I just want a word to explain to you why I reacted the way I did when you playfully “discovered” an invisible wall in front of me on the street the other day. I admit that kicking you in the testicles and running away screaming like a girl was an indecorous reaction, but it’s important to me to explain myself before you pass judgment on me.So I thought I would enumerate the reasons your profession gives me the willies so that we could reach an understanding the next time I happen to pass through Union Square while a non-existent wind is causing you trouble walking.

1. Your mind is anarchy. Mime requires years of rigorous physical training as well as an astute sense of spacial perception and imagination. You have chosen to put yourself through such rigors – most likely at some prestigious French art school where teachers wear faux-turtlenecks and, I don’t know, berets or something all the time – just to stand on a street corner and have dimes thrown at you. Is it so far-fetched to assume that an individual that would make this deeply disturbing choice might also choose to remove my legs with a chainsaw? I think not.
2. Look what you’re wearing. The very Frenchness of your outfit is bad enough, but – and this is real cause for concern – you’re fucking silver. Yes, silver. The color silver. You’ve painted yourself up like a giant statue that answers invisible phones. Am I really the only one who has nightmares about this?
3. You’re obviously insane. In case my earlier point about logic and self-punishment didn’t hit home, consider this: you’re playing tug-of-war with a person who isn’t really there.
4. You’re about 20 years behind the rest of us. The “robot” might have been a dance craze in 1983, but it’s 2007 and you’re still doing it. And what’s worse, you’ve added a little zip whistle thing to blow at kids who, flying in the face of all self-preservation instinct, try to touch you. And when you blew it at me last week, you got spit all over me. Great, now I’ve got hepatitis. Thanks, mime.
5. You’ve got multiple personality disorder. Yeah, I said it. Last week you were a gold cowboy, and this week you’re a silver robot. Not cool, dude. Pick a horrifying manifestation and allow me a few weeks to get used to it, would you?
6. I did acid in college. Seriously, that thing you did with the masks last week? How the hell was I supposed to know it wasn’t a flashback? One minute I’m walking to work and the world is normal, and the next minute something that looks like that guy from Powder bred with Richard Chamberlain is skittering up to me on all fours. I made a very expensive appointment with a neurologist the next day, only to find out you were real. I can’t tell which is more frightening – the idea that hallucinogens are hiding in my spinal column waiting to be unleashed during a board meeting, or the fact that you actually exist.

I just wanted you to understand why it is that I hate you. I don’t know you personally – you may be a very nice, if somewhat odd, fellow – and I didn’t want you to think it was personal. Granted, I may have called you a “child-molesting creep show” and a “freaktard,” but I meant this with all due respect, which is to say little or none at all.

Love,

Pip