Dear Sir!
Archived from June 29, 2009
Sometimes my old man gets emails that are clearly intended for someone else. This never happens to me, but, due to his having chosen a comically generic email address, it happens pretty regularly to him. The emails don't seem to be intended for the SAME wrong person--their content runs the gamut from pictures of grandkids to plans for bachelor parties to strange, melancholy missives to ex girlfriends. At first he found this charming and funny, but as time has worn on, he has become tired of writing back to these people, explaining that he is not who they thought he was.
Last night, however, I heard him laughing in the bathroom (iPhones, you know), and when he came out he read me the latest wrong email he'd just received. It appeared to be from an English vicar attempting to set up rehearsal times with a performer or choirmaster or composer who was going to be visiting the vicar's hilariously-named town (Hartfordshire-on-Chesterton or something) in order to perform the music for the Eucharist. The email was not only incredibly long, and incredibly British, but it was also filled with details that were somehow hysterically funny to us. This nice vicar mentioned which readings from the Book of Common Prayer he liked to do, then suggested various canticles (complete with obscure reference numbers). He made many references to Evensong. He said "I'm sure you have your own organist, but if not please allow me to recommend one." Even though it was just normal written English, there was something so amazingly, quintessentially "British" about it that we could not help reading it in a loud, John Cleese joke-voice. "DEAR SIR!" etc.
Then we started laughing about the reply we could write back to this nice English vicar, which would be weirdly ahistorical and unfoundedly passive-aggressive:
"Dear Rev. Johnson,
It was with no little interest that I received your letter re: your parish's upcoming performance of the Eucharistic ritual. Of course, we Yanks don't get much of that over here, having been raised in the Protestant tradition, if you're aware of it--or is that Luther fellow still out of Her Majesty's favor? As I'm sure you'll recall, many of the original colonials were actually fleeing the tyrannical Henry's England, being as they were unwilling to embrace the heathenish doctrines of Anglicanism. So, as I'm sure you can imagine, it was a bit awkward to get your email. As I said, we don't get much Anglicanism over on 'this side of the pond,' after all, we're all too busy getting married and staying married, and actually believing in God, you know! Well, I suppose you'd better get back to subjugating your colonial holdings with excessive taxation without representation! You know what they say--'there's always a bigger stick.'
Yours &c.,
Gary Blandstein
p.s. I should inform you that I am not an Anglican choirmaster, and that your email was apparently routed to the incorrect address."
Eventually, the old man did write a shorter and less aggressive version of this email (which included the phrase "to my everlasting chagrin, I do NOT have my own organist"), and the vicar wrote back and said,
"Well, I never!"
Nice old vicar! Ha ha.
Yesterday I went to the coffee shop and worked all day on narrative theory stuff, on an article I'm writing, and on an essay about Michael Jackson I'm working on. When I got home, it was 4:30, and the bed was not only unmade but all the sheets were balled up on the floor. This is unusual, as the old man feels very strongly about making the bed (and, since he never gets up earlier than I do, this has become primarily his job). Entering the living room, I beheld a ghastly sight: the old man, still in his underwear, sprawled out on the ground playing his Madden Football game. It was clearly, clearly evident that he had been there all day; that he had not eaten, brushed his teeth, or possibly even gone to the bathroom at any point; and that he was in a very weird headspace. I said, "Jesus, have you been there all day?" and he said, "well, I got up really late," which, frankly, does not make him sound any less like a lazy slob. I said, "so, when did you get up?" he said, "eleven." I said, "so you've been playing video games for five and a half hours?" and he said, "what? No! What time is it?" and I said "4:30," and he said, "OH MY GOD!" Then he lapsed back into his strange, otherworldly fascination with the television, and another two hours passed in silence while he continued playing the video game. I worked some more on my essay and got a lot of Facebook friending done, and I also finally beat my own "Scramble" record, which felt great. Suddenly he broke a two-hour-long silence so that we could have this conversation:
"Oh, Kevin called, they want to know if we want to go to this thing tonight."
"What thing?"
"I don't know."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know...I think it's some bridge, some old bridge."
"...what?"
"You can get a drink there."
"It's a bar?"
"I don't know."
"What else did Kevin say?"
"He said it's an old bridge...it's some Iowa thing. It's a 45 minute drive."
"Well...is it, like, an establishment? Should we bring something? Should we eat before we go?"
"No, I think there's food there."
"And it's on a bridge?"
"What? No."
"You said it was on a bridge."
"I don't think it's on a bridge. Kevin said we should eat before we go."
"You just said--"
"I know, but he called again and I forgot."
??????
!!!!!!!!!!!
It was clear that when Kevin called, my old man had, zombie-like, answered the phone while continuing to play his videogame, and that he remembered the conversation only vaguely, as though he had dreamed it.
I wouldn't even mention all this, were it not so wholly out of character for this guy, who is usually sharp as a tack, and who certainly always makes the bed. I wondered if some terrible tragedy had happened that he couldn't yet bring himself to talk about. Conversely, I wondered if he was taking me somewhere to murder me, or if I was being tricked into going to a swingers' party.
It turned out it was just an old motorcycle bar by an old fallen-down bridge where you can drink beer and watch the motorcycle people practice making skid marks in the road and then ride off drunk. It was pretty awesome.
In other news, I don't know why my blog is broken. Please deal with it and I will continue trying to find a solution (i.e. emailing Mike (like I know anything about computers! Please!)).
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