
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