The man visits his local zoo to see four kangaroos: a baby, two females, and one male. He finds the animals fascinating and wonders what it would be like to be a kangaroo. The sight propels him to send a letter to a customer. 

The man is twenty-six years old and works a boring job in the product-control section in a department store. There, he handles customer product complaints that are labeled either (A) reasonable, (B) borderline, or (C) customer negligence. The customer he is writing has a complaint that falls in category C because they accidentally purchased a Mahler record, instead of the intended Brahms one. Putting his professional analysis aside, the man expresses heartfelt sympathy for the customer’s situation and says that they are no more to blame for the situation than the kangaroos are for any misfortune they experience in the zoo. 

This personal message is recorded on a cassette tape and the employee plays eight bars of the “Colonel Bogey” march in the background. He labels the cassette “The Kangaroo Communiqué” because it brings him the vision of kangaroos bouncing across the vast plains with their pouches stuffed with mail. He tells the customer that if they would like to stop listening to the tape at this point, he understands. 

He compares himself to the Egyptian Sandman, a prince who was so ugly that the king sent him away into a deep jungle where he was raised by wolves or monkeys and everything he touched turned to sand. He wonders aloud what the customer he’s writing the letter to is like, saying that their letter was the first to ever move him because it reminded him of a news photo from the scene of a massacre. He tells the customer that the letter they sent excited him sexually. In the background of the recorded message, there is the sound of knocking. He tells the customer he can’t stop himself from thinking of sleeping with them, even though he has no idea what they look like. 

He continues on to tell the customer how he is a regular guy and has a girlfriend who he has no intention of marrying. He takes a break from talking to smoke and when he resumes he talks about the Nobility of Imperfection, which is the idea that people can forgive one another. He wishes he could be in two places at once, for example rollerskating while simultaneously attending the opera or sleeping with the customer while simultaneously sleeping with his girlfriend. 

If the customer decides to write him back, he asks that they send it in the form of a complaint to the company. After re-listening to the tape, he finds himself dissatisfied and he worries if he should send it or not. Because he’s striving for imperfection, he decides to go along with it after all.