The Letter in the Pond
Recently, a friend of ours, Simon, moved to Over, just North of Cambridge, UK. He was moving to a lovely property, with a nice garden and a pond.
Simon wasn’t so keen on the pond though. It’s not very child friendly, and with two young ones running around the garden, he thought it would be safer to get rid of it.
A few buckets and hours of sweating later, Simon lifted the pond lining to discover a laminated piece of paper sitting at the bottom of the gaping hole that once was the previous owner’s pond.
Go to Flickr for the larger image
Whoever created this, come forward. You’re weird and you’re funny. And you’re creeping the hell out of us! 
Thanks to those who linked in to this post:
- Reddit readers
- Metafilter
- The whingy little shits on Digg (and here)
- Waxy Links May 31st 2008
Update: For those who don’t want to read the image, here’s the full text. I waited for someone else to type it up, since I couldn’t be bothered - I think they call that crowdsourcing?
10th July 2003
To whom it may concern:
If you are reading this then I can only assume that you have removed the pond under which this note was buried.
Of course, as I am not around at the moment, I am not in a position to comment on why you may have chosen to remove the pond and, it is fair to say, that there could be any number of reasons for doing so. I will not try to list those potential reasons right now but there could be quite a lot of them. One of the more bizarre reasons could be that the removal of the pond was the direct result of a bite on the ankle from a Wildebeest, but I shall not speculate.
Anyways, I would like you to be aware that the digging of this pond and it’s subsequent filling with water and stocking with fish and aquatic plants took a considerable amount of personal effort. It’s not just the digging of the hole you know (although clearly that is a major part), but also the consideration that had to be given to the sitting of the pond, its shape and size, its location close to a convenient electrical supply, etc etc etc.
I have to admit that I am a bit miffed about all this. You have just destroyed (yes, I know its a strong word to use but there are principles involved here) something that took me a long time to do. If I came along and destroyed something that it had taken a long time for you to do then I think you would be a bit miffed as well, so just think on that.
Enough of this. Just get on with what it is you think you are doing, you snivelling pond destroyer.
Oh, and by the way, I hope your head falls off.
More funny stuff on That Canadian Girl:
- Om nom nom nom: Whoddathunk rubbish bins could be this funny?
- 9th Edition of the Funny Google Searches series: Because the Internet is full of weirdos
- The best XKCD cartoon yet: Love XKCD so much
- Star Wars story told by a 3 year old: The shorter the summary, the better. Thanks kiddo, this is way better than the movie!
May 30th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Hahahaha, this is genius! The first time I read it, I was thinking WTF!! Also, who on earth would write this!?!? It looks like an article they’d feature on Diggnation.
Also, promotion of blog articles on Twitter works really well! I saw this on your feed and was very intrigued.
May 30th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
ZOMG that’s an awesomely clever idea!
We took out our front porch a few weeks ago and have been rebuilding a new one - I may have to put some type of witty note about how much work that project has been in the bottom before I lay the last set of bricks…
May 31st, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Uhhh, the link wants me to register to see the photo. That’s lame.
May 31st, 2008 at 9:54 pm
That was genius!!
May 31st, 2008 at 11:00 pm
[...] July 2003 MetaFilter Add comments To Whom It May Concern: If you are reading this then I can only assume that you have removed the pond under which this note [...]
June 1st, 2008 at 1:02 am
That’s my birthday!
June 1st, 2008 at 2:17 am
He seriously filled in a pond just because he has young kids? His poor, sheltered children. They will grow up to be boring and timid; they will not know or appreciate nature.
June 1st, 2008 at 2:36 am
Wow, that’s weird–being angry about something before it has even happened! I would be so creeped out…but the entertainment value would definitely cancel out the creep factor.
June 1st, 2008 at 2:51 am
Put back the pond.
June 1st, 2008 at 2:53 am
In removing wallpaper from a bathroom I came across a kid’s rendering of a treasure map on the wall. Since the house was built in the 1950’s and the map said it was from the 1700’s I safely ignored the idea to go looking for buried treasure. Seeing this make me want to leave a note for the generations…or a prank.
June 1st, 2008 at 7:15 am
Best.
Letter.
Ever.
June 1st, 2008 at 8:04 am
That was very Douglas Adamsy
June 1st, 2008 at 8:11 am
I wish I had thought of this when I built my pond. It was subsequently destroyed when we sold the house a few months(!!!) after it was finished.
I still harbor intense anger for the “sniveling pond destroyer”.
June 1st, 2008 at 8:23 am
I have to sign up for Flickr just to view this thing? Fat chance.
June 1st, 2008 at 9:03 am
I remember we had a pond to in our old garden and the ones who bought from us destroyed the pond because of their freakin little boy!!! Pond destroyers are bad people!
June 1st, 2008 at 9:11 am
Ok, to those who complained about having to register to Flickr, I hadn’t realised you needed to be logged in to see the original size one.
Now, stop whinging or your head will fall off!
June 1st, 2008 at 11:17 am
[...] may be a hoax but even if it is, it’s amusing. A man near Cambridge removed a pond from the garden of his new house and found underneath a bizarre - and laminated - admonishing note [...]
June 1st, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Hehe - this is great - I wish I had the presence of mind to do stuff like this.
June 1st, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Where can I get my head laminated?
June 1st, 2008 at 2:28 pm
[...] http://www.thatcanadiangirl.co.uk/blog/2008/05/30/the-letter-in-the-pond/ [...]
