by the time you read this, I'll be gone

January 23, 2005 2:15 PM

The Dead Letter Office, where you can leave your parting shot to the world. The letters are sad, funny, touching, angry, and insightful. [more]
posted by emelenjr (19 comments total)

Though he may have preferred not to, Bartleby worked in one. A few years back, daver suggested we needed one over here. The discussion didn't really go anywhere, though.
posted by emelenjr at 2:18 PM on January 23, 2005

I'm confused. Are these supposed to be actual suicide notes, are they letters to dead people or something else? They seem to be the former, which is all a bit weird, IMHO
posted by TheDonF at 2:31 PM on January 23, 2005

Read the summary under the 'write' page: it seems to be an exploration of what you'd want to express if you died today.
posted by thejoshu at 2:41 PM on January 23, 2005

Thanks thejoshu - that was the only link I didn't click on...
posted by TheDonF at 2:58 PM on January 23, 2005

I found this site disturbing and vaguely narcissistic somehow. Unfortunately, I couldn't categorize any of the letters as such. I'll admit--the sad ones are sad, but beyond that, I ran out of patience.
posted by PuppyCat at 3:01 PM on January 23, 2005

I admit, when I found the link I assumed it would be like the dead letter office referenced in Bartleby the Scrivener, where any mail that doesn't find its way to the proper recipient ends up. The kind of letters you'd write, knowing you won't (and maybe shouldn't) send them. But I guess blogs kind of fill that void, and sites like Group Hug and Not Proud already accomplish the same sort of thing.
posted by emelenjr at 3:08 PM on January 23, 2005

emelenjr, curious is your choice for the second "funny" link:

I wish I could of fulfilled my dreams as a model,
a fashion designer, a hairdresser, a makeup
artist, an interior designer, a nail technician.
But you know what, who cares. Im dead know,
so none of you have to care or worry about me
anymore.
You had your chance. You blew it.

Haha! Er...
posted by symphonik at 3:22 PM on January 23, 2005

Although it's practically impossible to determine this with Metafilter's own search, this has appeared a few times before:

http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/5003
(main article)

http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/29642
(comments section)
posted by clyde at 3:42 PM on January 23, 2005

They need to have more categories.

This Letter is: Goth.
This Letter is: Annoying.
This Letter is: Not Particularly Well Punctuated.

I mean, they don't all suck. I merely speak for the cause of accurate classification.
posted by furiousthought at 4:04 PM on January 23, 2005

clyde: I thought it was pretty easy... :)
posted by soundofsuburbia at 4:10 PM on January 23, 2005

This letter is: Cloying
This letter is: Trite
This letter is: Saccharine

I could go on...

A good idea, murdered by the mediocrity of 80% of the submissions.
posted by Devils Rancher at 4:38 PM on January 23, 2005

Not unlike the rest of life, DR.
posted by divrsional at 4:54 PM on January 23, 2005

Weird... I was just thinking about glassdog (although I didn't remember the name until soundofsuburbia's post) and the dead letter office, like, two days ago wondering if they were still around.

Now if someone spontaneously posts something about what happened to the generals, then I think I'm going to start wearing a tinfoil hat when I'm reading mefi.
posted by carmen at 4:55 PM on January 23, 2005

This one was weird (I didn't call the number) ...

please..call this number... 608-516-2762
posted by forforf at 5:20 PM on January 23, 2005

I lost the link to my test dead letter. I wonder if Lance Arthur still runs this site.
posted by riffola at 6:44 PM on January 23, 2005

i think rating these or grading them is really wrong--some of them are really touching.
posted by amberglow at 8:06 PM on January 23, 2005

I don't really think this is true, but I can't resist

Metafilter: A good idea, murdered by the mediocrity of 80% of the submissions.

Seriously, you may think that many of the letters are trite, or poorly written, or saccharine or annoying or whatever other pejorative you're keen to apply, but if someone goes to the trouble of seriously writing one of these, I can't help but think that, to them at least, the things they are saying are felt, and deeply. Other peoples' tragedy is grist for our comedy, sure, and it's in the nature of the world wide voyeurism to be hipper-than-thou, but I've got to go with amberglow here. There's good snark and bad, and snarking at some of these things, if they were meant seriously, feels like really bad form.

Unless, of course, the author of the letter was just messing around.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:10 PM on January 23, 2005

That's what it seemed like with about half the ones I stumbled on. Otherwise I wouldn't have snarked. Kills the mood when a sincere entry is sandwiched between a quotation form "Don't Worry, Be Happy" and a letter that, in its entirety, is: "!1.....shit!"
posted by furiousthought at 7:50 AM on January 24, 2005

This obsession with having the last word. So infantile.
posted by nanojath at 9:36 PM on February 22, 2005