Januariad

Dear Mr. Foley,

In response to your letter of complaint, dated January 11th, I feel I must correct you in only a few particulars.

Firstly, the facility that you repeatedly refer to as our “Beginner’s Spear Hunting Pool” is something that we instead call our “Goldfish Pond.” It was not originally envisaged as a training ground for snorkelers bearing harpoons. If I can be blunt, Mr. Foley, this is the primary reason you were ejected from the premises on the 6th, and most of your other complaints can be traced back to this original misunderstanding. Some of those goldfish had been with us for more than five years. Our barkeep, Mr. McGuire, has been distraught all week. It was him that fed them, I might add.

Secondly, our security staff, or “bouncers” as you repeatedly call them, did not injure you during your removal from the “Spear Hunting Pool.” As far as I can make out from CCTV footage reviewed today, your knees were not scraped against to rim of the pond while you were pulled out of the water. The CCTV footage seems to suggest that you were pulled out backwards while your legs flailed freely. It seems impossible to me that any such injury might have occurred. Could it be the case that you banged your own shins against the bottom of the pond, given that you were swimming in water only eighteen inches deep?

Thirdly, and I must refute this in terms even more strongly than the above: My security staff did not “drag [you] into a store room and inflict upon [you] a terrible haircut.” What reason would they have to do such a thing? From the polaroids you’ve included, and I mean no disrespect, Mr. Foley, in saying this, but it looks as though the haircut you experienced since visiting our establishment was self inflicted. The uneven length and disregard for the rear portions of your head suggest a man trimming his own hair in the mirror. Whatever grievances you hold against myself and my colleagues, we can only take seriously injuries that have happened to you while within the area of our establishment. Further mishaps that have arisen in the intervening week could not, in truth, be ascribed to our actions.

Fourthly, and lastly, we did not “sentence [you] to a dry January” after barring you from our premises. As you must know, there are more than ten pubs and bars in this small town alone, and the only way this could possibly be true is if you were already barred from all the rest of them.

All that said, Mr. Foley, I accept the criticisms you have sent me in the good faith in which they were intended.

Yours Faithfully,
Martin McGuirk,
General Manager,
The Pot & Kettle.