Writer's Remorse

     When I was doing my undergrad, I would often write in to the paper. The next morning I would anxiously open the paper, turn to the letters to the editor section and search for my letter. I wasn't printed every time I sent a letter, but when I was it gave me such a thrill to see my name in print. Every once in awhile I still write in but not as often. I guess I'm getting a bit mellower as I get older. Not many things get me riled up (because that's the only time I write). But once in a blue moon I read something that makes me angry and I can't help myself, I have to send something. In recent years though, a few hours after sending in my letter I start feeling writer's remorse. I'm not mad anymore and I wonder what possessed me to send something in the first place. I hate confrontation and I start worrying that someone will respond to what I've written and I'll be caught in a war of words. 

STM Employees

      Yesterday was one such day. I was reading Saturday's paper during breakfast because I didn't have time on Saturday morning. There's been a huge kerfuffle about STM employees recently, after a woman wrote in to complain about how the fare-checkers gave her daughter a $217 ticket for not keeping her metro ticket. She said they were intimidating and reduced her daughter to tears. This one letter created a firestorm of letters to the editor, the majority accusing the STM employees of being power-hungry brutes.  I thought people were going a little overboard but wasn't too interested in the entire matter until one person wrote in to say that when one of the employees was checking to see if she had her ticket, she told him his job was pretty humiliating because he was a fake cop with a weapon but in reality was a glorified ticket-checker. After I read her letter I was fuming. How rude! How insulting! What is wrong with people? Don't they have any manners? Any consideration? The guy is just doing his job! The uniform is required by his employee, the STM. If you have a problem, take it up with them! Don't insult someone for doing their job. I'm sure some STM employees are jerks but there are jerks everywhere! I just couldn't believe someone could be so mean and then be proud of enough of their actions to share it with everyone in the paper. So I wrote a letter.

     But last night when I started thinking about it, I regretting sending it in. What difference will it make? I doubt that person will change her mind about what she did or about the STM employees, like many of the other letter-writers. I don't even know that the letter will be printed but I'm hoping it won't.