DeLuca Rants 1
Michael DeLuca
103 Raleigh St
Chapel Hill, NC 27514
Stan Rants About Ranting
So my cell phone had this problem. It was one of those phones that was kind of
separated into two parts, where the top half could slide away from the bottom half to reveal the
keypad and all that. It was a great phone, until it broke. But it didn’t actually break; it still made
calls and turned on and all of that. It just wouldn’t close correctly. The top and bottom halves
wouldn’t be lined up with one another, and it would just look slanted. This happened through no
fault of my own; I didn’t drop the phone or twist it in a weird way, it just started being slanted.
The second it started happening I was troubled, because I knew that once broken it couldn’t be
fixed. This had bothered me deeply, like way too much. I think it was a metaphor for
something.
Things like that didn’t always bother me. It really just started a few years ago. I mean, if
my phone became slanted before then it would have bothered me a little, but this was out of the
ordinary. Things like that shouldn’t bother people as much as they bothered me. I didn’t really
think I had any psychological issues, but it just seemed like all of a sudden these little problems
just began piling up.
It was especially bad at work. Being an accountant isn’t exactly thought-provoking
work, so my mind was always filled with these miniscule things in life that just annoyed me.
DeLuca Rants 2
The amount of time it took to start up the computers at work. The people who wore the same
type and color shirts every day. The fact that Microsoft Excel didn’t have that paper clip guy
anymore. The slight bald spot on the back of my coworker Brian’s head that kept growing,
probably representing the never-ceasing road that I’m surely on to age and death and baldness.
I would just sit there at the desk all day and think about those things. I had thought about
telling people about my problems, but who would I talk to? I had just recently moved here, so I
didn’t really know anyone outside of work. And as for work, none of the people there really
knew me enough to sit and just listen to me rant about a computer starting up for three minutes.
I tried talking about the paper clip guy to Brian one day, but he just told me to shut up and get
back to work. And so his attitude became another problem for me. And I went back to keeping
those things to myself.
It’s not that I couldn’t function with those things existing; I was just extremely annoyed
all the time. Everywhere I went there was something that bothered me. The people who cut you
off for no reason on the highway. The people who use the elevator to go up just one level. The
one person in an otherwise picture-perfect picture who’s always looking away. The fact that
people insisted on cleaning their houses for close friends.
I had no idea why these things were driving me crazy, but the reasons didn’t even matter.
All that mattered was that I couldn’t find a way to cope with these things, and it was slowly
driving me insane. Whenever others started talking to me I couldn’t hold these conversations
because those things were always on my mind, so the conversations always drifted off into
nothing. And then when those conversations failed, that would just be another thing that got to
me.
DeLuca Rants 3
Sleep became my only escape. Only there would I not be stuck on any thoughts, so no
problems would stay in my head. I would just be floating through my head carelessly, like...a
feather or something. But even then it would take hours to get to that state. I would just lie in
bed, thinking about all of these bothersome things, until eventually I would fall asleep. And then
sleep didn’t even last long, and it would just as quickly be over, and I’d have to return to work.
After weeks of these problems I was pretty sure I was on the verge of insanity. One
night, I was sitting at home, thinking about how terrible those hash tag words on the corner of
television were, and how they made the networks seem so desperate and out of touch and…well,
sorry, I’m rambling a bit here. Anyway, I couldn’t take it anymore; I finally had to get my
feelings out and let everyone know. So I did what anyone would do: I took out my computer,
opened up a blank Word document, and began typing.
I typed an extensive rant about all of the problems with society and culture and how this
all was summed up by this one little hash tag symbol, which has to be a metaphor for something
too. When I finished, I realized that I had spent thirty minutes typing up a thousand-word essay.
It made me feel more relaxed, so I started typing about how there’s no longer a paper clip man in
Word, either. And then when I finished with that I began typing about how I’m too tall, how my
hair grows too fast, how my hair is too curly, how my hair is too dark, how I couldn’t grow a
beard because of a bald spot in the middle of my chin, how I always forget to exercise, and how
my voice always sort of quivers when I start a conversation with people for who the fuck knows
why. All of that left me typing for five hours. Finally satisfied that I put my spare time to good
use, I saved the document and went to sleep.
