From the Transom's Mailbag: Bitter Pills

This week, the Observer published a letter from one Ms. Elizabeth Tomelleri of Springfield, Mo., in which she wondered "what bitter pills" The Transom might have swallowed in its "personal life" to result in such "acidic, below-the-belt, mean-spirited, hypercritical comments" from its pen. (Pen!) Dear Ms. Tomelleri, 1. The Reagan funeral. It really did one in. 2. A terrible bed-bound episode of epididymitis at the age of 21. 3. The mandatory federal sentencing guidelines, resulting in monthly ring-ups; "This is a call from a federal corrections facility; to accept, press five." 4. An extreme problem of household entropy; things rotting, smelling, no one there to clean them up, etc. 5. Young New Manhattan's blonde thrusty socialites Tinsley and Topper Mortimer. 6. Expense. 7. A radical 19th-century lack of dental insurance and holes in teeth. 8. Kate Moss bravely picking at a salad at the Ritz in Manhattan last Wednesday afternoon, not noticed. 9. The neighborhood's tenements are built on a swamp and everything just leans so horribly; disorienting in the mornings, especially when both one's arms are totally numb and flappy like nightmare rubber wings. 10. Sam Mendes. Our fondness, The Transom