June 1st, 2008 at 4:04 pm
All you people complaining about people filling in ponds, and usually because they have kids, I hope you are joking, I mean the number of incidents of young children drowning in ponds, even ones that are only a foot deep are too numerous for parents to ignore, and if you are planning to sell your house, going through the effort of adding a pond you don’t even know if the buyers will like is just silly!
June 1st, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Oh, come now. It’s hardly productive to complain about the destroyal of a pond in a letter that can only be read after the fact.
June 1st, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Man, classic - deserves to be on passiveaggressivenotes.com!
June 1st, 2008 at 9:58 pm
it was me.
June 1st, 2008 at 10:09 pm
oh my!
I think Pond Boy might need some help.
Maybe he looks like this
http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/medialibrary/images/main-promo/s4_06_wal_08.jpg
June 1st, 2008 at 10:40 pm
[...] man. You absolutely have to read this. It’s a note a guy found on the bottom of a pond he drained after he bought his house.
:D [...]
June 2nd, 2008 at 12:54 am
Whew! Gives me a creep. Maybe i should try the message in a bottle drama.
June 2nd, 2008 at 8:02 am
I reckon the guy who left that letter might look a bit like this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/s4/images/S4_06
June 2nd, 2008 at 8:05 am
They can be a bit creepy “out Cambridge way”
June 2nd, 2008 at 11:59 am
La carta en el estanque…
Una persona que se compra una casa con un pequeño estanque, que decide secar porque tiene niños y prefiere evitarse posibles peligros. Al vaciarlo completamente encuentra en el fondo esta carta plastificada donde el creador del estanque le deja const…
June 2nd, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Seriously if he loved his pond so much he shouldn’t have sold the house - what a nutter!! Still it highly amused me
June 2nd, 2008 at 3:39 pm
*wink wink*
It’s me, Vero! You didn’t recognize me in the header photo of my blog? (; Your posts are always great! I think you should hide a note on it that would appear if anyone ever tried to delete it…
June 2nd, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Having just filled in a pond in my own backyard, I say to this note-writer: piss off. Ponds are great if you are really into fish care and pond maintenance, but if you’re not they’re just an extra chore. After mine got a large tear in the liner, I decided I wasn’t going to repair it and continue to put time into it, and now I have no pond.
June 2nd, 2008 at 8:44 pm
It´s a freaking surprising pond letter. Imagine how many pondmen lives among us…… maybe they sould make a scarry movie called “The Pond”.
cheers for the pondmen
June 2nd, 2008 at 8:53 pm
For the frakking children! must keep the children safe!
sheltered little beasties won’t know what to do when adversity comes.
June 2nd, 2008 at 10:08 pm
omg - that’s all I can say!
June 2nd, 2008 at 11:44 pm
classic. I just wish i could see it a little better. not quite sure this fits but I’d send it to passive-agressive notes.com if I were you!
June 3rd, 2008 at 4:21 am
this was one of the funniest reads i’ve had in a while!!!
absolut genious… but
what if they dug up the pond to make a bigger one… would the wish for a falling head still stand?
June 3rd, 2008 at 6:15 am
I’ve noticed the use of the string of letters “whinging” several times on this site. I wanted to point out that Canadians generally spell it “whining”, along with the rest of the so-called modern English word, but then I did some checking; apparently whinging is the British/ Australian way of spelling “whining”. So I’ll just assume that you want it to be “whinging” since this domain is registered as a .co.uk. If you feel any love for me and my fellow grammar/ spelling Nazis; I’d greatly appreciate it if you’d use whining in the future. Your choice though since both are correct. Good day to you!
June 3rd, 2008 at 8:27 am
I can’t believe you get amused with such a stupid thing, there’s no authentic creativity in writing a letter like that.
June 3rd, 2008 at 12:53 pm
I have to agree with several people here - the children are no reason to destroy a beautiful thing like a pond.
That’s just obsessive parenting, and your children are going to grow to resent you and will dump you in the furthest away, convenient nursing home when you get old.
Yes, we all know the risks of children drowning UNATTENDED in a swimming pool or other body of water. Should these parents ever decide to actually sit down and learn what parenting means, they may discover that once they have children, they are not supposed to go traipsing off to whatever party or social gathering or whatever they wish to do.
They’re parents now. One of the works, one of them watches the children. If both work, you twats better be raking in enough money to hire a live-in nanny. Because children require constant supervision.
THAT IS HOW YOU PREVENT THEM FROM DROWNING IN A POND, YOU MINDLESS TWATS!
By the way, I do sincerely hope your head falls off…and all of your spawns’ heads too.
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:40 pm
[...] an avid pond builder, I take the side of the author of this laminated piece of paper, a note from the builder of the pond to who ever decided to dismantel it one [...]
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Ok, to everyone who’s getting their knickers in a twist over someone’s decision to get rid of the pond, did it occur to you that the pond may not have been in a convenient spot, build properly with suitable liner or that Simon could just downright not be arsed with maintaining something like that?!
#39: Ghost|BOFH in particular, not quite sure who pissed in your cornflakes but wow have you ever got issues. No one’s planning on leaving youngins completely unattended, but there’s far more child-friendly things to put in a garden.
#38: Dear Spelling Nazi, aside from the “this is my blog, I’ll do whatever the hell I want”, I must say I far prefer the word “whinging” to “whining”. The British vocabulary is full of fantastic expressions like “knackered”, “can’t be arsed”, “bollocks” and “whinging”. I’ve embraced them completely after years of living here, and plan on continuing to do so in the future. So thanks for stopping by, now bugger off!