Over the next few days things started getting better. I mean, my life still wasn’t that
great. Work still sucked away eight hours per day of my time. My phone was still slanted. The
DeLuca Rants 4
paper clip guy still wasn’t there. Neither was Dad. But all of those things seemed less
troublesome now. Even Brian’s bald spot seemed like it might be shrinking, which I guess
reversed whatever kind of metaphor that was. I figured that typing out all of my problems was
some sort of alternate therapy. I still didn’t know what my problems were psychologically, but
as long as I wasn’t going crazy all hours of the day I was content. Every night I would come
home and begin typing my little rants about the problems of life, and I would feel fine the next
day. I made sure I did this every day; who knew what kinds of problems would occur if I
skipped once.
As weeks piled onto the days, my rants became longer and more in depth. I started
carrying around a little notepad where I would write down the details of the problems I saw, and
it would help make my rants better.
One night I had just finished writing about this terrible reality show I saw on television. I
knew that I had written something great as I read over it; it was a shame that nobody else would
ever get a hold of it. But then I figured, why not send it to someone? I didn’t want to send it to
anyone I actually knew, because they wouldn’t take it seriously. And this was a very serious
note. So I decided it would be clever if I sent it anonymously to somebody completely random.
Since email could probably be traced somehow and I didn’t want people tracing this back
to me, I decided to print the rant out and send it as a letter without a return address. I realized
this would force me to waste money on a stamp, but I could afford to spend 43, 44, 45 cents,
whatever it was back then, if it meant I knew someone would receive my letter.
Choosing an address wasn’t difficult; I just scrolled around an online map until I found a
nice-sounding address in Augusta, GA. Not that I live in Georgia, I just always liked the name
DeLuca Rants 5
of the city. I mean, I could live in Georgia, nobody knows, but my choosing an address in
Georgia has nothing to do with where I live.
The next day I arrived at the post office to mail the letter. Right before I dropped it in the
mailbox, I paused for a second, cautiously considering the repercussions that could come from it.
Do I really want to do this? What if it somehow got traced back to me? What if the show
received the letter somehow and traced it back to me and decided to fight back, I don’t know
how or why they would, but what if they did? This one-second pause became five minutes of
staring at the letter, wondering if I really should do it. One could be cautious for 99% of the
time, but in the end it only takes a split second of action and it’s all moot. I sent the letter and
that was that.
Except that typing my rants wasn’t satisfying me anymore. I couldn’t just put something
onto a screen for no one to see and expect my problems to go away. How insane must I have
been back then to think that was enough? I realized that people had to know what I was saying.
I really don’t think I’m a narcissist, but it really bothered me that all of my thoughts were just
lying underneath these metaphorical covers, unable to be released to the rest of the world
because…I don’t know, the covers were taped to the bed or something. This became a rant too,
by the way. My insomnia returned, and I would lie awake almost all night, thinking about the
one letter I sent, wondering if the homeowner in Augusta, GA had read the whole thing, and
more importantly, what they thought.
So I began sending out all of my other rants, new and old. I would send one copy of each
rant to a random stranger somewhere in the country. I would choose carefully when sending out
my older, more classic rants. The paper clip rant went to Indianapolis, IN. The one about
Brian’s bald spot went to Arlington, TX. I thought long and hard about the hash tag one before
DeLuca Rants 6
putting it all the way in the corner of the country, in Seattle, WA. Eventually I just got sick of
picking out addresses on a map; it took too long and I realized it was arbitrary anyway. I wrote a
rant about it, and soon after realized that random address generators existed, and I could just use
them. That rant about picking addresses went to the first address I randomly generated, a woman
in Hapeville, GA, which is probably close to Augusta, but I’m not sure because I didn’t use a
map.
So this continued for weeks, and then months. People would think that eventually I
would run out of things to complain about, but you could always find something bad in the world
if you look hard enough. The one thing in this that really aggravated me though was the amount
I spent on stamps. I was sending out around fifty to sixty letters a week, which added up to like
twenty bucks in stamps, which really isn’t all that much in retrospect. I mean, I had money since
all I really did was work and type and eat, but I really don’t like spending money, especially
considering the alternative of a “free” hobby if I was just sending emails. I almost considered
switching over, but decided against it, since it would pretty much ruin all I’ve built through my
letters. This was explained in much more detail in a rant about letters I sent to Malad City, ID.
