He pointed me to this LA Times column by the dependably purposeless Joel Stein. It seems that once upon a time he made a mean joke about Maureen Dowd in a Time column, drawing her ire. Instead of being happy that he'd fulfilled his humor quota for that year, he then made several futile efforts to apologize to the flame-haired frownie. When he sent her a case of California chardonnay as a peace offering, she sent it back with a note:
"Mr. Stein, keep the wine."
Is it any wonder she got the Pulitzer Prize for Words That Sound Similar? He kept trying to grovel to her even after that, but I would have just written back:
"Pardon the affront, you miserable--"Posted by Jim Treacher at January 4, 2006 09:49 PM