#32: Denise! Wicked, no I hadn’t put 2 and 2 together to realise it was you! Great to see you around, and will be in touch next time we visit home.
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Um…Spelling Nazi - I think you’ll find that ‘whining’ is how you spell ‘whining’, and ‘whinging’ is how you spell ‘whinging’. In much the same way as ‘bus’ is spelled differently to, say ‘onomatopoeia’, what with them being completely different words and all…
June 3rd, 2008 at 5:03 pm
[...] I hope your head falls off. — a funny story of a pond, the one who dug it and filled it, and the one who emptied it to find a note from the one who dug and filled it. [...]
June 3rd, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Wow. If I was this guy who drained the pond and found a note, I probably would wake up with nightmares and even put it all back together. Who knows…he might have buried his mother underneath the lining??
June 3rd, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Somebody tell me, please, what the hell does whinging mean?? You OLDE ENGLISHE FARTSE!
June 3rd, 2008 at 11:47 pm
Whinging is whining… just spelled differently. I don’t see how this is such a hard concept to grasp?
Personally I think “whinging” would be pronounced like “winging”, but that’s just me.
Anyway, the note was very funny. Though I do think getting rid of the pond just because of his kids was kind of stupid. Watch your kids, and nothing bad will happen. And if it does, well, kids gotta get hurt sometimes… toughens them up
June 4th, 2008 at 12:31 am
It means whining. Whinging, whining, same difference. And you’re silly.
June 4th, 2008 at 10:43 am
Guys guys… as much as we all like ponds. The owner of the house was right to get rid of for the sake of the kids. Aside from drowning. Kids are attracted to water - all the time…. I mean all the time… they like to throw things in the water all the time… the would get wet EVERY time they went into the garden. Yes kids should be supervised. But should it be a chore for the parents to be able to put their children in their own garden? No. So best compromise is… get rid of the pond and allow the children the same freedom (more so) than what they are privy too in doors. Let them all enjoy the outdoors.
June 4th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Whinge is pronounced - “Win” as in ughhh “win” and “ge” as in “ginger”.
Teach your children to swim and keep the pond
June 4th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
the note is a great idea and very tongue in cheek. Considering that, I cannot understand how anybody could possibly consider it in the slightest bit creepy. It’s a wry and humorous communication and nothing more. If you consider tis creepy then I feel sorry for you. Some may even call it paranoid !
June 4th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Wow way to flip out over a joke.
Yes, I personally agree that it’s silly to remove it over children, but some people are just lazy parents.
“Kids are attracted to water - all the time…. I mean all the time… they like to throw things in the water all the time… the would get wet EVERY time they went into the garden.”
Umm… SOME kids are like that. Teach your kids to behave, raise them well. Teaching them to swim wouldn’t hurt. Tell them there’s a shark in there if you really want them not to ask to go in. I find it’s nice to raise kids to do fun things, but to know that they can’t always have their way.
Whinging… a new word to me… I doubt I’ll be using it though. It sets off my spell check, which really annoys me.
June 4th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
I live in north Cambridgeshire and that is quite typical of the people near my home.
June 4th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Ghost/BOFH…….You obviously have no children. Come back and comment when you actually know you’re talking about you stupid little boy.
June 4th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
I know a guy that went to clock (reduce) the mileage on his car. There was a sticker on the back of the clock that said
“oh no not again”
June 5th, 2008 at 1:28 am
I prefer to spell whingeing with the e, as has been pointed out whinging reads too much like winging. And it’s not the same as whining, the former is nearer to grumbling where the latter is more nasal, IMO.
Anyway…
How many of you are actually parents? Personally I prefer to have a garden where I don’t have to micromanage my children’s activities, which IMO is far more likely to leave them lacking in basic self-awareness and over-reliance on others. That said, it doesn’t necessarily mean I would remove a pond purely because I had children, I might find other ways of dealing with it. If I cared enough.
As for the letter, I love it. Bravo for the forethought. Might just have to do something similar…
June 5th, 2008 at 3:59 am
I want to know who wrote that.
@;oj:And the mileage thing is great. lol
June 5th, 2008 at 4:32 am
Uh, for those who supported keeping the pond, I just wanted to point out that is was a man-made hole, filled with plastic and probably no more than 3 ft in diameter. Hardly a national landmark. If Simon wanted to, he could make a brand spankin’ new one- indistinguishable from the first.
What a great note.
June 5th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
City people?
Get rid of the pond for the sake of the kids.
Yes lets cover over all lakes, rivers and then the oceans.
But first lets put a note under each one to get some web time when they are dug up in the future.
Great note.
June 5th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Dee: Well said, I don’t know if people are imagining a pond the size of a small lake or what… But there’s no need to suffer the consequences of the previous owner going all Charlie Dimmock on the property.
Didn’t expect to cause such a fuss!
June 5th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Great idea, impressed that someone went to the trouble of typing and laminating the note on the off chance that it survived and was read while we still speak English in the UK.
The pond may have been right where the trampoline had to go. Gardens are not that big in the UK, and we don’t have “yards”. It was probably the kids idea to fill it in. Ponds are boring. You are never allowed to play with them as they are dangerous, you’ll get dirty, and you’ll disturb the fish/frogs etc.
Whinging is not the same as whining. 57-trog knows the difference. As he said it’s a nasal thing, so Brits whinge while dogs, and Americans whine. I’d like to think that Canadians whinge rather than whine but I suspect there are three camps, some that whinge, some that whine, and some that just go “pfwuh” in a psudogaulic way.
