Send me your underwear

Last night Rachel and I read through her Y&R fan mail. And while I was mostly envious, I was also a bit frightened. Many of the letters were innocuous accolades and autograph requests. Many, however, teetered on the lonely, bizarre and/or grotesque. CBS security censors and expunges the most offensive of letters (extreme items such as death threats, sexual requests, promises of bodily harm, comparisons to previous cast members), but you have to love them for allowing Rachel some creepy keepsakes.

Apparently those who write soap stars are lonely prison men, lonely widows, and lonely young girls. One letter, from a chivalrous prisoner in Georgia, offered a steak dinner (in five to six years) in exchange for a more revealing photo than that on the Y&R Web site (autography not necessary). And while Opal from Iowa doesn't desire a dinner companion, she sure likes to talk about her dead husband a lot.

The most amusing are those written with neither a thesarus nor a translator, resulting in a raw use of the English language. For instance, George wrote that Rachel, "is doing a real job on show with smiles and cute eyes cause I like them can you autograph?" Too lucid? How about Tri, who wrote, "Why long you on for show tell all peoples watches Rachel she wearing dressing nice."

So (pardon my conceit) this is what I have to look forward to? The written excrement of prisoners, widows, foreigners and early man? But that old cliche is certainly true...it's better to have bad fan mail than no fan mail at all.