The 100 Club

*Note: The following document was found taped to a lamppost in the middle of Times Square during the New Year’s Day festivities. The envelope had the words ‘Read Me’ and led to a tourist reading through the entire document and then handing it over to the local authorities. The material here is being released in case anyone can provide some information to prevent whomever wrote it from completing their plan. Although it seems harmless, this could cause many problems with the current quarantine rules and restrictions.

- from the NYPD

*

Dear Citizens of the World,

My name is Michael and I am was a good person who is spending another year all by myself and wondering how many of you are going through the same things. Here I am in the middle of what people love to call Fun City, the Big Apple, and the like, but I am stuck here all by myself. I have been like this for too long to enjoy things ever again, and I would really like to fix this. But I need your help.

To you who read this, you must know that I am a good person. I have a pretty good job – won’t talk about it here – and I live in a quiet neighborhood with my favourite pets: a dog named Rufus (a bulldog much friendlier than he looks) and two goldfish (Abbott and Costello – good for a New York couple). Not always sure who is A and who is C. You know that joke: who’s on first, what Watts’ on second…

Anyway, let me get down to my plan.

Hear me, oh citizens!

I mean, please listen to me: I know that many of you are as lonely as I am at this time of the year and I have decided that I want to do something about it. So, please, make this one of your resolutions for the year.

Find your one hundred.

Let me explain what I am saying writing here: I want you to find one hundred people that you have a real connection to, not an Internet connection and not one based on any social media page.

I will not be able to check on this unless you do what I ask you to do after you find this letter.

Make a copy. In fact, make many copies and share them at work, in cafés, bars, restaurants, bus and train stations, anywhere that you think you can put this document without causing too much of a disturbance. With all the restrictions and other things that we now have to go through, it might seem like this will be extra difficult to do. I do not think that this will be too impossible.

Have you noticed how there is much more of a friendlier attitude between people out there, even in a city like this one where you may not even know your neighbor or even coworkers? I have seen complete strangers starting conversations with each other and then take the same stop to continue their conversations chats. I have seen people who would not normally mix mixing it up and enjoying each other’s company. I have seen flirting become so obvious that even I have received some (not much) attention. It is a change I never expected to see.

But you may still want some advice about how to go about this.

Use a spreadsheet!

Believe me, this will save you a lot of time and effort and will probably teach you a little bit about how Microsoft Excel works. If you really need to review how it works, you can get a tutorial and *****************.

Sorry, I was going on and on there and had to clean things up. But a good and clear document is what you need. Too many time people have decided to do these things by hand and it just looks like a terrible mess. Trust me, pencil and paper (or even pen and paper) never work as well as a good computer.

Incidentally, if you are looking for a new computer, you should try to buy one at *************.

Again, I do go on a bit.

There are some other things that you can do.

Try to use the friends you already have.

You will probably be better at this than me or most of the other people I see down here every year entering and leaving the Square on their own (I have done some scouting, so I know what I am talking about, Mary). Never mind that. But do try to allow your friends to help you. One thing they might be able to do is get names and people from other countries to join in. This is still the city that never rests naps sleeps, and you know that people want to come here (still true, Mary).

Never mind that.

So, that is all I have to offer. I think that you all know that planning ahead for a whole new year with all this time ahead of us is a good idea. And I want it to be clear that I am not doing this just so that I feel less lonely, but also because I think some of you might regret letting a good thing go away without an explanation or the whole story being told. I still apologize for making this so heavy truth-filled long, but I needed all this space. And if I had written it by hand, it would have been worse (always critical of my speling spelling, Mary).

See you all in the new year (or the end of this one, I mean).

P.S.: I don’t want you to read too much into my mistakes here and the fact that I refuse to put my name on this one. I am just a lonely guy who would like to be less lonely in the upcoming year. We all have twelve months to help myself ourselves and be a little happier than we usually are.

P.P.S.: Don’t read too much into all that Mary stuff. I just had something on my mind, and she was is an old friend. Not much to read there at all.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Mary, Mary, I miss you.