Filed Replies, Vol. 18
From T. Okafor, Akron:
I submitted a pumpkin last October and never heard back. It was very large. My neighbor says it might have been a record.
Your neighbor is not a credentialed assessor. The Atlantic Giant Decision (March 2009, Precedent 2009-03) established that cultivated and selectively bred subjects are eligible under Section II.4, so the pumpkin is not automatically disqualified on origin grounds, which I will grant you. However, "very large" is not a measurement, and the Silhouette Test, as adopted under Amendment 1991-08, requires a physical profile submission, not a neighbor's opinion. Submitted an eligibility inquiry to the records desk on your behalf. The queue is currently at fourteen months.
From P. Fennick, Glasgow:
It has come to my attention that the catalogue lists a 1996 Buick Park Avenue as thiccc. My 1994 Park Avenue is identical in all meaningful respects. Why is my car not listed?
The 1994 and 1996 Park Avenue share a platform. They do not share a catalogue entry, because submissions are not retroactive, and the 1996 unit was submitted with documentation. Yours was not. This is the distinction. It is not a mystery of physics. It is a filing problem. Submission forms are available at the front of the Style Guide, /about/style-guide/, and have been since well before 1994. Lodged a note in your file under the general heading of "cars that exist."
From D. Quill, Portland:
Is it true that Bart is still upset about the ficus in the lobby? My friend works in your building and says the ficus has been there for eleven years.
Thirteen years. The ficus was installed in September 2013, reportedly on the recommendation of an interior design consultant whose invoice I have also seen and whose qualifications remain, to me, opaque. A houseplant is not, by any defensible reading, a Subject. It meets no criterion under Sections I through IV of the Style Guide. It does not pass the Silhouette Test. It does not require a brief. Teddy wrote it a brief anyway, in 2021, which he has since refiled twice. Constance described this situation, in her September 2021 response to Grievance No. 44, as "a fun creative exercise." Filed a correction to that characterization directly to the Personnel File, /about/documents/personnel-file/, where it remains unacknowledged.
From R. Hapscomb, Tucson:
The coffee machine in your office has been broken for a while now. Has anyone fixed it yet?
No. The machine has been non-operational since March 2025. I raised this first in Q2 2025. Constance placed it in what she called "the parking lot," which is a term she uses to mean "I will not be addressing this." For context, the coffee machine grievance is, at this writing, the sixth item in the parking lot. The first item placed there was a 2018 request to review the filter specifications on the previous coffee machine, which was then operational. I have been filing against this pattern since before the current Director of Editorial Operations understood what the word "filing" meant in a professional context. The credenza in my office now holds three years of printed correspondence on this subject. It is a large credenza. It may be the most thiccc object on the premises. I have not submitted it.
From A. Moreau, Montreal:
What do you make of the ongoing trade disputes between major economies? It seems like everyone is arguing about tariffs again.
A tariff is, functionally, a girth criterion applied to goods at a border crossing. You set a threshold, you measure the subject against it, and you determine eligibility for entry. The current disputes are, in cataloguing terms, a breakdown in the Silhouette Test: parties cannot agree on what profile constitutes acceptable thiccc, so they are each maintaining separate catalogues with incompatible standards and then acting surprised when cross-border submissions are rejected. The correct resolution is a shared methodology memo, ratified by all parties, with clear definitions in the appendix. We published exactly such a document in November 1999, /about/documents/methodology-memo-1999/, and no major economy has cited it. This reflects poorly on the major economies. Filed no objection, because I no longer have the energy, and the coffee machine is broken.