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 this and I am very sorry for my 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 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 get those sick headaches once a day. Fortunately the fire in the dormitory and my jump were witnessed by an attendant at the gas station near the dorm, and he was the one who called the fire department and the ambulance. He also visited me at the hospital and since I had no where to live, because of the burned out dormitory, he was kind enough to invite me to share his apartment with him. It's really a basement room, but it's kind of cute. He is a very fine boy and we have fallen deeply in love and are planning to be married. We haven't 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 love, 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 which prevents us from passing our pre-marital blood tests and I carelessly caught it from him. This will soon clear up with the penicillin injections I am taking daily. I know you will welcome him into our 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 often expressed tolerance will not permit you to be bothered by the fact that his skin color is somewhat darker than ours. I am sure you will love him as I do. His family background is good too, for I am told that his father is an important gun-bearer in the village in Africa from which he came. Now that I have brought you up to date, 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 syphilis and there is no man (of any color) 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.
Yours, Your Loving Daughter.

Spelling Test Mistakes

One of the women with whom I work, Donna, has a son in third grade. Part of his daily homework is to practice his spelling for his weekly tests. So, together, Donna and her son go over the words for the test, both meaning and spelling of the words. A few weeks ago, her son brought home his test. He scored 97%, missing only one word. The word was "clock." Part of the test was to use each spelling list word in a sentence. His sentence? "My dad gave my mom a clock for her birthday" -- only it seems he'd accidentally omitted the letter "L." Donna said there was no comment on the test, just the biggest check mark she had ever seen.

Family Fractions

Like many men, as I get older I am beginning to lose my hair.  My children remind me of this reality from time to time, they and sometimes enjoy pointing it out to others. When my son was studying fractions in his second-grade class, one of his assignments was to use fractions in sentences.  His teacher sent his work home for me and my wife to see.  The sentences read:  "2/4 of my family are girls.  2/4 of my family are boys.  1/4 of my family is bald."