Dear Ms. Lamott,

Reading your article, I shared your walnut-cracking anger and indignation at the carpet guy�s perfunctory deceitfulness. While I admire your magnanimity in being able to take the high road of love and forgiveness, it seems he gained no personal enlightenment from this experience. In fact, he grew even more contemptible when he accused you of wronging him! It�s all well and good to forgive someone on a personal level, but one�s responsibility to the community demands justice. His wily business practices should be publicized so that others like you are not unjustly subject to the same deceit. The best way to treat hard-hearted people is with tough love. Instead of giving him flowers, you should have dropped off a lawsuit.

Sami Hussain

Ann LaMott, as usual, is trying to make us admire her introspective, menschy nature and to draw soul-sustenance from her little lessons in being a Better Person.

Yuck-o-rama.

Rage can be dark and scary, but sometimes it can tell you something. In this case it was telling you, Anne, that you and your church were being cheated, it was telling you that this situation was wrong and needed to be changed. Even Jesus got ticked off at the money lenders in the temple. Anger can be channeled positively as a force for change, and this situation calls for a big, fat change. Crooked Carpet Man is going to continue on being Crooked Carpet Man until someone makes him stop being Crooked Carpet Man. As keleesti pointed out in her excellent letter, there are a lot of people out there who can�t afford to get cheated, and sometimes those of us who have the resources to stand up to crooks have to for the sake of those who don't.

Here I was all set to read some sappy article all about Anne's miracle of faith softening the heart of the carpet guy, AND getting her 50 bucks back. I was at least hoping to read how her church guy buddy lost control and beat the snot of the carpet guy and came back with 300 bucks from the register for the sick children. But no, there's no money shots today in Jesus Land, just flowers, forgiveness and a moldy carpet to kneel on.

Forgive me lord, I need to puke.

I have my doubts as to whether this even happened. It reads like jibberish and oozes sanctimony. She certainly didnt think twice about having her male friend threaten the guy, when things didnt go her way, why not resort to actual violence. Better than the effing flowers!

Whatever happened to "Don't get mad, get even"? - the addendum to if "Turn the other cheek" doesn't work. Dwell in the shame, revel in the anger, laugh at the idiocy, but please don't get pious - it's ineffective and extremely revolting.

Reading your story and the comments made me realize again what a lousy moral guide the bible is. Invariably, honest, decent, religious people, using the very same text come to completely contradictory conclusions.

I was also disappointed by your actions - you had a chance to protect other people from harm, instead you encouraged a thief. I would have had no problems forgiving that guy - if he'd broken down, said "I'm sorry, I just don't have any money left, I'm too poor to pay you back". But he didn't. He took you for an idiot giving him free money. He'll bilk the next person, too. Maybe someone who can't shrug it off so easily and will really miss the money.

Confronted with a difficult situation you consulted your god and decided to do the wrong thing. There is a lesson in there, but maybe not one you want to learn.

This is the question I ask myself, every time, after reading Lamott's writing: Why should I care?

She thinks she's turning something mundane into something profound, but I'm sorry, it's just not interesting, and I almost never agree with the actions she takes as a result of her introspection.

In this case, she didn't bother to unfurl the rug and check its condition, and now she's surprised and enraged that the transaction went foul? Whatever happened to "let the buyer beware"? Sure, the carpet people are slimy, but that's why you check the merchandise before you hand over your money. If you failed to take even the most basic precautions, you get what you deserve.

In most of Lamott's columns, there's a hokey "what would Jesus do?" moment, and in this one it's the inexplicable apology that accompanied the return of the check. What point did it serve? None, except that once again, Anne gets to feel superior to the scum of the earth.

Nice.

god i hate christians. anne, that is exactly what my grandmother and stepmother would do. they're christian too. they're also 2 of the most evil people on the planet. thanks for the reminder of why it is I don't follow in the family footsteps.

here's to breaking free from the mindnumbing opium of organized religion!

So what lesson exactly was Anne Lamott trying to teach us with this article? That Christianity teaches us how to get screwed with good manners? If there was some moral lesson to be learned, she failed to convey it. She built up our expectations with an interesting, compelling story, only to have everything crash down, leaving us feeling more outraged at her behavior than at the store owner's. The only lesson I learned was how to reinforce poor behavior on the part of a merchant. I feel bad now for his future customers as he now likely feels more emboldened to pull the same dirty tricks again.

As a San Franciscan and Salon subscriber I'm ashamed at the degree of intolerance and hatred and especially the use of ad hominem attack just because Anne tries to use the Bible as a moral compass. This author did not beat up your child, she wrote a thoughful, inoffensive essay.

I have a suspician a link to this story was placed on some atheist activist website or email list and that a lot of these hyperbolically brutal, nasty, cruel letters are coming from there. I hope so. I hate to think these letters are representative of my fellow Salon readers. If these are really coming from Salon subscribers and not anti-Christian zealouts sent here by their leader, then I can see why the south and middle America keep electing conservatives -- out of spite.