A
Daughter's Letter Home
Dear Mom and Dad:
It has now been three months since I left for
college. I have been remiss in writing and I am very sorry for
the thoughtlessness in not having written before. I will bring
you up-to-date now, but before you read on, please sit down. You
are not going to read any further unless you are sitting down.
Okay?
Well, then, I am getting along pretty well now.
The skull fracture and the concussion I got when I jumped out
of the window of my dormitory when it caught fire shortly after
my arrival are pretty well healed now. I only spent two weeks
in the hospital, and now I can see almost normally and only get
those sick headaches one a day.
Fortunately, an attendant at the gas station
near the dorm witnessed the fire in the dormitory and my jump,
and he was the one who called the Fire Department and the ambulance.
He also visited me in the hospital and since I had nowhere to
live because of the burnt-out dormitory, he was kind enough to
invite me to share his apartment with him. Its really a
basement room, but its kind of cute. He is a very fine boy
and we have fallen deeply in love and are planning to get married.
We havent set the exact date yet, but
it will be before my pregnancy begins to show. Yes, Mother and
Dad, I am pregnant. I know how much you are looking forward to
being grandparents and I know you will welcome the baby and give
it the same love and devotion and tender care you gave me when
I was a child. The reason for the delay in our marriage is that
my boyfriend has some minor infection that prevents us from passing
the pre-marital blood test and I carelessly caught it from him.
This will clear up with the penicillin injections I am now taking
daily. I know you will welcome him into the family with open arms.
He is kind and although not well educated, he is ambitious.
Although he is of a different race and religion
than ours, I know your oft-expressed tolerance will not permit
you to be bothered by the fact that his skin color is somewhat
different from ours. I am sure that you will love him as I do.
His family background is good too, for I am told that his father
is an important engineer for the sanitation department he works
for. Although they say he runs his office from his truck.
Now that I have brought you up-to-date, folks,
I want to tell you that there was no dormitory fire, I did not
have a concussion or a skull fracture, I was not in the hospital,
I am not pregnant, I am not engaged, I do not have a venereal
disease, and there is no boy in my life.
However, I am getting a D in history
and an F in science and I wanted you to see those
marks in the proper perspective.
Your
loving daughter,