A lot of people with whom I email seem not to share my love of exclamation points. Or all caps. Or my fervent devotion to the sign-off “Best.” Does this make our communication a tad more difficult? Well, yeah. As someone who is frightened of anyone else not being positively delighted at all times, I live in a near-constant state of fear that I have accidentally offended the person with whom I am communicating. Why did she only use a period when advising me to have a good day?
The complaints about my emails are always the same: “You write back really quickly,” “You don’t give me enough time to respond,” “You sure do use a lot of exclamation points!” But the complaint I get the most—the one that, if it were a singer on American Idol, and complaints were votes, would become our next American Idol—is this: “It makes me anxious to read your AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAA’s when you think that something is funny. Why don’t you just use ‘lol’?”
And suddenly, I don’t care so much about these people feeling positively delighted.
I am so sorry, glum email correspondents everywhere. I didn’t realize that email was such an elegant and fancy form of communication. I didn’t realize that it was too “refined” for raw or unchecked emotion. I didn’t realize that I had to write my emails with a freaking quill.
AHAHAHHHAHAHAHAHHAAA
HAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAA
AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAAAAA
In college, I took a class on poetry. And do you know what I learned in that class? That I don’t understand what’s so great about “The Tyger.” Do you know what else I learned in that class? That one of my classmates had written a very long word in his notebook: onomatopoeia. Curious and confused and consumed with a quenchless thirst for copying my classmates’ notes, I wrote this funny word down in my own notebook.
Fifteen years later, while hiding in my parents’ basement so I wouldn’t have to help clean up after Thanksgiving dinner, I found this college poetry notebook. I was way too busy to take the time to look through it at that moment, but when I came back for Christmas three weeks after that, I saw this word, onomatopoeia, still written down in my cute college handwriting. I decided to look it up. And do you know what I learned? That my parents had lost their dictionary one night in a game of Fictionary that had gotten out of control—and that they hadn’t even bothered to buy a new one. “Typical Dotty and David Kemper,” I said to myself out loud.
Not ready to give up just yet, I turned on my iPhone and I googled “onomatopoeia definition.” My dumb phone kept typing m when I needed n, and then reminded me that I hadn’t backed up my phone in seventy-four weeks. “I hate this phone!” I shouted passionately in the basement. Eventually my phone got the word spelled correctly, and I was able to get on with my day.
Onomatopoeia means: the creation of words that imitate natural sounds. And onomatopoeia is pronounced: ON-O-MA-TO-PEE-UH. If that’s not a great word for a game with words, I don’t know what is!
The point to take away from all of this research is: if AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAAA isn’t a word imitating the most natural sound in the whole world, then I wouldn’t want to be right.
Here’s the thing about “lol”: What? What in the hell does that even mean? That I’m Laughing Out Loud? Yeah, that really comes across when I’m reading it. Hmph, I think to myself, sounding out the words of your email. Michelle wrote “lol”—she must be laughing really, REALLY hard right now. The intensity of this laughter is just LEAPING off the page. I get it! I really get it!! “Lol,” man—“lol” forever!
Did I mention that I am being sarcastic? Because I am, you filthy animal. I REALLY AM!
SO SUE ME FOR ENJOYING A LITTLE BIT OF FEELING IN THIS WORLD!!!!!
Here is what I think of the complaint about AHAHAHHAHAHAAAA: [I just pretended to throw up.] Excuse me, but do you think that I am doing this for my own pleasure? Do you think that I am sitting here, and that I am reading what you wrote, and that I am choosing to burst out with some of the most uncontrollable laughter that I have ever known? Do you think that I am enjoying this monstrous roar clawing itself out of me, consuming my every fiber, ruling over my every nerve? Do you think that this is somehow fun for me?
AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAHAHHAHAHAAA
Do you think that I don’t wish that “lol” could adequately express how hard I am laughing, but that using “lol” would be like using “splash” for the uncontainable RAAAAAAAAARRRRGGGHHHH that is Niagara Falls?
Do you think that I am a freaking piece of WOOD?
I guess what I have to ask you here is this: what exactly are you so afraid of? Or maybe this is the better question: what exactly are you running away from? Because in my SoulCycle class, I am told to run toward the fear, not away from it, and so if I knew what your own fear was, I could probably run toward it and then punch it in the face for you.
And oh, how we would all laugh about it then!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Look, I’m not here to beg and plead and moan for you to keep emailing me. I’m really not. Life is too short for tears, man—and too long not to laugh. So, thank you for the emails, and I’ll see you on the other side.
AHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAAAA
no, my friend
I’ll SEE YOU IN HELL
HAHHAHAHAHAAHHHHAHHAHAHAHAA
DO YOU HEAR ME?!
I WILL SEE YOU IN HELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AHAHAHHAHAHAHAAA
HAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAAAAAAA
Best,
Ellie