June 5th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
lol random decapitation
June 5th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
That’s an awesome idea. I’m going to leave a creepy note like that in something when I leave my house, or car or something. It probably won’t have [sort of] death threats in it though, I could be arrested. >_<
June 5th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Haha. This person was clearly very attached to the pond and loved to think/worry about the future.
June 5th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
First, highly amusing. And if I make any changes to my home, I’m totally putting in notes. *imagines a lovely note underneath the new carpeting*
Secondly, the people who are complaining about filling in the pond are speaking out of both sides of their mouth. Complaining about over-parenting (filling in the pond) and then saying it would be ok if they don’t underparent (meaning, watching their child like a hawk 24/7) Yes, teach them there’s a shark in there, so the four year old will go try and catch it some day. Watch them every moment they are outdoors with you, never let them out of your sight, and heaven forfend you should ever get a phone call or a visitor while your child is out back, because that 1 minute you turn your back is definitely so heinous of a crime that your child deserves to die. /sarcasm
Taking a pond out to protect a 9 year old? Over the top and obsessive. Taking one out to protect a child under 5? That’s called being responsible. Children under 5 have poorly developed impulse control so even if they know they shouldn’t, know they would get beaten within an inch of their life, know that the world will end if they go near that pond, if their ball lands in it, or if there’s a pretty butterfly flying around it, they literally will not be able to stop themselves from going after it. And yes, it is irresponsible to have a pond, river or lake on your property with a very small child without a proper fence around it. Your job as a parent is to protect them from things that will kill them before they can handle them themselves. I’m sure all the whinging and whining (because several posters have gotten very close to whining) people, if they ever have children, will never use child locks, will keep easy open medicines in baby’s reach and teach them it’s candy, will leave 2nd story windows open and easily accessible (maybe hang a toy out there to reach for) and will be otherwise paragons of modern parents.
June 6th, 2008 at 12:10 am
I care not one way or the another about the pros or cons of filling in water features and the potential impact upon the demise of one’s offspring, nor am I concerned regarding the potential transformation of said spawn into the walking infirmed through excessing coddling.
I prefer to return to the original topic of this thread, that being: who authored the note, and why?
At the risk of asking the obvious, WHO was the owner of the property on or around the 10th of July, 2003?
You know the location, you know the date. This isn’t exactly the riddle of the locked room.
June 6th, 2008 at 12:30 am
[...] The Letter in the Pond - Guy buys a new house and digs up the pond in the backyard, cause it’s too dangerous for his kids. Underneath it, he finds a laminated letter to whoever “destroyed” the pond. Brilliant! [...]
June 6th, 2008 at 12:49 am
Put the pond back!!!!
June 6th, 2008 at 2:29 am
Great post! It seems I may have to start making some time capsule/papers of my own!
June 6th, 2008 at 4:48 am
Whinging is pronounced “win-jing”. Whining and whinging are two seperate words, both of which are used by the British and Australians. Both words have the same meaning, ie complaining in an annoying manner, but while whining is the correct formal word, whinging is more informal and humourous.
June 6th, 2008 at 4:51 am
….oh, and for those of you who enjoyed the humourous style of the writing in the letter, you might also like to check out the works of Danny Wallace, who is a rather funny chap, and who I wouldn’t surprised to discover was the writer of the letter.
June 6th, 2008 at 10:18 am
[...] with his new house, so he dug it up, and discovered a laminated letter confirming that yes indeed, ex homeowners can become ‘a bit miffed’ when you undo something they had put care and effort into. Filed under: World Article tags: home improvement, [...]
June 6th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Whinging Pom Says:
“The pond may have been right where the trampoline had to go. Gardens are not that big in the UK, and we don’t have “yards”. It was probably the kids idea to fill it in. Ponds are boring. You are never allowed to play with them as they are dangerous, you’ll get dirty, and you’ll disturb the fish/frogs etc.”
That never stopped me playing in the pond when I was young, but the trampoline was more fun. (Gardens are much bigger in New Zealand)
June 6th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
I agree with the letter writer. Supervise your kids, teach them water safey and even put up safeguards. Unless it was an eyesore, it was ridiculous and bordering on self-vandalism to tear it up.
June 6th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Sounds like something out of the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy.
June 6th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Would have been cooler if the previous owner was found under the pond with the letter attached to him
June 6th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
That is fantastic! I’ll be laughing all day thinking about this!
June 6th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
[...] Yes, you would. 10th July [...]
June 6th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Way to take a fun story and twist it into a not so fun story. I for one love the guy who left the note. Work is hard, you need to piss and moan to someone…even if its not read for awhile. And all the spelling corrections, great! I rarely spell words one way so imagine how pleased I was. Can I just say “Only the Brits”. Got to love you guys.
Bobbi
June 6th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Oh, and by the way, if I’m ever at a party trying to tell a funny story and one of you interject…well I just hope more of your body falls off…not just your head.
June 6th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
[...] Link [...]
June 6th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
[...] The Letter in the Pond [that canadian girl] : Thanks, nic0! [...]
June 6th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
My answer would be… “erm, fuck off, I own it now, you freak” but that may just be me.
June 6th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
nuugh-ahugh
June 6th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
[...] Even if you worked hard building a pond, there’s no reason to wish for someone’s head to fall off. [ThatCanadianGirl] [...]
June 6th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
the note shows a great deal of foresight. Obviously, the note’s author could never have had any connections with the Bush administration.
June 6th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Hah
June 6th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
cool. i would so do something like that.
