Last week, chanteyranger told me on 'Help: meaning of 'in bed w/ captain's daughte' that I owed karolina an apology. Shortly after, McGrath stepped up to give me a few lashes. They have a valid point. I'd like to apologize to karolina and all true lakeyachtsmen that I might have offended who have sail between the potato field from Warsaw to Cracow whether they speak the language or not.

Forgive me for being cynical, it just my nature, I'm always a reluctant believer and a late joiner. Forgive me for not having sung enough sea shanties to believe that the ocean is hallowed ground and for not welcoming all sailors, whatever e-mail address they use. Forgive me for being overly concerned about a captain's daughter when a drunken sailor's dignity is in question. Please accept my apologies for thinking that harpgirl had been both sharp and blunt in a single message and that she must be a clever woman. Forgive me for seing nothing Polish karolina's sentence structure, seeing nothing in the content that one couldn't find on the web and nothing in the address that one couldn't get by registering on Russian and Polish free e-mail sites.

Forgive me for thinking that I recognized a familiar wink and a nod. Forgive me for, like Joan of Arc and Saint Francis, hearing voice and distant tones in the night, voices that reminded me of TTCM, Threadie, Professors Iris the Wonder Horse, Barfy, and other Mudcat identities. For give me for thinking that they all sound like the same person. Forgive me for speculating that Karolina echoed the name of a state fairly close to Tennessee Technical Center Memphis (TTCM) rather than a Polish name like Witold or Czeslaw - that Largo the Russian sounded more like all hat and no cattle than any Russian I've ever heard of, but I suppose the name is right up there there with Boris and Ivan. Forgive me for checking the timing and flow of karolina's messages and thinking that karolina was writing under a lot of variations and for someone who claims to know nothing about computers. Forgive me for noticing that karolina started on a test thread before being welcomed into the inner sanctions of the santimonious, that she mastered TTCM's favourite HTML, the flying banner, very quickly. Forgive me for realizing so late, that TTCM (a.k.a. professor iris, etc.) who seems to be a student at Tennessee Technical Center Memphis with a pattern of internet hoaxes, (including one off Why are guitars SEXY and banjos, not? where he built a web with a cropped mudcat picture of Barkn's wife and a distorted mudcat pictures of Shambles, yet he wasn't competent enough to set the security properly and make it work,) was probably the person who used katlaughing's name in vain.

I apologize for thinking it was all a hoax and a funny, cleaver, and ambitious hoax at that, even if the writing was a shade poor. I apologize for thinking evil thoughts, like, oh my god, he's joking with kat about being a jumping goat on the 'Vot mchitsa troyk' thread. Silly me. Wash out my brain with bitter soap, will ya? Forgive me for laughing most of the two hour drive to Toronto on Monday morning, especially when I thought about the demands that I should apologize. Forgive me for asking myself, 'If these people want to believe that badly, what can I do about it?' and for being reluctant to apologize. For wondering who will be big enough to laugh if it turns out to be a hoax.

Once again, forgive me for looking at the patterns of messages. I'll try to never look again. Forgive me for hearing those voices and seeing patterns, and for not believing in you karolina. I now believe. Keep on sailing, karolina!