Like they’ve ever felt a thing in their lives.
*
Dear Mom,
For much of the week, I’d forgotten how slow regular mail is. By the time you get this, I’ll have already been home for three days or so. Please disregard the last few letters. They were hasty. If my room is still available, I’d like to stay. I do ask, however, that you take a look at your schedule so we may set aside an evening when I’ll outline the changes I’d like to see our family implement in the coming quarter, such as you learning to make cornbread and us eating on the porch when it’s nice out and us getting a pool and playing kickball and having food fights and you letting me pick on Deirdre when it’s in a funny way. I look forward to returning to my room, my toys, a bathroom with a lock, and of course, Johannes. I hope you have shown him my pictures as I asked.
With affection,
William
BEST FRIENDS SHOULD BE TOGETHER
We’ll get a pair of those half-heart necklaces so every ask n’ point reminds us we are one glued duo. We’ll send real letters like our grandparents did, handwritten in smart cursive curls. We’ll extend cell plans and chat through favorite shows like a commentary track just for each other. We’ll get our braces off on the same day, chew whole packs of gum. We’ll nab some serious studs but tell each other everything. Double-date at a roadside diner exactly halfway between our homes. Cry on shoulders when our boys fail us. We’ll room together at State, cover the walls floor-to-ceiling with incense posters of pop dweebs gone wry. See how beer feels. Be those funny cute girls everybody’s got an eye on. We’ll have a secret code for hot boys in passing. A secret dog named Freshman Fifteen we’ll have to hide in the rafters during inspection. Follow some jam band one summer, grooving on lawns, refusing drugs usually. Get tattoos that only spell something when we stand together. I’ll be maid of honor in your wedding and you’ll be co-maid with my sister but only cause she’d disown me if I didn’t let her. We’ll start a store selling just what we like. We’ll name our firstborn daughters after one another, and if our husbands don’t like it, tough. Lifespans being what they are, we’ll be there for each other when our men have passed, and all the friends who come to visit our assisted living condo will be dazzled by what fun we still have together. We’ll be the kind of besties who make outsiders wonder if they’ve ever known true friendship, but we won’t even notice how sad it makes them and they won’t bring it up because you and I will be so caught up in the fun, us marveling at how not-good it never was.
THE SUDDEN IMPOSITION OF CHORES
We make the hulks Dismantle the Stage and Stack Benches. To the Least Improved goes Bathroom Duty. The older kids know to call Trash Pickup, which is job code for Make Out in the Woods. For Girls Cabin 1, we put together an algorithm and found that when you factor in the bitching, the required supervision, and how cranky they are from staying up all night comparing the Very Real Talks they’d each had with Tad Gunnick, it actually saves time to exempt them from chores. Really, though, no matter what jobs you give these kids, you’re gonna catch some flack: “Aren’t there people whose job it is to mop and shine and sweep and scour?” and “Didn’t we pay big bucks to come here?” and “Are we not remarkable precocious youths to be catered to?” and “Do we not deserve ?” All valid points. Cleaning just isn’t on-message. If I had my way, we’d forget all about the security deposit we so sorely need returned and instead would wake the campers the last morning by balloon-pelting them in their unsuspecting bunks, chasing them out of their cabins and onto the rec field where their own arsenal waits, and we’d engage them in an epic campers vs. counselors water balloon bout, have them greet their moms sopping—give those moms a sense of where their
*
Dear Mom,
For much of the week, I’d forgotten how slow regular mail is. By the time you get this, I’ll have already been home for three days or so. Please disregard the last few letters. They were hasty. If my room is still available, I’d like to stay. I do ask, however, that you take a look at your schedule so we may set aside an evening when I’ll outline the changes I’d like to see our family implement in the coming quarter, such as you learning to make cornbread and us eating on the porch when it’s nice out and us getting a pool and playing kickball and having food fights and you letting me pick on Deirdre when it’s in a funny way. I look forward to returning to my room, my toys, a bathroom with a lock, and of course, Johannes. I hope you have shown him my pictures as I asked.
With affection,
William
BEST FRIENDS SHOULD BE TOGETHER
We’ll get a pair of those half-heart necklaces so every ask n’ point reminds us we are one glued duo. We’ll send real letters like our grandparents did, handwritten in smart cursive curls. We’ll extend cell plans and chat through favorite shows like a commentary track just for each other. We’ll get our braces off on the same day, chew whole packs of gum. We’ll nab some serious studs but tell each other everything. Double-date at a roadside diner exactly halfway between our homes. Cry on shoulders when our boys fail us. We’ll room together at State, cover the walls floor-to-ceiling with incense posters of pop dweebs gone wry. See how beer feels. Be those funny cute girls everybody’s got an eye on. We’ll have a secret code for hot boys in passing. A secret dog named Freshman Fifteen we’ll have to hide in the rafters during inspection. Follow some jam band one summer, grooving on lawns, refusing drugs usually. Get tattoos that only spell something when we stand together. I’ll be maid of honor in your wedding and you’ll be co-maid with my sister but only cause she’d disown me if I didn’t let her. We’ll start a store selling just what we like. We’ll name our firstborn daughters after one another, and if our husbands don’t like it, tough. Lifespans being what they are, we’ll be there for each other when our men have passed, and all the friends who come to visit our assisted living condo will be dazzled by what fun we still have together. We’ll be the kind of besties who make outsiders wonder if they’ve ever known true friendship, but we won’t even notice how sad it makes them and they won’t bring it up because you and I will be so caught up in the fun, us marveling at how not-good it never was.
THE SUDDEN IMPOSITION OF CHORES
We make the hulks Dismantle the Stage and Stack Benches. To the Least Improved goes Bathroom Duty. The older kids know to call Trash Pickup, which is job code for Make Out in the Woods. For Girls Cabin 1, we put together an algorithm and found that when you factor in the bitching, the required supervision, and how cranky they are from staying up all night comparing the Very Real Talks they’d each had with Tad Gunnick, it actually saves time to exempt them from chores. Really, though, no matter what jobs you give these kids, you’re gonna catch some flack: “Aren’t there people whose job it is to mop and shine and sweep and scour?” and “Didn’t we pay big bucks to come here?” and “Are we not remarkable precocious youths to be catered to?” and “Do we not deserve ?” All valid points. Cleaning just isn’t on-message. If I had my way, we’d forget all about the security deposit we so sorely need returned and instead would wake the campers the last morning by balloon-pelting them in their unsuspecting bunks, chasing them out of their cabins and onto the rec field where their own arsenal waits, and we’d engage them in an epic campers vs. counselors water balloon bout, have them greet their moms sopping—give those moms a sense of where their
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