I Can Explain

I've sent a letter, singing telegram, text, email, and even tried calling your phone as a last resort (ps: your mailbox is full), so I'm trying one last thing through this letter to the editor. Letter to the Editor.

Of course then I had to sign you up for a year's subscription to the East West News is Best Neighborhood Monthly Gazette. The only way I could be sure this would arrive at your door was to add you to their mailing list, since it is doubtful that you'd find it on your own, since it's mailed to Oakeydokey County residents only and that's three states away.

The great news is that it comes with a FREE ticket to the County Fair, entry into the Better Butter Sculpture event (winner gets a month's worth of Better Butter, how cool is that?!?), and the option to upgrade your standing to judge the River Dredge Drag Race. [I don't really know what that entails, but it sounds both vague and delightful at the same time, doesn't it?]

Now that I know you will get this apology allow me to get right to the point (but first- what exactly does that mean: get to the point. What point? Pencil point? High Point Market? Pointed remarks? Petit point? Pointelle knitting? I just HAD to know so I looked it up and am including it here because I KNOW you like new Things: it's taking away everything but the most important, kind of like whittling away the wood to reveal the business end of a pencil. So now we both know!)

The point is: I am sorry. Very sorry. So sorry. Remarkably remorseful. Positively penitent. It was, of course: All. My. Fault.

I've always been fond of your father; I mean, really who isn't, wasn't, wouldn't be? Such a nice man. A kind man. A good man. So polite. So responsive.

When I stopped by the house to return your sweater (oh, yes. I borrowed your sweater? The cream one with the nubbly cuffs and the silky lining? The one with the buttons, not the one with the zippers, although it DOES have tie strings at the neck but I can't understand why they would be there because there isn't a hood? Why would you need neckties unless there is a hood? {I didn't use the neck ties, but I guess that would be clear, since I don't understand them, but I just want to clarify that before I go on, just in case}), your dad answered the door and I was simply STRUCK by how much the two of you look alike!

Well, maybe it was the light because he is shorter, older, and has less hair than you do. And also the missing leg and the thick glasses. (I mean, of course: your father's missing leg and your thick glasses. {Your glasses are very attractive in that scholarly way, you know? Did I ever tell you that?})

In certain light no one could tell you apart at all, especially when he cocks his head at just that slight angle and yells out, just as you do: "What the Hell are you doing here- don't you know we have a restraining order?" I mean the two of you are practically twins, but I am sure you hear that all the time, don't you? Just an incredible resemblance both audibly and visually, until the porch light came on and I could see that it wasn't you at all, because you hold the baseball bat MUCH higher up when you answer the door so I knew all at once that it wasn't you at all.

I was holding out my hand with the sweater when he swung the bat and then, well; I just got nervous and blasted the Mace on my keyring and he missed (although it WAS a great follow through: did he golf in his youth?) and while I tried to catch him before he pitched off the porch (I hope that remaining leg heals, by the way- so unfortunate!) I dropped the sweater in the jagger bushes and that's how it got all snagged.

I'm not sure about the source of the blood. It could have been mine as I tried to untangle it from the baseball bat, or the policeman (I guess he responded to the burglar alarm? weird. I didn't hear it go off?), or your dad's? Either way: your dad has the sweater in the hospital and I can't get by Security to get it so that's up to you, then. I did try to return it.

Sorry it was late.