Plucky Letters to US soldiers in Iraq

Easter Sunday, 2003


Dear Rob,

Hoppy Easter! (Hop hop hop!) Don’t forget, I am the Easter Bunny. You said so yourself. When you were about 5 years old some “big kid” in the neighborhood told you “The Easter Bunny is your MOM, stupid.” You found this to be a thrilling revelation. Your ran around telling all the other kids “My mom is the Easter Bunny, and she’s going to come to your house and bring you candy!”
It was pretty funny. I embellished it, of course. How could I resist? I told you that at one minute past midnight on Easter morning I would turn into a big Bunny and whisk around the world bringing candy and hiding eggs. You got a little worried and wanted to know how long I’d be gone. I told you I had magic Easter Bunny powers and I could do the whole job in “about one cartoon.” (That’s how you told time when you were little. By the length of cartoons. If I said something like “We have to leave in an hour,” you’d say “How many cartoons is that?”)
Very savvy.

You will (or, maybe will not) be gratified to learn that the fame which now surrounds your name within the extended branches of the clan has inspired the unfortunate loser B.R. to consider joining the military. It might be good for him, if he actually goes through with it. (I, personally, am doubtful that he will.)

I must say, I am very disappointed in that young man. When you two were kids I had high hopes for B; he always struck me as having an untapped intellect and ambition, despite the fact that his nose-pickings were cemented to the wall of your bedroom following his visits. Also, he had a dry and acute sense of humor, even as a 10 year old. Now, when I see him, which is not often, he strikes me as… lost.

But that’s depressing, and I don’t want to depress you. It’s Easter and new life is springing into the world, this is a time of renewal, “He Is Risen” and all that crap.

I've decided to not go to church on holidays. Seems to me the place is overrun on holidays with people who only go to church on holidays, and they just clog up the parking lot. I’m going to do the opposite: I will go to church on unpopular days, like in the middle of summer when nobody but the die-hards show up, but I will avoid it on holidays. Far be it from me to take up a parking space that could go to someone who only wants to use it twice a year!

Much love,
--Mom