A Peek Into My Childhood (if you dare)

I took a typing class in high school during my 12th grade, and did well enough that I can now type around 100 wpm (if you count backspaces to erase mistakes; otherwise it's only about 35 wpm.) I'd often get bored during our "free typing" periods, and instead of typing whatever stupid lesson the teacher wanted us to work on, I'd just type whatever I wanted. For whatever reason, my mother saved the ones she thought were funny, and gave them to me a few years ago. I re-typed them into electronic format so I wouldn't lose them, and here are some of the results.

This first started out as a real letter to my Grandparents, but I didn't like what I'd written. This was before you could just select a paragraph and delete it and start over, so I continued knowing I would never send it to them. See if you can tell where that break happened.


Dear Granddaddy and Grandma,

Hi. How are you? Good, I hope. How is everyone else there? Thank you, Granddad, for taking me hunting with you and thank you both for the Christmas card and money. I really needed it.

You're probably wondering why I'm typing this letter. My typing class teacher told us to get busy doing something so I decided to kill two birds with one stone, and send you a long overdue letter.

I was hopping you could come down for Christmas, but I guess you couldn't work it out, huh? Speaking of Christmas, what kind of weather did you have there on Christmas day? Here it was in the 70's and very sunny. Might as well have been in Miami!

Listen, I've been wondering for a long time how to tell you this, but I guess the best way is just to come out and say it. You're not my real grandparents. I know we have been telling you that you are for a long time, but the truth is that about 17 years ago we found the two of you in a basket on the front porch. And since I didn't already have any grandparents at the time, I decided to keep you.

The reason I'm telling you this is because I just found out that I do have another set of real grandparents after all, and that they are coming to see me next week. I have really enjoyed having you for grandparents, but now that I have a real set I won't be needing you. I hope you are not too sad because I'm not. If you do get sad, just think of all the good times we had and you'll get over it.

Well, I have to go and get ready or my reunion with my real grandparents (I'm so excited!) You take care of yourselves and be good and don't bother me. As of now, we don't know each other, okay?

Thank you,

Love, me.

This next letter was based on some statistics I'd read, or thought I'd read, or maybe made up. I think it pre-dates the start of the "America's Funniest Home Videos" era as it was 1983, but I seemed to have predicted a version of reality TV.


Dear Viewer,

Did you know that in the next 24 hours, 50 teenagers will attempt suicide, and that 19 will succeed? That's 350 attempts and 126 successes in one week alone.

That's what our new show, "Those Wacky, Wild, Way-out Kids" is all about! In this in-depth show we will present to you all of the different, and sometimes humorous, ways of killing oneself. Maybe you can get an idea of how you can kill yourself. Also featured are some live "Suicides in action" scenes.

I hope you will consider watching this informative and entertaining show. This is just another way we here as WSOB hope to bring you first rate shows about modern people for your evening enjoyment.

Thank you,

Kam Rahman
Entertainment Consultant
WSOB Broadcasting.

Not very sensitive, I suppose, but what 17 year-old boy who listened to punk rock was, right? And if you think that was bad, you might not want to read this last one. I'd seen just one too many "Save the Children for the cost of a cup of coffee" tear-jerking commercials on this particular day.


Dear Sponser,

This is a letter to inform you that the little Indian girl you chose to sponsor has died. Actually, she died in a rather humorous way.

We were handing out the Red Cross food from one of our trucks when she came for some food. One of the volunteers started teasing her lovingly by picking her up and hurling her through the air (she squealed with delight every time).

The last time he did this, however, she landed in front of a very large truck. It was the funniest thing to see her eyes bulge out of her head as the truck ran over her little body.

Well, don't you worry; there's plenty more where she came from, and I'm sure we will find you another or your money will be cheerfully refunded.

Thank you,

Willy Laff
Sure Help Ass.

I look back on these now and wonder what was wrong with my brain to come up with this kind of thing! L and B read them a couple years ago, during one of their times back together, and both of them laughed their asses off. B said "this explains a LOT!" whatever that means.

There's one more, my imagining of a letter from Adolph Hitler to Mao Tse Tung (that's how the news media spelled his name back then), but apparently I never typed it in. I'll look through my papers and see if I can find it; Mom said years ago that it was her favorite.