June 6th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
I’m afraid I did a naughty thing. When I was visiting a set of caves on a school trip, I noticed that the walls were made of soft clay. Giggling to myself, um, like a schoolboy, I used my finger to draw a crude stick rendition of a UFO, hoping that archaeologists woudl discover it and proclaim that space aliens discovered Devon! Did this happen? I’m still waiting for the Channel 5 special…!
June 6th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
To you who condemn the man for trying to prevent his child from drowning; think for one minute what you would feel holding your lifeless child in your arms. I saw a woman have to do that once and given a shovel and a mountain I’d fill in the ocean to prevent it from happening again.
PS. Summer’s here, in ER’s they call it the drowning season.
June 6th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Whining is what dogs do. People whinge.
June 6th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
having dug a pond, through 3 bloody feet of building rubble, last year I understand the authors feelings entirely, sweat, tears and not an small amount of blood are invested in it! As and when i breed the pond stays, I shall get a blacksmith to fashion me a childproof grid for the top of it for until they’re old enough to climb back out again and appreciate how amazingly cool frogs and newts are :O)
June 6th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Blog was hilarious.
Comments were priceless.
June 6th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
The truth is, the note was intended to flip the person out badly enough to restore the pond because there are bodies beneath it, yet undiscovered.
June 6th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Funny note. I think the kids would have been better off with the pond. I was I had one, sniffff…
June 6th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
for # 62 who said …”I’d like to think that Canadians whinge rather than whine but I suspect there are three camps, some that whinge, some that whine, and some that just go “pfwuh” in a psudogaulic way”…
I can only respond with “eh?” as any Canadian would!
June 6th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
I can just see the next bigbudgetwewillsueyouifyoudownloadourcrap blockbuster….The Pond. The backyard was never the same. With Ben Affleck as Pond Scum, Angelina Jolie as Lily Pad, Liam Neeson as ‘The Liner’ and Jerry Mathers as The Beaver!
June 6th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
Oh dear. I thought I was the only crazy one. Damn.
In 2003 I, in a fit of complete insanity, had one of my bathrooms completely gutted and remodeled. I’m afraid I had watched too many of those ‘trading space’ type shows and had delusions of a splendid re-do at a low cost. That worked out about as you would expect it to. Anyway, I digress.
At the time, I was in a much small minority of people of who didn’t much like George W Bush. That group has grown much larger nearly ever day since but at the time I was afraid my reason and sanity would be lost in the bizarro world that George Bush was attempting to create.
I wish I had taken a photo of it, but before a wall was sealed behind tile, I handwrote a note that said something along the lines of:
Attention People of the Future: Today is April 3, 2003. Not everyone in this country thinks George Bush is a good President. In fact, some of us think he’s a insane ass clown. Just wanted you to know that. Don’t believe what you read about our time. Not everyone is buying his line of bullshit.
June 6th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
[...] can’t decide whether the writer of this letter is sarcastic or barmy, but I’m so stealing his [...]
June 6th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
[...] 6, 2008 A letter left in a pond by someone with an odd sense of humor. Posted in Uncategorized [...]
June 7th, 2008 at 12:37 am
Sheltered?! Can you imagine the children in therapy as adults, clutching a tissue to their eyes as they explain ‘YES! I was never prepared for the harsh reality of life, because my… my… PARENTS…. FILLED IN A POND!’ *sobs*
How did an innocent entry about someone’s hilarious note about a pond (probably intended as a joke) turn into an incitement to attack the author’s parenting choices?
June 7th, 2008 at 5:34 am
[...] that canadian girl » Blog Archive » The Letter in the Pond “If you are reading this then I can only assume that you have removed the pond under which this note was buried.” (tags: hysterical woohoo cool neat) Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
June 7th, 2008 at 6:53 am
Very funny. I agree that you should have kept the pond. You could have said to your kids: “Don’t fall in the pond.” However, if you hadn’t destroyed the pond you wouldn’t have found the letter and brightened up my day.
June 7th, 2008 at 7:28 am
anything you do to your house is for yourself, and why should you care what the next people do with it? you’re not there to admire it anymore.
June 7th, 2008 at 10:47 am
I like this, on a similar note, there is a barn conversion in East Anglia that, should anyone care to remove the plaster board on the ceiling of the hall/dining room, they will find a selection of random swear words and ‘pliosophical’ dawbings with 2ft high letters.
I can’t imagine how I know that.
June 7th, 2008 at 10:55 am
sorry… that would be ‘philosophical’…. unnng
June 7th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
That was awesome! I would have loved to have found that letter, despite the imminent threat of my head falling off and rolling away. I love a good pond, but it would have been worth destroying it just to get that letter.
I’m surprised to see so much confusion about “whinge”. I’m 3rd generation American, and we were always told as kids not to whinge. And, yes, whining is definitely more nasal, and more annoying.
June 7th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
I have a sort of largish pond and I still have 3 children left.
June 7th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Yep, ponds can be a hazard, and tragedys do happen.
But — From age 3-10 I lived next door to a farm pond, and the stream went through the backyard. I had moderate supervision. More at 3 much less at 10. I wasn’t attracted to the water everyday. But I was on many days. And yes, I fell in sometimes, usually into the stream. Most of the neighbor kids and relatives kids did too.
And we’re all still here, most of us with a decent understanding of nature from handling and watching it firsthand.
June 7th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Long live the pond and may the pond destroyers camels ever be infertile.
Come the next drought I shall lie in my pond and laugh as the pond destroyers go mad from thirst.
