Oy Vey

One day after posting The P.I.T.S. List and I'm already drawing from it for inspiration. So the topic for today's post is....

When was the last time you wrote a letter and sent it via snail mail? Who'd you send it to?

I was never very good at writing letters. I had a fictional pen pal back in fifth grade who died by the mail box waiting for my letter to arrive. Her name was A.W. I really liked Rootbeer back then. I think it all started with my fourth grade teacher. She taught us the correct way to write in cursive. But she never told me how to hold a pen. To illustrate:

Grab a writing utensil. Curl all your fingers in but the middle and thumb fingers. Be careful who you demonstrate this in front of. Now put the pen/pencil over top the curled fingers, toward the finger nails, not the knuckles. Place the tip of the middle finger on the pen. Curl the thumb over the pen and underneath the middle finger. Now write.

Fucked up isn't it? Anyway...

Eventually I got really good at typing. I typed letters to my Grandma, my Dad, my old friends in Indiana and Ohio. I had the bug. Until one day I got mad at my friend Nate. I had just moved to Florida with my family. I was thirteen. Nate called the night before to accuse me of leaving him in Indiana on purpose. Not that he wanted to come with, just that I had left altogether.

Never having visited Florida, he didn't understand what the big deal was, and instantly jumped to the conclusion that I had left because of him. Because you know, thirteen year olds have that kind of power. So instead of talking it out like a rational adult (which I wasn't yet) I wrote him a nasty letter. I can't remember what it said, but it probably went something like:

"Dear Nate. You suck. How can you be so selfish? If that's how your gunna be, I dont want to be friends with you anymore. Ill take up surfing instead."

A day after I sent the letter, Nate called. His Mom had died. After consoling him I remembered the letter. "Don't open it OK," I made him promise. But I knew he would. A week later the letter came back marked undeliverable. The addresses were correct and the right postage had been added. I concluded it was Fates way of saying, "Be careful what you say in anger."

Yeah, right. I was thirteen! I thought it meant I shouldn't write letters anymore. Otherwise, people were going to DIE.

So I didn't.

And then ten years later, Hoop's brother Nash went into boot camp and sent us twenty zillion letters begging for a response. Ok, so it was more like five. But still. So Hoop and I started writing. And by "writing" I mean with a pen. Hoop thinks typed letters are impersonal. Which leads me all the way back to the original questions. The answers are, "a month ago" and "Nash." In two more months the last answer will be "none."

Because Fate and my crunked up hand say so.

Updates:
1. Hoop's Mom's puppy, the one who ate Rat Poison on Christmas Eve, is doing just fine. She's almost out of the three week grace period, and is as lively as ever.
2. They did the inspection on the house yesterday. I haven't heard anything back yet. Cross your fingers they don't find roof/plumbing/electric/termite/water/felon damage.
3. As some of you might have noticed in Monday's comments, Mama Tulip and family are getting ready to put their house on the market. Think lucky thoughts for them!

DOT: Twisted Tink has been updated with a new chapter, "The Gateway." Find out the secret behind Mirror Mirror! A personalized post to anyone who can guess where the story is going.