A post that has nothing to do with breast cancer.

It’s just when I find something that is on a “news” site the day after Christmas that I can’t decide if the author was raised in a barn or is just amazingly crass, dumb, rude, and insensitive all rolled into one I feel compelled to talk about it.

What I am referring to is what is an “article” on a local AOL Patch site:

• Holiday Guide 2011

Tell Us Your Worst Christmas Present  By Lucy Bennett

• Email the author
• December 26, 2011

Wow and this one has a job writing?  Interesting.  Notice the published typo “you’re” husband’s…uhhh  maybe try “your” instead?  Tell us the worst present you got? How about received as opposed to got?  I could go on, but I won’t. We all know the typos, etc will disappear like magic after I publish this.

AOL advertises Patch sites as “micro news hubs”.  Only I am discovering on a lot of the Patch sites as time goes by there is more and more drivel like this and less and less actual news.  Which is a pity as people do want local news where they live.

But the fact that the  writing police needing to visit this chick aside, the premise of this post is revoltingly offensive. And she posted it the day after Christmas?  (Hello Emily Post? You have an etiquette emergency here….)

It also makes you wonder what Christmas actually means to someone who would write something like this, doesn’t it?

Presents are a part of Christmas, but they are not the meaning of Christmas.

Scrooge and Grinch ain’t got nothing on Miss Lucy from Patch, apparently.  But then again, every Lucy I have met has had a constipated personality. Seriously. I have never met this woman, but given this post, she would be a skip it if the situation ever arose.

I am grateful if someone even takes the time to think about giving me a gift. It’s not about what a gift is half the time, it’s the fact that someone actually cared enough to take the time to think of you.

Now I am sure this woman undoubtedly gives the best presents ever known to man (and will tell you so herself, undoubtedly), but to put this post out there the day after Christmas?  Tacky is as tacky does.

And if this is the future of journalism, we’re all in trouble.

Sorry, but one should  file this under rude and tasteless.  But what do I know?  I am just a breast cancer survivor who has been shown by what happened to me what is really important in life.  And what this chick is trying to serve up?

A big “delete” button is the way to go with this.

Being human and occasionally grateful isn’t a bad thing.  Hope this woman figures it out some day.  Ultimately, she might be someone to merely be pitied because she just doesn’t get it. And to think this Miss Lucy is a REGIONAL Patch Editor….

Post Script:

8:09 p.m. and my comments have started an amusing online conversation under the original post which also had an…ummmm edit or two to correct the errors if not the ridiculous content.  Also, here is a comment I received via a Facebook group from another breast cancer survivor on the topic at hand:

Then, it’s me, too, as a breast cancer survivor.  Why would someone care what the worst gift was that someone else received?  Someone who gave that person that gift could be reading the Patch and see that the gift that they spent time selecting and paid money for was hated by that person.  How insensitive.  If someone thought enough to buy someone else a gift and that person didn’t care for it, give it to charity.  Aren’t there more important things to discuss than what was the worst gift you received?