June 7th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Well, we have had a pond in the back garden since before I was born and a perfectly good child protective grid was made by my dad and put over the top until such time my siblings were old enough to not jump in the water.
And the pond in our garden is at the bottom of some steps, not the best place in the world. Why couldn’t the guy get a grid? I know from my own experience how hard it is to dig and fill a pond.
It took forever.
The person that filled in the pond sickens me.
June 7th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
I can imagine 13 murder victims buried under the pond, and the note a final futile effort to elude their discovery by the killer.
Oh, and you misspelled whining.
Just kidding! har har, but your response to the errant message about it was very douchy. Someone noting the difference in spelling in a polite way doesn’t deserve to be called a nazi. Way to use the only major exposure you’ve received to point out that you’re a dickhead!
You even note you’ve borrowed the terms from your Britain visit a la some imbecile like Madonna that thinks British quirks can make up for being daffy.
June 8th, 2008 at 5:26 am
[...] So you’re working in your backyard. You’re trying to get rid of a pond that you’ve decided you don’t want. And while doing so, you come across a letter addressed “To Whom It May Concern.” Under the pond. Read it here. [...]
June 8th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
LOL! That’s great!
June 8th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Most backyards in Florida, where I grew up, have swimming pools in them. Heck, I had to be pulled out by my mom after I walked into on as a toddler. Kids who are too young to learn to swim are probably too young to be unsupervised, and I think that’s why most people are saying that pulling up the pond is a waste of effort and/or bad parenting.
Give your kids skills (IE swim lessons) instead of removing obstacles (IE backyard ponds). I would have missed out on many many fun things if I didn’t know how to swim or if I was scared of the water (Looking at you, Mr. Shark-in-the-pond person).
As for them being boring….I wanted one badly enough to dig two (In red Georgia clay, no less) when I was twelve.
June 8th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Whenever I build one of my dollhouses, I always seal a small note in the attic or under a piece of flooring. They’ll probably never be found, but it’s fun anyway. And they’re nice notes, by the way.
June 9th, 2008 at 12:43 am
[...] http://www.thatcanadiangirl.co.uk/blog/2008/05/30/the-letter-in-the-pond/ [...]
June 9th, 2008 at 7:35 am
We spent one summer replacing the roof on a house we lived in around 1988–from the rafters up. After we were almost done I signed all the family members names and drew some doodles on the eaves. Wonder if someone will find it some day and wonder about the nut that did it! We put on a pretty sturdy roof so short of it blowing off in a tornado I doubt if it will ever see the light of day. (This was in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.)
June 9th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
I must say, it sounds exactly like something I would both write and do, except for the bit about being miffed and hoping their head falls off. I think I would have just waxed poetic about WHY someone might dig it up, allowing for improbability drives, etc, and probably tried to figure out out to make little hoofy scratch marks to signify that it was also written in wildebeest, in case the wildebeest itself dug it up after twisting it’s own ankle. Just gotta cover all the angles.
June 10th, 2008 at 1:45 am
[...] at 09:37 pm | Tagged as: mundaneities This image and story caught my eye recently. A gent named Simon recently moved into a home with a built-in pond. Small children and other considerations taken, he [...]
June 10th, 2008 at 4:30 am
I know everyone has a right to state their opinion - and this is the internet where people spout opinions continually, but when it comes to kids and parenting, if you arent a parent yourself, then your opinion doesnt hold much weight.
June 10th, 2008 at 11:29 am
Hey Spelling Nazi - “whinging” and “whining” are two separate activities. Whining is more active and protestational. Whinging is more passive & sniveling. Me old gray-haired mother constantly berated us as children to “stop your incessant whinging and whining”.
Oh, and those shallow plastic lined things aren’t ponds, they’re puddles.
June 10th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
I love the story. When my wife and I dig our pond deeper this year I’ll make up something like that to put under the new lining.
Screw the Spelling Nazi/s. I hate when my US counterparts, especially, get on the net correcting others, many times going after folks for which English may not be their first or even second language. Being so self centered and not knowing others have words we don’t know and then getting into slang there is a lot they don’t know. Those Nazi’s are oft mono-language, mono-braincell twits which need to try to be superior in some way to make up for other things they lack in life, such as a personality. They make the rest of us US folk look bad. Bugger off you bloody wankers!
June 10th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
having helped a neighbour dig a pond and build a rockery, I side with the letter writer. the pond was at the end of the garden. when neighbour had a child, we put a fence across. the child was always supervised anyway and trained not to climb the fence. no problem. you could always put a mesh cover over the pond too.
June 10th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Damn, I have just created a pond where I live, I really should have done this as well; I even have a plastic ‘time-capsule’ box that I bought some time and have not gotten round to using it yet. I will remember this though.
June 10th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
this is so funny!
as a little kid i almost drowned in a swimming pool but it taught me how to be careful. i now love to swim so obviously it didn’t affect me so much that i was scarred for life.
i think the note idea is great!!! i think i’ll do one. maybe not as threatening but just as funny. for the people who are very strongly opinionated on here, i love to see the different ideas but seriously, take a chill pill. it’s not that big of a deal that you have to go “yelling” at people just for their opinions.
But still, i love the article!
June 10th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
[...] I love being British sometimes - we are nuts Check out the letter and the even funnier replies to Vero’s blog here [...]
June 11th, 2008 at 12:50 am
This is so great!
I can completely understand his frustration and find it totally founded.
I think this calls for a petition to re-fill the pond!
