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My wildly entertaining letters to my son and other American Soldiers suffering in Iraq and elsewhere...posted in no particular chronological order.
Friday, October 24, 2003
Thursday July 24, 2003
Dear Rob,
Today our intrepid little family attended an Industrial Tool Sale at the Bloomington Sale Barn. I have no idea why we did this- it must have been the seductive Industrial Tool Sale flyer that came in the mail.
TWO DAYS ONLY!
THURSDAY AND FRIDAY, JULY 24TH & 25TH!
FREE ADMISSION!
We’ve been looking forward to it all week. The flyer contained items of all kinds, things you would just die to buy for very cheap prices until you actually see these items in person. Rudy was hot for a pistol-style crossbow. ($19.99) Dylan had $21 in his pocket to purchase a walkie-talkie set (also $19.99) or a skateboard ($9.99). (Nobody knows why skateboards are being sold at Industrial Tool Sales and nobody asks. They also sell park benches and cast iron school bells.)
I was secretly hoping to come home with either an orbital sander ($39.99) or, heaven help me, a Ryobi power miter saw. ($89.99) [I actually did make a good case for the saw, but Rudy says he’ll just borrow one from his brother. Damn!]
Rudy and I came home empty handed and slightly depressed. Dylan got the walkie-talkie set, but failed to play with it at all, even though I made a trip to the dreaded Wal-Mart for 9 volt batteries. It’s probably already broken and shoved to the back of his closet, never to see the light of day again. Instead he’s playing with the two dollar yo-yo he scammed me into buying while I was in an altered state due to the BLIP! BLIP! BLIP!-ing of the Wal-mart checkout lane. (I swear it’s a radical leftist plot designed to make innocent capitalist shoppers such as myself commit messy hari-kari right there next to the National Enquirer.)
On the bright side, we did see quite a few interesting tatoos emblazoned on the rapidly aging bodies of the people working the Industrial Tool Sale. And we got to talk derisively about them in hushed voices with the other desperate souls in line with us as we waited for the walkie-talkie set to be delivered into Dylan’s eager hands.
On the way home I noticed that a new anti-smoking campaign is afoot in our fair city. They have billboards all over the place featuring the cute crayon renderings of 9 year olds who have never smoked a cigarette in their unsatisfying little lives. What the hell do they know about smoking? Give the little bastards five years and they could very well be puffing away like mad while bragging to their degenerate teenaged friends about the billboards they once decorated in their distant youth. I bet they’ll laugh ironically as they light up a Camel.
Just in case you were wondering, here’s what I know about teens smoking: Teenagers first smoke because the teenagers who would have been cool no matter what they did, smoke. It is a fact, and it does us no good to keep denying it. Thus, teenagers who wish they were cool, but will never be cool no matter what they do, tend to smoke too. So you’ve basically got two groups of teen smokers: truly cool risk-taking teens and teens who are hopelessly not cool. Everybody else is fairly safe from becoming smokers, the lucky bastards. Also, many many teens smoke but do not become habitual smokers. (These, in my opinion, are the truly cool kids.) None of the real smokers, cool and uncool alike, will ever listen to reason. It won't matter how many cute Crayola drawings captioned with slogans such as “Only Butts Choose Butts!” are slathered upon the billboards of America.
So I say give it up and instead hand out free cigarettes all over the place. What the hell, at least then nobody would pawn an expensive pair of athletic shoes just to buy a carton of Marlboro Lights.
But nobody listens to me no matter how much sense I make, and that is exactly what is wrong with this country!
Much love,
--Mom
Dear Rob,
Today our intrepid little family attended an Industrial Tool Sale at the Bloomington Sale Barn. I have no idea why we did this- it must have been the seductive Industrial Tool Sale flyer that came in the mail.
TWO DAYS ONLY!
THURSDAY AND FRIDAY, JULY 24TH & 25TH!
FREE ADMISSION!
We’ve been looking forward to it all week. The flyer contained items of all kinds, things you would just die to buy for very cheap prices until you actually see these items in person. Rudy was hot for a pistol-style crossbow. ($19.99) Dylan had $21 in his pocket to purchase a walkie-talkie set (also $19.99) or a skateboard ($9.99). (Nobody knows why skateboards are being sold at Industrial Tool Sales and nobody asks. They also sell park benches and cast iron school bells.)
I was secretly hoping to come home with either an orbital sander ($39.99) or, heaven help me, a Ryobi power miter saw. ($89.99) [I actually did make a good case for the saw, but Rudy says he’ll just borrow one from his brother. Damn!]
Rudy and I came home empty handed and slightly depressed. Dylan got the walkie-talkie set, but failed to play with it at all, even though I made a trip to the dreaded Wal-Mart for 9 volt batteries. It’s probably already broken and shoved to the back of his closet, never to see the light of day again. Instead he’s playing with the two dollar yo-yo he scammed me into buying while I was in an altered state due to the BLIP! BLIP! BLIP!-ing of the Wal-mart checkout lane. (I swear it’s a radical leftist plot designed to make innocent capitalist shoppers such as myself commit messy hari-kari right there next to the National Enquirer.)
On the bright side, we did see quite a few interesting tatoos emblazoned on the rapidly aging bodies of the people working the Industrial Tool Sale. And we got to talk derisively about them in hushed voices with the other desperate souls in line with us as we waited for the walkie-talkie set to be delivered into Dylan’s eager hands.
On the way home I noticed that a new anti-smoking campaign is afoot in our fair city. They have billboards all over the place featuring the cute crayon renderings of 9 year olds who have never smoked a cigarette in their unsatisfying little lives. What the hell do they know about smoking? Give the little bastards five years and they could very well be puffing away like mad while bragging to their degenerate teenaged friends about the billboards they once decorated in their distant youth. I bet they’ll laugh ironically as they light up a Camel.
Just in case you were wondering, here’s what I know about teens smoking: Teenagers first smoke because the teenagers who would have been cool no matter what they did, smoke. It is a fact, and it does us no good to keep denying it. Thus, teenagers who wish they were cool, but will never be cool no matter what they do, tend to smoke too. So you’ve basically got two groups of teen smokers: truly cool risk-taking teens and teens who are hopelessly not cool. Everybody else is fairly safe from becoming smokers, the lucky bastards. Also, many many teens smoke but do not become habitual smokers. (These, in my opinion, are the truly cool kids.) None of the real smokers, cool and uncool alike, will ever listen to reason. It won't matter how many cute Crayola drawings captioned with slogans such as “Only Butts Choose Butts!” are slathered upon the billboards of America.
So I say give it up and instead hand out free cigarettes all over the place. What the hell, at least then nobody would pawn an expensive pair of athletic shoes just to buy a carton of Marlboro Lights.
But nobody listens to me no matter how much sense I make, and that is exactly what is wrong with this country!
Much love,
--Mom
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