Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

The Wiki man | 17 July 2010

A fortnightly column on technology and the web

issue 17 July 2010

To Amy******@************.org: I have a LG microwave that I want to sell for $30. I am aware your ad said whites only, but I am an African American. I sincerely hope that we can put race issues aside and just do business.

From Amy ****** to Me: I am so sorry that you misread my ad. I meant the microwave should be white, because it would match my kitchen.

From Me to Amy ******: Oh, so because I am black, you think that I can’t read… I don’t think I can sell my microwave to a bigot.

Subsequent masters of the art have included William Donaldson (as Henry Root), Ted L. Nancy (American author of Letters from a Nut) and Robert Popper (author, under the name Robin Cooper, of The Timewaster Letters).

I admit this is a polarising type of humour, in that some people — like me — find it inexhaustibly funny, while others are left cold.

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