June 11th, 2008 at 6:25 am
Makes me wonder who err I mean whats’.. burried under the patio.
June 11th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
This makes me wonder what will go through the mind of the fella who tears up the porch my family laid in ‘92. As filler for the concrete we threw in naked Barbie dolls, novelty toys from Spencer’s, buttons and old cassette tapes.
June 12th, 2008 at 5:14 am
Have you people ever heard of schizophrenia? Obvious case here.
June 12th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
[...] VISIT SITE [...]
June 12th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Wouldn’t it be nice to comment and read comments on something you thought funny or interesting on a web site…without having to scroll through miles of babbling about which punctuation is correct, or whether or not it’s fake, or arguments over who knows better (or more) on how to do something or how something should be done acocording to blah blah blah blip bleep bloop!!
The letter is creative and funny….I too, would like to do something similar…….And probably will. Cool story.
June 13th, 2008 at 12:52 am
LOL, funny note.
damn spelling nazi! GO AWAY! noone likes a nazi…of anykind!
(unless its a chocolate nazi or a cake nazi) well all the nazi’s are burning (or freezing) in hell now. …damn nazis
June 13th, 2008 at 12:53 am
LOL, funny note.
stupid spelling nazi! GO AWAY! noone likes a nazi…of anykind!
(unless its a chocolate nazi or a cake nazi) well all the nazi’s are burning (or freezing) in hell now. …damn nazis.
(i posted this twice)
June 13th, 2008 at 7:18 am
[...] The Letter in the Pond [...]
June 13th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
SAVE THE POND!
June 13th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
I can’t believe that some of the loonier voice on this blog are suggesting that a child should be supervised every bloody minute of the day. Nothing could be more harmful to a a child’s sense of independence and adventure than an anxious helicopter parent hovering over their play ready to sweep them up the first time they look like stepping too close to a 3 foot ornamental pond.
Better to remove or fence off the more obvious dangers in their backyard (ponds, wells, blades, woodchippers, roads) and retreat a few feet away, to give them a genuine sense of adventure and exploration and risk taking - and leave pond-dipping and catching shrimps for special, supervised expeditions.
June 13th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Wow - judging from some of the retarded comments here, ponds are SERIOUS BUSINESS!!!
June 14th, 2008 at 1:27 am
While the letter is quite amusing, I personally have to say that I would have filled in the pond, too. Though not so much for the sake of the kids. Standing water attracts mosquitoes, and however lovely a pond may be, I’d like to be able to step outside after 3 in the afternoon without having to resort to offensive scents or a week of bathing in antihistamines.
Besides, it’s Simon’s pond now. He can do what he wants with it. Particularly since, you know, it was small enough to empty in the space of a few hours.
June 14th, 2008 at 4:23 am
[...] Letter in the Pond - Funny letter someone found after digging up a pond. [...]
June 14th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
“…I hope your head falls off.” is the best way ever to end a letter to someone.
I plan on using this one day.
June 14th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
wow some of you could be considered grade A douch material lol
thats great though
I JUST SNEEZED!
June 14th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
and to add to that….hmmm i cant seem to remember….
OH! and dont forget the classic british words like wanker CHEERIO and KNICKERS goodbye everybody
and have a wonderful day
I LOVE MY MILK
June 14th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Yeh, if your kid drowns in a pond, it’s Darwinism at work. I’d have kept the pond, and put piranhas…or razor blades.
June 15th, 2008 at 8:29 am
This is why ponds should be filled in:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/7455183.stm
June 15th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
lol. That was great. If I ever put a pond in, I want to write something like that under it.
June 15th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
very funny letter
to all the people going on about children and ponds
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/7455183.stm
June 16th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Actually Whining and Whinging are different words in English English. Whining refers to using an annoying high pitched tone of voice to complain, while whinging (or wingeing) involves making tedious, unjustifed and ignorant complaints (in any tone of voice or media).
It follows that Spelling Nazi is whinging. Whether he/she/it is whining I can’t tell without an audio file.
Hope this helps
June 16th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
pond destroyer ruined the best surprse ever!! imagine finding that in 2200 that’d be sick
June 17th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
wow that was nice lol!!!!!!!!!!!
June 17th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Clearly what Simon needs to do is dig another pond somewhere else and transplant the note to under that one, along with an additional note detailing the journey. Whoever fills in the second pond has to create a third, and so on. If you break the chain, your head really will fall off. Or perhaps you’ll be bitten on the ankle by a Wildebeest - it’s not quite clear
June 17th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
I put in a pond and destroyed the pond for the same reason - it sucks to have kids and ponds …
June 18th, 2008 at 8:26 am
Ha!
“Oh, and by the way, I hope your head falls off”
funny man
June 18th, 2008 at 9:25 am
If pond maker dude didn’t want the pond to be at the mercy of someone else, he shouldn’t have sold the house. Pretty darn simple that.
June 18th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
The comments on this are almost funnier than the letter! Get over yourselves, folks, it was a funny idea someone apparently add when they built the pond. Stop taking it so seriously.
June 19th, 2008 at 2:32 am
This is absolutely fabulous!!! I would love to have found something like that it’s so funny.
Makes me want to dig a pond and leave a letter under it!
June 20th, 2008 at 11:48 pm
Hahahahahah! Kudos to the letter-writer, though I rather wish he had written it 50 years ago instead of only 5. I do think ponds are rather dangerous, but why didn’t they just fence it in? Or tell their children to stay away from the pond?
