"What's grimly funny is that the article sent so many furious letter writers into their own dark places of rage. I wonder why so many people are so FURIOUS about this article?"

Um, because we are subscribers to an on-line magazine whose quality has been steadily declining for some time, and we are subjected to such poorly written pieces of drivel ("One day you'd expect to find it gone, like a missing tooth.") on a daily basis? At least, that is why I reacted the way I did.

This is one of the worst pieces I have ever seen on Salon. She did a very bad job of actually getting her point across, wouldn't you say, considering the responses she got?

Anne Lamott's response to the carpet guy's swindle is not something that I would have done. I think I probably would have called the police to report the bad check. However. I also think there's more to this story than pure "law and order" justice-orientation issues. Lamott makes a point of writing about how shabby the carpet store is. It occurs to me, and it probably occurred to her, that the carpet guy needed the $50 more than she does at this time in her life. This does not excuse his behavior--it was still wrong. But it does suggest that Lamott, who is the one with the greater amount of resources at this juncture, was able to choose how she wanted to deal with his wrong behavior. And, she made a rational, thought-out choice. Letting people off the hook is not something we're often taught to do in this culture, but I think that Lamott's actions have a better chance of getting the carpet guy to think about his behavior, and possibly change it, than if she had resorted to police action to recover her $50.

I had to wait to throw my 2cents in the fray about Annie's story. It goes without saying that "The Carpet Guy" is one of the bottom feeders, taking what he can and when and where he can get it. You gotta' admit we've all most likely been the carpet guy's victim at some point in our life, right. But I dont think I could go anywhere as far as Annie did and forgive this guy to the nth degree as she did. Wow, Anne, what a broad you are to do this, much less buy the jerk flowers. You totally put his knickers in a twist, so to speak, so much so he could not even, much less know how to, be decent about it. You go, girl. Wouldn't it be great if more of us could do forgiveness at levels even less than this. But I think what truly teed me off the most in some of the posts I read were the couple people, and probably more I did not read, that said they are going to cancel the script to salon.com, they think Anne LaMott and another writer person (a woman I believe) should not write for salon.com, on and on. Yeah, well, how about this - her little pice of carpet baggage got your attention did it not, you responded to it did you not, isn't that the mark of a GOOD writer to create a little stir among her/his readers and a little controversial issue here and there. Have you two that decided salon.com is just not good enough for you anymore even read any of Anne's books. If not you have missed some great writing in those. This is a woman much like Oprah Winfrey, she wears her heart on her sleeves and writes and speaks from her experiences. I started reading her when Sam was a little munchkin and now I believe he's a teenager. So you didn't agree with her, so what, isn't that your privilege for living in the land of milk & honey, sure. Did she make this up? I could not imagine her doing that and what would her purpose be to such an action. I think most of you are just plain mad at her cuz she definitely went above and beyond trying to reconcile the crappy situation she was forced into. Yeah, she shoulda' done this, done that, opened the rug and looked at it, sure, but she didn't. She laid $50 down of her own money to help the church nursery and got taken for a ride. I only wish I knew the carpet guy's name and store name and address. He would NOT want to receive a letter from me cuz I'd nail his hide to the wall via the U.S. mail! Too bad we can't learn what this jerk's name is and we could start a letter writing campaign to the local paper and force him to face up to what he's done. Yes, he should be prosecuted, for lying, for ripping off Anne, the church, then on top of all, writing a bum check. Geeze loueeze, but I am of the firm belief, you give you get back and he'll have it coming to him. Perhaps he'll get mugged in the alley somewhere and they stuff him into that same old moldy dirty carpet, wouldn't that be tit for tat. Lighten up all of you critics of Anne's forgiveness mode, she's an okay lady in my book.

Bauhaus

Oh yay! Anne where have you been? Welcome back. Your stories are always inspirational without being preachy. That said, frankly, I think your Christian charity went a bit far this time. I think even Jesus would have given a satisfied smirk if you'd torched the bastard's shop to the ground.

Dear Anne - I am a huge fan of your writing but am dismayed at the conclusions you draw in your article. Let me get this straight: you were sold defective merchandise, you returned it promptly with a receipt, the merchant tried to steal your money, also treated you extremely poorly, then inferred that you were insane for becoming angry at his behavior, made you jump through hoops to get your money, and then provided you with a bad check, possibly knowingly, as recompense?

I understand and celebrate those who fight the good fight against responding reflexively when someone pushes your button, but this person was unethical and abusive. Why would anyone apologize to this type of person?

Seek to understand your anger? Good. Try to analyze why it made you so angry, so you can possibly predict when you'll have the same response again? Good. Apologize to the person who created this type of abusive situation for a customer? Not good!

Why, Anne? Oh why would you do that?