Dear Somebody

It was a hectic morning this morning. I rushed to get Jack and Emma up, completely forgetting that I had not set aside enough time to clean Jack's wound and change his bandages. This turns out to be a lengthy undertaking because it involves encouraging a squirmy five year old to be brave in the face of a hydrogen peroxide sting. (As a side note, if you are not aware, Jack had a fairly severe run-in with the treadmill upstairs recently. He was walking backwards on it (duh!) and lost his footing. Now he shows his back, where there is a whopping friction burn, to just about everyone who will look.)

(An additional side note, but a little further sideways, is that THAT is the most action that the treadmill has seen in a few months.)

Anyway, all this to say that I had a rushed morning. It was a rushed morning that left me no time to make a lunch for myself. I had to eat the school's cashew chicken lunch today, and with it I received a fortune cookie.

Getting the school's cashew chicken lunch has its pros and cons. On the one hand, it doesn't taste awful, but they do add waaaay too much salt to the sauce. On the plus side, you come away with a nice fortune that has been written so generically that there is no room for questioning in your mind. It absolutely, so completely, MUST HAVE been the fortune that was yours-by-design.

My fortune cookie told me, "Someone in your life needs a letter from you."

So okay... "Someone" is strategically elusive and vague. If I put any stock into the tiny message that this piece of paper conveys, it becomes a bit overwhelming. Someone could be him, her, or so-and-so over there. Someone could be you. To play it safe and cover all the bases, I'll address the following letter this way:


Dear Someone,

Yesterday was a horrible day, but today has been so much better, thankfully. Jim comes home soon, and for that I am happy. I've missed him.

The job is busy. I stayed up grading until 11:30 last night, and that is my least favorite part of my work. I could make it easier on myself by not letting such a stack build up in my bag, but we've already been over how I have this procrastinating tendency built into my personality. Will you come to my house and fold my laundry, by the way?

How are you these days? What is it that's exciting and new in your life? Do you have big weekend plans? Want to get a coke sometime and talk about the really important things... like how we both tried in earnest to watch the new show "Fringe" recently? I mean tried (really hard) to give it a chance but that we both decided it was completely stupid? We could then go on to say how we thought that it was trying awfully hard, too hard, to be the next "LOST". We could even point out that it uses the same strategy to create suspense - an urgent, loud, and uncomfortable dissonant chord (and then, cut to commercial).

Or maybe it would just be simpler to give me a call. Yeah, I think your overly salty, cashew chicken stained fortune would read this way, "Someone in your life needs a phone call from you."

Sincerely,

*Whit, Whiteny in the Hood, Whitnella, Nit-Whit, Parrot Fart, Knucklehead, Jones, Whitney, Mrs. H., Hoodenpyler, Mrs. Puddingpile (by a little boy with a speech problem), and all the other names I've been called by the Someones of my life.

Aunt Vicki? Did you already get this fortune yesterday? My phone rang before I could hit "publish". Love you!