June 21st, 2008 at 2:23 am
That is both, an entertaining piece of writing, as well as quite a sad one, as the writer would clearly be hurt upon learning of the upheaval of the pond.
June 22nd, 2008 at 1:39 am
[...] This is just freaky. Personally I would find the guy who left it and send it to him, and tell him I filled it in with “glee and the tears of the innocent” just because he left a snarky note. Seriously though, this man could be my grandfather. [...]
June 22nd, 2008 at 4:16 pm
[...] [Via] [...]
June 22nd, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Cute, but I do have doubts to it’s authenticity. The person wrote it as if they were describing all the work that went into the building and caring for the pond. Considering you’d have to remove it to write the note… I doubt it was real. Still… cute idea.
June 24th, 2008 at 2:10 am
very Monty Pythonish, I think - wildebeest!
June 24th, 2008 at 5:39 am
Sounds very much like a Monty Python fan with the same sort of twisted humour. If you can stand some more similar thoughts try my site http://rockbreedersgazette.co.uk as the thinking behind the humour is of the same ilk, or should that be elk? I’m confused now. Do elk live in ponds? Or under them?
June 27th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Ha! At first it was all about the note and then as I read ‘Anyways’ in the typed-out version and felt compelled to reply and say ‘the guy who wrote it is English, we don’t really say ‘anyways’ - see note from pond’, I found I’d been beaten to it by the whole whingey whiney debate about whingeing and whining. Fanstastic. I love the internet.
June 28th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
My ex & I put all kinds of things between the studs in our unfinished downstairs before we put up the drywall. Beer bottles, a barbie doll head, a pair of cheap sunglasses, a half smoked joint (sometimes still regret that when I’m out of herb), a bullet, a CD of some of our favorite songs, a picture of us making goofy faces, an unopened tampon and I can’t even remember it all, frankly. We chose the wall most likely to be knocked down by someone who might re-model and we sold our house 2 years ago. I still wonder sometimes if the wall is standing and if any subsequent owners will tear it down. I like the pond digger. I hope one day he buys my old house & enjoys the beer & the joint while giggling over the rest of the stuff.
July 1st, 2008 at 11:00 am
Haha. That’s classic.
July 2nd, 2008 at 8:10 pm
I read through a dozen or so responses before I gave up looking for anyone who caught the humor of the letter. Did I stop short?
A few years ago I had gone to great pains to put a couple plum trees on an earth island in my front yard so that the neighborhood kids could steal the plums and have good memories of growing up in our neighborhood. Then circumstances (a fugly divorce) forced me to move.
It wasn’t long before the new owner had let everything go to pot, cut down the large tree in the backyard that gave such great shade and just generally tormented the place. Depressing.
I like the sense of humor, the wry resignation exposed in the letter. It fits.
New owners have different needs from a place and different visions for what ‘home’ looks like. I made changes … the person behind me made changes. The person who follows her will do likewise. That’s life. You want permanent, build a pyramid.
July 3rd, 2008 at 5:48 am
I myself have build a large beautiful fish pond over 10 years ago. This was long before I considered being a parent. I now have a beautiful 18 month old boy. I would NEVER consider removing my pond. My son will learn to be careful around water and he is attended when in the yard. If he falls in he will learn faster. Having children is NO excuse for destroying something that has provided so many hours of beauty in so many peoples’ lives. I only wish I had put a note under my ponds liner… To creep out some marauding over protective idiot… I would probably make a story about a ghost that would come and haunt you and THEN make your head fall off!
July 9th, 2008 at 5:06 am
That. Is amazing.
July 10th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Why DID you remove the pond? Have you become the destroyer of worlds, Shiva herself?
July 20th, 2008 at 3:16 am
That note was utter brilliance. If I ever renovate or clean my apartment, I will slip a note in.
Actually, when my room mate and I moved into our first apartment, we found a note folded up and tucked away in one of the closets. It was a love letter to Elvin from Rommie, detailing pregnancies, the INS, abusive relationships, and undying love. I posted it on my site, which you can see here.
July 21st, 2008 at 10:50 am
Pretty gud work of thought, i should say…
It would have scared the hell out of Simon. Did he fill in the pond again?
July 30th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
[...] last month’s letter in the pond going a bit viral and stepping on PR people’s toes with my open letter to public relations [...]
August 3rd, 2008 at 1:20 pm
[...] has a tale of what a friend of hers found at the bottom of his pond. This appeals to me on so many levels, not least the archaeologist in me who is always telling [...]
August 5th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
[...] Girlfriend and I Have Argued AboutWant to find a topic to argue with your girl/boy/other-friend?The Letter in the Pond seems to have struck a chord, good or bad, with a number of people.Need an excuse for goofing [...]
August 18th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Dear God, you people are CRAZY! Why do you care if he got rid of the pond or not?! It’s his house he can do whatever he want to it. If he was renovating inside and had knocked down a wall and found a note in there you wouldn’t all start saying “Put the wall back!”. What’s the deal with the pond?!
P.S.: Ponds are smelly and attract mosquitoes!
August 21st, 2008 at 10:01 am
[...] Source: that canadian girl & Blog Archive & The Letter in the Pond Did you enjoy this article? If yes, then subscribe to my RSS [...]
September 1st, 2008 at 10:28 pm
I just strained to read the whole blurry note, then saw the clear text version!! grrr
November 7th, 2008 at 9:01 am
I would just like to point out that I have had no incidents of children falling in ponds in gardens, although this may be related to the fact that I have no children, no ponds and no gardens. And to date, no notes.