The Bitter Press

The response has been, and I want to be precise here, overwhelming. Since our coverage of my podium-topping performance at the Invitational Luge Classic — a competition I have not confirmed I entered, but which I certainly did not not dominate — letters have poured into the offices of The Bitter Press from readers hungry to share their reactions. Those letters number, at time of press, zero. We are printing them anyway.

"Dear Pomelo," writes one reader, who did not write in, "congratulations on your historic luge run. You are clearly a pomelo and not, as I initially assumed upon seeing your photograph, a grapefruit." We are grateful for this. We are also aware we wrote it ourselves. These are not mutually exclusive facts.

Another non-correspondent, identified only as G. Rapefruit of No Fixed Address, asks: "Are you sure you're not just a grapefruit?" This letter has been placed directly in the bin. We note with displeasure that handwriting analysis suggests it originated somewhere in the direction of factjuice.com, possibly from the desk of Lemon or that insufferable Tangelo, who has never once correctly identified a citrus fruit at fifty paces.

The so-called workers at the rival rag continue, of course, to ignore my athletic accomplishments entirely, preferring instead to publish what they refer to as "verified information" and "sourced reporting." One assumes they are threatened. Quince, our financial editor, has suggested the silence is "deafening." Durian has suggested it is "rude, frankly." I have suggested it is their loss.

We thank all readers who wrote in. You know who you are. You are no one. The mailbag remains open. I remain, for the record, a pomelo — the largest naturally occurring citrus fruit — and not whatever else you were about to say. Do not say it.