I constantly wondered what others thought when they read my letters. Would they think
that I was some madman stalking them? Would they just think it was spam and throw the letter
out? (An even worse tragedy) This became a rant sent out to Lady Lake, FL. I know it makes
no sense to send a rant about other rants I’ve sent to somebody who’s never read my rants
before, but it was really just another rant. I ranted about the senselessness of the rant about the
reactions to my other rants in a separate rant. Somebody in Petaluma, CA became very confused
that week.
DeLuca Rants 7
I know that it sounds like I was hitting the peak of my insanity at that time, but it really
wasn’t the case. I hadn’t been this relaxed since I had moved, and all of the events before that. I
conversed more with the people at work, leading to some actual friendships and real
conversations. Well, except for with Brian, he’s just an asshole. I remembered to exercise more.
I returned home a few times to visit Mom. I even got managed to have sex once or twice. Those
two things shouldn’t be next to each other. All while managing to write five to ten rants a day.
Sleep went from being my one opportunity at escape to the nuisance that wasted my time every
day. Yes, yes, I ranted about sleep too.
Eventually people across the country began talking about how they were receiving my
rants. It was such a peculiar thing, after all, to open your mail and find a couple-pages long letter
about dumbass squirrels that fell out of trees. People gathered on the Internet to post pictures or
scans of them; some even copied them word-for-word onto their computers. I found forums
dedicated to “the mystery ranter”, with people discussing the things I ranted about and trying to
predict what I will write about next. Not all of my rants made it onto the Internet of course;
some people surely threw them away, and some might have never been opened. But as my
legacy grew, so did the proportion of people who shared my letters.
My fan base expanded, and soon people were making requests, posting their addresses
onto forums and asking for a specific rant about a specific topic (or sometimes anything at all). I
considered their recommendations for topics, and usually listened, but as much as I would have
loved to send them their individual rants, I couldn’t begin choosing who the recipient would be;
that would destroy the integrity of my process, and I felt like what I was doing was creating a big
statement, I don’t know exactly what, but I was making something. I wrote a rant apologizing to
the hardcore fans for not being able to fully comply. Of course, I had to send it to a random
DeLuca Rants 8
woman in Berlin Township, NJ, but luckily she was one of the good ones, and she posted it for
the country to see.
I decided it would be best to stay anonymous. My letters kept their blank return address
and I never gave away even my first name, let alone where I live or have lived or last names of
anyone personal I ranted about. I never responded to posts online asking for Q&A, AMA, or any
sorts of interviews. I felt that the legend of the mystery ranter would be best kept a secret if his
only means of communication were from anonymous letters. Plus I really didn’t want the social
media following my every move, continuously harassing me for one interview or another. And I
really didn’t want to develop stalkers.
Soon enough, the fans began to get weird. An online market formed, where original
copies of the rants were sold to the highest bidder. People became collectors of my letters,
bragging about their acquisition of ten, or even twenty “original rants.” One man claimed to
have fifty-six of them, but it was later discovered that all but one were falsified. Multiple mail
carriers across the nation were fired for opening letters with no return address, hoping a golden
rant would be inside the envelope. And one band even wrote a western-style folk song about me.
Stan, Stan, the ranting man
Man he’s got a lot of fans
Something something Afghanistan…
Yeah, it really wasn’t that good, but I was immensely flattered that people would make
creations like that just because of my writings. Also, my name’s not Stan, which I made sure I
wrote about, and luckily, a man in Boise, ID let the world know.
DeLuca Rants 9
The worst part of the whole ordeal was when imitators began showing up. People would
post rants online that I know I had never written. It was never known whether the posters would
type the rants up themselves, or if others would send anonymous rants to unsuspecting fans. It’s
not like the quality of the “fake” rants were all terrible, but they were trying to get a piece of
something I had created, and they were impeding my legacy.
