a description of the amazing and exciting adventures i have here in baltimore--- and other lies.

 
For many years, each year, my parents would receive a Christmas card with a photocopy (later, computer printed) letter from my father's former buddy in college and his wife, the Cooleys. My mom hates these people. Never realizing this, they insisted on sending not only a Christmas card, but a wedding anniversary card to my parents. This especially drove my Mom bananas.

The letters were never great examples of prose, no lyrical exposes, not even a hint of exoticity. Just your run of the mill, hi-we-went-here-and-so-and-so-had-a-baby-and-we-visited-these-people-and-our-daughter/son-got-married-and/or-had-children-and-isn't-life-wonderful-thank-god-for-us-being-alive letters. I make this pledge to you, my friends, if I stoop so low as to include a letter into Christmas cards, I will definitely come up with better material. Along the lines of hi-I-sacrificed-ten-virgins-this-year-killed-a-few-babies-rewrote-the-constitution-became-king-of-siam-made-my-multibillion-company-go-public-with-employees-having-first-dibs-at-stock-options-ran-for-president-wrote-the-great-american-novel-cured-cancer-and-finally-got-laid-isn't-life-wonderful-thank-god-for-us-being-alive kinds of deals.

But my Mom never got this kind of letter from the Cooleys.
Me, being of irrepressible wit and sly inteligence, named the famed letter the
"Cooley-tros." For it was our albatros around our necks, and every year the letter would arrive, to haunt us. And, every year, my Mom would make a point of telling me
when the Cooley-tros had come, and read it (or let me read it when I would come for
the holidays) with relish. Then, she would proceed to dish on the Cooleys, their pedestrian life, how Jim Cooley may have worked for NASA, but he was sure no rocket
scientist, that the boy was an idiot and the daughter a silly fool.

My Mom ceased to send them cards, but they would send my parents cards. Two Christmases ago, we did not get a Cooley-tros. My mom greatly rejoiced, and last year noticed the lack of letter. This year, we also got nothing, but my mom made no comment. Perhaps they finally got the message we didnot care about their messages.
posted by gregorio at 7:59 PM