I briefly alluded to this in a GQ thread and had a couple requests for the whole thing, so anyways…
In 1989 I was just starting college (Indiana University) and was a huge Letterman fan, and had been for some time. (Classmates used to make fun of me because I had a picture of him taped to my binder, haha.) Never missed a show.
One night Dave was eating up some time telling a story about how he was frying up some hot dogs in a skillet and I thought “Oh Dave, you can’t FRY hot dogs - you’ll end up having a heart attack!” At the time I worked in a movie theater and would often get home quite late and wanting to eat, so I had a little table top grill in the basement rec room so I wouldn’t wake up the rest of the family banging around the kitchen; I’d just grab a couple hot dogs from the fridge and cook them downstairs. (I tried to Google up a picture of one for you but all I could come up with was Forman-type grills and those obviously hadn’t been invented yet.)
Anyway, I get the bright idea that I’m going to get Dave one of those grills so he can have healthier hot dogs (if there is such a thing.) I go to the store and pick one up, write a little note about why I’m sending it, wrap it up and drop it at the post office and forgot all about it.
A few days later I get one of those slips in the mail saying I have a package waiting at the post office and I think “Yay! Mail!” and head up there only to have the postal worker hand me the refused grill back, unopened, with a heartfelt “Sorry.”
Well I stewed about it for a couple days and finally decided I was going to give him a piece of my mind. I rolled a sheet of IU stationery into the typewriter and banged away forever essentially calling him a no-good so-and-so in the most polite way possible. Telling him I was just trying to be nice and looking out for him, etc. It was quite a rant and took up the whole page. So it didn’t end up in the “Viewer Mail” pile I typed on the envelope “Personal correspondence not intended for comedic purposes.” I marched out to put it in the mailbox at around midnight so I wouldn’t lose my nerve. My mom saw it when she went out to post something in the morning and asked me “Are you SURE you want to do that?” And I said “Absolutely.”
So apparently putting “Personal correspondence not intended for comedic purposes.” on the envelope sends it plop down on Dave’s desk. A couple days later around 8 am I receive a frantic phone call from Dave’s assistant at the time (Laurie Diamond) who tells me Dave got my letter, is EXTREMELY upset (especially since I’m from Indiana), they don’t know how this happened (her theory was a couple years prior they were refusing packages because people were sending him meat and weird things), the situation has been “dealt with” (ominous!), and they’d like to offer me some Letterman items and tickets to a show. I’m completely stunned and stammer “uh…sure!” She gives me the number to call and we hang up and I don’t think much of it after that; I’m expecting something cheesy like a bumper sticker and a key chain or something.
The next morning the doorbell rings and it’s a FedEx guy with a fairly large-sized box for me. I open it up to find a very high-quality Late Night sweat shirt, T-shirt and baseball cap. I think “Dave is awesome!” I re-wrap the grill and mail it back and wonder what happens next.
A couple nights later my friend Jessica is over and we’re hangin’ out in the basement watching Dave. He’s doing this little skit he used to do where he’d call home and check his messages and they’d always be weird and dorky. This particular night there was a message from Phil Donahue saying: “Hi Dave it’s Phil Donahue. Marlo and I are having a cookout this weekend and want to know if we can borrow the grill.” Well of course the audience is all “HUH?” and Dave looked at the camera and gave it a little wink/nod and Jessica and I jumped straight up in the air and started running around the room like lunatics and going "OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!
So that’s my Dave story. The story about the big city adventure us knucklehead rubes had to attend the taping is pretty good too, but this is already “TL;DR.”
