I incurred the twitter-wrath of actor and comedian Paul F. Tompkins

Moments ago, I had a very strange an unexpected exchange on twitter with the actor and comedian, Paul F. Tompkins, whose work I've seen and enjoyed (which is why I was following his account in the first place.)  Given the way twitter works, I think this incident couldn't be fully observed by anyone except for myself, Mr. Tompkins and the strange and impossibly small intersection of people who happen to follow both of our twitter accounts.

I was trying to write a comic when I inexcusably went to check on twitter to see if there was anything that could distract me for a few seconds or hours.  I saw the following tweet by Mr. Tompkins:

PFTompkins THERE ARE! // RT @kevinpollak: Hey, are there tickets available for your show Saturday night in the Largo at the Coronet, Los Angeles, CA?

For those of you unfamiliar with Twitter, this means that actor and comedian Kevin Pollack asked if there were tickets available, and Mr. Tompkins responded by reprinting the question and answering "THERE ARE!"

This sounded like humorous banter to me, with Mr. Pollack asking an improbably helpful and public question in order to help with the show, and Mr. Tompkins gamely playing along.  I've only really been on twitter for about a week and a half, but I know that if you want to say something, you have to act on impulse, or the moment is gone, the tweets have descended into the past, and no one will know what you're talking about.  So, I tweeted another improbably solicitous question to which Mr. Tompkins could possibly answer in the affirmative, furthering the mildly amusing joke.  Much more likely, I thought he'd never even see this:

RUBENBOLLING @PFTompkins Are the tickets that are still available for your Saturday night show a great value for one's entertainment dollar?

I was very surprised when a few minutes later, I saw:

PFTompkins @RUBENBOLLING Probably not for you. Don't come.

Wow.  Actor and comedian Paul F. Tompkins misinterpreted my fewer-than-141-character message, and thought that I was somehow being sarcastic or facetious.  Or perhaps he thought I actually spoke like that, and genuinely believed I would be too fastidious to enjoy his humor.  

I tried to quickly write a reply that would explain my intent, but ended up writing too quickly, sending:

RUBENBOLLING @PFTompkins that was a set-upB

See, what happened was that I wanted to send a two-sentence reply.  But after typing "set-up," I hit shift-B instead of alt-B, so my intended exclamation point became a capital B. I must have been flummoxed at having upset Mr. Tompkins, because when I tried to hit the delete button, I instead hit the return button right below it, thus transmitting my unfinished message.

Years of stand-up experience have not left Mr. Tompkins unskilled in handling perceived hecklers.  Within a minute, he sent back:

PFTompkins @RUBENBOLLING Nice workB

Ouch. I then typed the intended second sentence of explanation:

RUBENBOLLING @PFTompkins you were supposed to publicly reply "why, yes it is!".

Actually, the correct reply to my original message would have been, "Why, yes they are!"

Finally, ten minutes later:

PFTompkins @RUBENBOLLING Oops.

To which I replied:

RUBENBOLLING @PFTompkins whew

Order restored to the Twitterverse.

What a very strange tool Twitter is -- that I can go from sitting alone writing a comic strip to, just a few seconds later, arousing and then assuaging the anger of actor and comedian Paul F. Tompkins.