August 27, 2003
A BOWL OF DESPAIR
The tragic story of Peter L. Tauss, as revealed by the correspondence of Ray Smuckles:
July 23:
Confidential to the guy with explosive diarrhea: quit writing to me! I don’t care!
July 29:
Confidential to the guy with explosive diarrhea: I have contacted your email domain administrator and they are going to cancel your email account if you keep it up.
August 5:
Confidential to the guy with explosive diarrhea: very clever, just getting a new Hotmail account. I have added it to my “spam” blocker, so good luck getting through to me now.
August 12:
Confidential to the guy with explosive diarrhea: How in hell did you get my phone number?! It’s unlisted! Anyhow, I’m canceling the phone service to the house and just using my cell phone from now on.
August 19:
Confidential to the guy with explosive diarrhea: Thank you for the Hickory Farms gift basket, but I really do wish you would stop writing in. I gave the basket to a local homeless shelter, so don’t think I owe you anything.
August 26:
Posted by Tim Blair at August 27, 2003 05:15 AMDear Readers: I have some terrible news. I recently received word that “the guy with explosive diarrhea” has passed away. Apparently he had been suffering from undiagnosed chronic ulcerative colitis. If only I had taken him seriously, he would still be alive today. I feel absolutely awful about myself right now. Oh my lord, how he must have suffered, just to be shunned and ridiculed by the only one he thought he could count on.
Donations can be sent to the family of Peter L. Tauss, Norwalk, CT. Peter was fifteen years old when he died.