You know it’s going to be a hell of a day when it begins with hate mail in which your name is spelled wrong.

“Dear, Mike LaPhlegm: Never in my life have I come across such a talentless, lowdown, dirty, rotten, foul-smelling rat like yourself with the audacity to write about …”

Place your own rant here.

A seething letter writer who gets your name way wrong is no doubt excited to the point where he can barely see. He is seeing red and he is seeing double. His vision is clouded by richly textured fantasies involving you, the lowdown, dirty rat, being eaten by termites. You wander through your day jumping every time a car pulls up close to you on the street.

Is that the seething madman? Is that a meat cleaver hanging from his rearview mirror?

Not that I get many such letters. The people who write me tend to be lighthearted, fun-loving sorts who laugh at the same things I laugh at. They understand when I’m joking. They understand when I’ve been up too long, and I’m writing from the fevered fist of delirium. Sometimes they’re not laughing with me, they’re laughing at me. God bless their twisted souls.

Sizzling suggestions

But every now and then, along comes a letter so full of rage and steaming indignation, smoke pours from the sides of the computer. Words on the page bubble and hiss like alphabet soup in boiling water.

“Dear Morton: Why in the world the newspaper you work for allows you space to write about such ludicrous nonsense such as evil ice cream trucks is beyond me. I’ve been driving an ice cream truck for 60 years while also delivering canned goods to elderly shut-ins, saving beached whales, rescuing puppies from abusive homes and building houses for orphans. Ice cream trucks are the superheroes of the city streets whereas you, Mr. LaFlower, are a disgrace. If they asked for my opinion, I’d tell them that a soulless simpleton like yourself should be reassigned to shoveling …” Place your own unpleasant substance which requires shoveling here.

The most scathing mail I ever got in reaction to a column was a response to something I had written about flea markets. I thought it was a light piece, just a look at how some people can spend hours or days in those places where others, like myself, have a lower threshold of say, 30 seconds.

This particular letter writer implied, in words he made up just for the occasion, that I was a narrow-minded scum who should be placed in a stockade and repeatedly flogged for the entertainment of flea market shoppers everywhere.

Trashing a town?

Another solar flare of anger came from a pair of women from Eyesocket, Maine, who reacted with ferocity about something I had written about small towns. In the column, I described my own navigational shortcomings in a manner that should have offended no one but myself. But these fine women from Eyesocket took great offense, as if I’d visited their homes personally and dumped trash on their lawns.

So scorching was this letter that it took two angry women to write it. And they wrapped it up by referring to me as a loudmouth flatlander, unaware, no doubt, that I grew up in Waterville and once lived in Vassalboro. Vassalboro, for God’s sake. That’s a town so small, they had to close the library because someone took out the book. And yet nobody there despises me because I frequently get lost.

These days, I avoid the town of Eyesocket at all costs.

There is something perversely liberating about hate mail. Confronted with wildly opposing viewpoints, I am forced to re-examine my own thoughts and determine if I still stand by my earlier stance.

Invariably, I do. The process works like this: “Hmmmm.” (stroking chin). “Did I really mean it when I said I’d rather eat lint than shop at a flea market or any other place for more than an hour? Why, yes. Yes, I did.”

And so you respond to the letter writer with a frank and clear explanation of why you wrote what you did and how you came to your opinions. The rational people will respond in much calmer tones and a reasonable discussion will ensue. The others will ignore your response, cling to their fury and continue making voodoo dolls of you.

Which is fine. If what I wrote never caused somebody somewhere to react with passion, I’d be little more than a circus freak doing tricks for money.

Not that there’s anything wrong with circus freaks. They’re the superheroes of the carnival world, after all. If you are such a sideshow attraction, or you are in love with one, let me start the caustic letter for you.

“Dear Mr. LaThumb. Never in my life have I been so offended. People like you should be banned from the circus altogether. In my opinion, you are a complete horse’s ….” Place your favorite animal body part here.

Mark LaFlamme is the Sun Journal crime reporter. Send hate mail to his blog at www.sunjournal.com.