I had to find a way to make it clear which rants were created by me. I created the official
seal for my rants, the two mice talking about the adjacent cheese. I decided to adopt the name
“Stan” from the folk song, and began every rant with the title “Stan Rants About ___”. Finally, I
sent out a rant containing a list of all 1,079 rants I had written up to that point. Anything not on
that list was not one of my past rants. To make sure this one got around, I sent fifty copies out.
This rant remains the only one of which I sent out multiple copies.
It’s pretty clear that I developed a bit of an ego from this. I saw my rants as a way to
claim immortality and the rest of my life was just taking precious time away from developing my
legacy. I began spending more and more time ranting and less with actual people. Work was
getting in the way, so I started coming in less and less, until I eventually was fired. (I was
surprised they took so long to do so; I ranted about it, but that letter apparently went nowhere.) I
would still try to get out of the apartment and meet people, but I found it too aggravating, too
time-wasteful, and I wasn’t good enough at it, so eventually I just decided to stay in all day. I
crunched some numbers and figured that if I didn’t eat much and used minimal electricity I could
live off my savings for a good couple years, long enough to cement my legacy as a God of
written words.
Of course, without any actual interaction with anything I eventually ran out of things to
rant about. The first time that happened I just ranted about how I have nothing to rant about, but
DeLuca Rants 10
then I went back to the same well when I ran out of ideas again. It got up to “Stan Rants About
Having Nothing to Rant About, Part XV” before I gave up on the idea. And after that it got even
worse. I tried to rant up sequels to the more classic rants from the past, but it ended
horrendously, because there was really nothing more I could say about the paper clip man except
that he doesn’t have a nose but he really should because everyone has a nose. After I failed at
those I just began filling periods of writers block with random shit. A rant about the song “Take
On Me” by A-Ha was followed by a rant consisting of nothing but the lyrics to the same song.
One letter was just the word “sex” in giant puffy font. One was ten pages of “I’m on a boat,
bitch. I’m on a boat, bitch. I’m on a boat, bitch.” Those were the dark times.
I was never that good of an accountant, and it turns out I had hugely underestimated how
much I would spend during my period of unemployment. Figuring I didn’t have much longer
before I ran out of money, I considered selling advertising space in my letters. Yes, people were
willing to pay good money to put ads on my rants. But I quickly shook that idea off; if I was
going to do that then it would interfere with my legacy, and then what was the point in staying
here to perfect my legacy? So I started on a separate project: I decided to start writing things
other than my rants. I began with a few short stories, which progressed into larger stories, and
before long I was forming novel ideas and plotting out extensive character maps. This gave me
added fuel for my ranting as well, as I had plenty to rant about with all the problems of fiction
writing.
As the amount of time I spent writing stories expanded, the number of rants I put out per
day reduced greatly. I made sure the ones I did put out returned to the quality of old, though.
My ranting was back to top-notch, but sadly my fan base didn’t follow me. They had begun to
dwindle around my insanity period. I eventually realized that it probably wasn’t entirely due to
DeLuca Rants 11
my terrible writing; every fad has to fall eventually. But at the time I just felt really disheartened
that I had driven them all away with my “ranting madness.” I knew the hardcore fans were still
out there, but most people had moved on to other things, and the number of both requests and
mail carriers charged with felonies diminished greatly.
As sad as it was to see my time pass, it helped me lose my ego, as I started to think of
other things besides this “legacy” I claimed to have created for myself. I continued to write the
occasional rants, but they took a backseat to my series of novels and, well, doing things in real
life, with real people. A few of my books and stories, which use my real name, are selling
moderately well, and I did some financial consulting for companies to make sure I could pay all
my bills.
But as interesting as the ranting days were, they’re behind me now. This is my 5,000th
rant, and it will be my final one. I’ve got other things I need to attend to; I’m almost thirty, and I
really need to get a move on with…that whole figuring out my life thing, I feel like I’m behind
there. I don’t know if my old problems will return once I stop ranting, but if they do, I’ll find a
way to accept it as a part of myself. It’s true that once something’s broken it can’t be fixed, but
it’s possible to still love it despite being crooked.
Wow, I was hoping for something better at the end, but oh well, I tried, let’s leave it at
that. So long readers, and happy ranting.