Apparently email would have been better.

Bearing his soul to the world, an old sailor fills a bottle with a heartfelt note and casts it off into the sea. Months later it washes up on a distant shore, waiting to be discovered by his one true love. A truly touching story, right?

Wrong.

Enter Henry Bigglesworth. Henry took a stroll one day along the shore near his seaside home in Bournemouth, England and found a bottle containing a message from Harvey Bennett of East Hampton, NY. The bottle travelled for nearly five months until it washed up on the English coast.

Rather than consider it a once-in-a-lifetime experience to communicate with a stranger in this manner, Henry took it as an insult. He sent back a reply chastising poor Harvey for littering, telling him, "I recently found your bottle while taking a scenic walk on the beach by Poole Harbour. While you may consider this some profound experiment on the path and speed of oceanic currents, I have another name for it: litter."

But did Henry stop there? Of course not. He continued by going after the United States in general, saying, "You Americans don't seem to be happy unless you are mucking about somewhere."

The bottle was one of five cast off by Bennett that day and so far, the only one to receive a response. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what's in store for the remaining bottles.