My entire life was done.

Our friend Ben encountered the following heartfelt, even desperate, comment on our blog, Poor Richard’s Almanac, yesterday:

“I would like to express thanks to the writer just for rescuing me from this particular dilemma. After researching through the world-wide-web and seeing things which are not powerful, I believed my entire life was done. Living devoid of the answers to the issues you have solved all through your good short post is a serious case, and ones that could have in a wrong way damaged my entire career if I hadn’t encountered your website. Your personal expertise and kindness in touching every part was vital. I am not sure what I would have done if I had not come upon such a solution like this. I can also at this point relish my future. Thanks a lot so much for this impressive and amazing guide. I will not be reluctant to recommend your web blog to anybody who should receive counselling on this subject matter.”

This comment, from someone identified only as “Student,” had been consigned by WordPress’s Akismet filter to spam. How could Akismet have been so callous, so heartless, when poor Student believed his or her “entire life was done,” living ”devoid of the answers” as s/he was until arriving in the nick of time here at Poor Richard’s Almanac before the lack of this vital information “in a wrong way damaged my entire career,” so that now s/he can once again “relish my future”?

Well, here’s a subtle hint: Student’s comment was directed, not at some life-or-death post or, say, a post containing the always-relevant wisdom of our hero and blog mentor, the great Benjamin Franklin. Oh, no. Instead, it was a comment on one of Silence Dogood’s recipe ramblings about Amish funeral potatoes. While our friend Ben supposes that anything served at a funeral is in a way connected to life and death, it would be unfortunate in the extreme if failing to discover the perfect potato recipe meant that’s one’s life was about to be terminated.

Fortunately, Student found us just in time! We trust that s/he will live to relish many a dish of Amish funeral potatoes in the future.

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