A father passing by his teenage daughter's bedroom was astonished to see the bed was nicely made and everything was neat and tidy. Then he saw an envelope propped up prominently on the centre of the pillow. It was addressed "Dad". With the worst premonition, he opened the envelope and read the letter with trembling hands:
Dear Dad,
It is with great regret and sorrow that I'm writing you, but I'm leaving home . I had to elope with my new boyfriend Randy because I wanted to avoid a scene with Mom and you. I've been finding real passion with Randy and he is so nice to me. I know when you meet him you'll like him too- even with all his piercing, tattoos, and motorcycle clothes. But it's not only the passion Dad, I'm pregnant and Randy said that he wants me to have the kid and that we can be very happy together. Even though Randy is much older than me (anyway, 42 isn't so old these days is it?), and has no money, really these things shouldn't stand in the way of our relationship , don't you agree?
Randy has a great CD collection; he already owns a trailer in the woods and has a stack of firewood for! the whole winter. It's true he has other girlfriends as well but I know he'll be faithful to me in his own way. He wants to have many more children with me and that's now one of my dreams too. Randy taught me that marijuana doesn't really hurt anyone and he'll be growing it for us and we'll trade it with our friends for all the cocaine and ecstasy we want. In the meantime, we'll pray that science will find a cure for AIDS so Randy can get better; he sure deserves it!!
Your loving daughter,
Rosie.
At the bottom of the page were the letters "PTO".
Hands still trembling, her father turned the sheet, and read:
PS: Dad, none of the above is true. I'm over at the neighbor's house. I just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than my report card that's in my desk centre drawer. Please sign it and call when it is safe for me to come home.
I love you
[Many thanks for the input to Subhadip Dutta]
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7 comments:
Ha!Ha!Ha! Lovely one. Whew. While reading the first two paragraphs with a mounting sense of horror, I was wondering whether you were feeling all right (in the head, I mean)....
There was a similar letter that I read many years ago in one of the more interesting basic sociology text books by Anthony Giddens. But I still didn't see this letter going where it did!
Thank you.
Shilpi
At Subhadip Dutta,
Excellent piece. First class lesson learnt my the father. Last time some one taught him a lesson was probably 25 years ago, since he stopped learning anything. I am more interested about the aftermath of this situation, what did the father do?
1. Learnt the lesson seriously? (I doubt)
2. Give her a nice little thrashing? ( Probable)
3. Deprive his daughter of using a Cellphone ever again? ( the probability is increasing!).
At Sir,
Thank you for posting this.
Regards,
Archishman Sarkar
Archishman,
At the risk of sounding like a crotchety old aunt - I'll courteously point out to you that you don't really know whether the dad was a reasonable dad and a reasonable human being. Not that I know for sure either - but he may have been. Maybe the daughter didn't do well, and thought she might be scolded - but maybe the dad had no intentions of scolding her as furiously as she had imagined. Also note, the dad is astonished that his daughter's bed is made and that her room is neat and tidy.....doesn't that tell you something?
It was a very clever thing that the daughter did of course...that I won't take away from her. But I have the feeling that in this imaginary account the dad himself quietly chuckled as well after shaking and trembling and sweating. That's what I see....
Hmm. I may be wrong...maybe but maybe not.
Shilpidi
Hello Shilpi Di,
So nice to hear from you. I admit that I missed that point ( the room was neat and tidy). You might be correct. Thanks for pointing out.
Warm Regards,
Archishman.
Nice read. I came across a similar one some days back, that was from a employee to his boss regarding salary.
Regards,
Debaroon
Dear sir,
I have to say it’s a great example of the saying ‘God helps those who help themselves’. The girl is really brave and intelligent. She took it upon herself to make her parents understand in the most non-violent of ways that marks are not the only thing that one studies for. I wish more of our teenagers apply this concept to make their lives more meaningful.
I am sure you remember once we had a discussion on your other blog about whether our education system needs an overhaul – that exams should be replaced and instead students need to be judged on their strength of character, intellectual ability or extracurricular achievements etc. If the girl is a pointer to that direction where our present system should be going, I feel this is a welcome change.
Regards,
Avishek
Thanks for cheering me up, Avishek. Yes, I guess the girl was uncommonly brave and clever, and maybe the father deserved it! I hope I don't sin enough to have to suffer as that father did, if only for a couple of minutes!
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