Tuesday, May 19, 2009

An open letter to Princess

Hi Princess. How are you? That’s good.

Well, it’s been almost a month since we parted. It did end rather poorly, didn’t it? I guess there’s plenty of blame to go around.

I have a new park now. No, it’s not as fancy as yours, no birthday reminders, or gifts, or groups. It’s a little clunky to get around. But we all like it very much. Mostly because we can bark what we want. We’re a rebellious group, we do like to bark our own opinions.

I don’t know how much you’d like it. There aren’t a lot of rules. I know you like rules. Structure can be a good thing for many dogs.

In your park, you got to make the rules and enforce them against whomever you wanted. I guess that made you the bully. And you were quite a good bully my friend. You bullied people to delete their profile, when they wouldn’t do that you just deleted them yourself. You turned good dog against good dog. Hey, you even had people so scared they deleted their profile on other sites. I mean really, a tip of the tail to you.

You still have your very strong, very virile park, while we have our little one. You have thousands of members, we dozens. Our little defections have probably not disrupted a blade of grass in your park.

But you couldn’t stay out of our park could you? You had to come slinking in (or at least someone doing your work), posting your picture, stirring up drama, scaring our scarred little dogs. Some, at the mere scent of you, were ready to abandon our park and run blindly into the woods.

Of course you’re presence was easily detected, the scent of weasel that drifted over us, the sky suddenly growing overcast, the poor spelling. A strong, sudden move, charging in at us, barking loudly, “I am here, fear me, run!”

Got to admit, not my style. What would I do? Well, funny you should ask. See, I’m a little dog, not powerful like you, I don’t need to stand in the middle of the pack and bark for attention. No, see what I would do is, say (hypothetically) that I figured once I began asking for e-mail addresses from other members so I could share with them your response to Tanner’s banishment, you would banish me in punishment.

Hypothetically, even before you realized what I was doing, I would use another computer, use another e-mail address, use another picture of a dog (not one found on Google, nothing as pedestrian as that) say a friend’s dog, and create a new profile so, when the day came I was banished from your park, I was actually still there, like you, hiding behind another dog.

So, you know, just thinking out loud here, while you have patrolled your park keeping everyone in order, one of your nicest, most subservient dogs would be, in reality the Foley Monster.

But why do this? Is your park just so cool I had to sneak in? No, see, you’re kind of predictable. I didn’t know how things would shake out, but I had a plan of action, and knew it would anger you, and you would seek retribution. So, while I waited, occasionally having my puppy make comments here and there, nothing too obvious (he’s kind of a dullard, by the way, that’s a clue) I would gather information about the Doggy Park you run.

What I didn’t count on, is the number of dogs who’d join me, dogs with connections I don’t have and man they found so much….boring information: company addresses, employees, home addresses, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, I mean stuff no one wants posted but still nothing earth shattering.

But I’ve got to think there’s more out there, and when it’s found, wouldn’t it be just the coolest thing if it was posted at 3:00 AM on a Sunday like McGyver’s was and sat there on your site for everyone to see. You got to admit, pretty cool. Unless, of course, you find out who I am. Just to make it fun, I left one blatant clue, and another that gives the name away, but you’ve got to be pretty savvy to pick it up.

But it doesn’t have to be. So here’s the deal: You stay out of our dog park, you stop bullying my friends and let us play in peace, and that hypothetical profile of mine will quietly disappear. But, if you insist on coming running into our park causing a commotion and scaring my friends, well then “game on” my friend. The ball is in your court.

As Woody said to Sid in Toy Story: “Play nice.”

13 comments:

  1. We're speechless. Unbelievably well done. You are amazing and incredible and we so admire your commitment to doing the right thing. In fact, we can't think of one funny thing to say because we're in awe. We're glad to call you our friend.

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  2. You are without a doubt the wisest & wittiest dog we have ever had the pleasure of knowing...we agree with Read...Nothing else need be said...You said it all and said it well...

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  3. Just two things, girls; I'm glad you're on our side and I'm proud to call you furiend. Lhasa love & rock on!

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  4. Two sides. One light, one dark. one Good, One Evil. Ben infiltrating the Losties camp as Henry Gale. Sound Familiar? I feel like I'm watching a canine version of "Lost" & Princess is the Man behind the Curtain. Sometimes it takes the words of one so small to reach the masses. Many would agree with you but won't speak up for fear of reprisals. There are so many things to fear in our real life everyday, that we look forward to a short respite from everything visiting friends & communities on the web. For some of us, we created casual friendships that make us forget our problems for a short period. For some, lasting friendships have been made. Everything was fine for awhile but now a large shadow looms watching & listening. Now there's fear of suspensions, time-outs, & worse if you say the wrong thing. I think someone forgot the whole concept behind a community which is to share common interests & opinions. Time-Outs, Suspensions? We are not children, We are people equal in terms of power when we interact with our peers.

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  5. I agree with Erin. However, regardleess of what one would say about me, I am NOT afraid, and go where angels fear to tread. I have barked sarcastically at the queen of what she thinks she is queen of. Have questioned authority for all to see, and still haven't figured out why I haven't been booted... But I will not sell myself down the river. I guess it goes back to the quote "to thine own self be true" And that is me. Where the imposter......never would come as himself......wouldn't like the welcoming committee.....

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  6. SO true and well spoken!! We love it!!

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  7. OH MY!! That says it all!! Kudos to you!

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  8. Well played, Foley Monster, well played. Remind us never to play poker with you....you will probably have aces hiding in your fur!

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  9. I'm sure glad that you thought of that, Foley.
    Unfortunately, I didn't think ahead when I escaped. Sure wish that I had taken the time to do some statistical analysis before I left.
    One newspaper story quotes all the members D/S has but those are dogs-not humans. Some humans have one dog, some have four or five or even six dogs with separate profiles. When a dog leaves, the profile number isn't reused. My off the cuff guess is there isn't more than 10,000 humans represented on D/S and many of them are inactive.
    I don't know about your family, but I don't have any money to buy anything. My Mom and Dad do all the buying. Consequently, ads on D/S are not reaching the number of potential buyers Levi seems to be claiming.
    What do you think, Levi? Is my guess far off?

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  10. We found a few of the articles and are sharing them on Mom's FB page. No surprise - he started DS "as a joke". He sold a previous web enterprise, so the suggestion that he's looking to build up DS and sell it is more than conjecture.

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  11. four paws, four angel paws, and two human paws UP!

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  12. Whoa Foley...paws up! That was awesome and powerful and amazing! Remind me never to tangle with you!

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  13. Oh we love the new site tho Foley an Pocket! we can send our pics in comments an that is way better than on the other site that is one reason we couldn't get some of our old doggyspaces.com (with a S on the end) to stay on the site they sent us too because they did not have that feature. I wish we all had tons of money an could ban together an buy out that site tho! We wanted to do that with our old site but we never could get enough doggys owners interested we had a feelin that owner was gettn ready to give it up from reading things on google. Who knows maybe one of us will win a lottery or inherit lots of money an then we can OWN it hehe. ROCK ON FOLEY AN POCKET you are truly loved♥♥♥♥♥The Bama Bunch!

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