On jungle law

From: Laurence Shandy
To: Michael, sex offender
Re: Paradise

Dear Michael,

Since I don't have your last name, I don't really know where to send this letter. I can only hope you've found it yourself. Maybe you Googled "Michael". I am, after all, fairly high on the Google listings. Search for "remove a dildo from the butt", and I'm number one.

Even though you may never read this, it's probably a good thing you didn't give your real name to CNN's Rich Phillips. After all, you are a registered sex offender, and I'm sure privacy is your top priority. Well, maybe a close second behind molesting children.

As the reluctant spokesman for St. Petersburg, Florida's Palace Mobile Home Park, where 95 of the 200 residents are fellow sex offenders, you did a bang-up job of making your case against a world hell-bent on destroying the lives of our nation's dangerously perverted. St. Petersburg, long a haven for society's outcast and violently deranged, is the perfect home for a community of the future like the Palace trailer park. You've described your home as a "piece of paradise", and for anyone over the age of six, this is most definitely true.

I must admit to shedding a tear over this speech: "As a sex offender -- when you come out, you're told you can't do this; you can't be around children; you can't go to parks; you can't go to the beach; you can't go to the library." Bravo, Michael. You're like the Rosa Parks of sex offenders, only instead of standing up for your tarnished rights, you've hidden in a rusty trailer in the woods. Paradise, indeed.

Look, I don't pretend to understand your affliction. Personally, I can't imagine engaging in any coital act without the erotic friction of two or more tufts of pubic hair rubbing together. But everyone deserves a second chance.

For you won sake, though, you might want to put up some kind of sign. You know, for trick or treaters.

Best wishes,
Laurence Shandy, gentleman