Unsent Correspondence

Unsent Correspondence by C. Randall Nicholson

Thanks to email and Facebook, any future compilation of my letters will be sadly sparse, but here are a few that I wrote on paper or in Word documents and never sent, thank God. They provide a brief, sketchy glimpse into my evolution from precociously eccentric to disturbingly bizarre.

Third Grade Thank You Letters

I misspelled the fat man's name because I was confused by the copy of that Tim Allen movie we had lying around the house. But what's really funny is that it was on an old, obscure format you've probably never heard of, called VHS. And that silly squirrel, wherever he is, is almost certainly dead now, because they rarely live over six years in the wild. I miss him.

January 2 2002 / Dear Santa Clause, Thank you for my fossil collection that I always wanted. I couldn't beleive [sic] that the fossils were real. I also liked the elastic bead man that wobbles around and the Cosmic Critters. Everything I got was totally great. Next year I want a Lego computer game. (We have a new chimney cover, so you might have to remove it before you go down the chimney.) Love, Christopher

May 22, 2002 / Dear Mrs. Diggory, Thanks a lot for having us come to the Nature Center. The 3 Rs are quite good advice for first-class earthsavers, I must admit. And like you said, toilets do use lots of water. I hope the goverment [sic] will reduce the amount to at least 1 gallon. And I hope they make a law that everyone has to put bricks in their toilets! Those two things would really help waste less water. For Mr. and Mrs. Harvey, thanks for letting us hike the trails and walk on the bridge. That silly squirrel, wherever he is, sure eats really messy. I wish he would clean up his droppings. Anyway,

To Uncle Roger

For a sixth grade(?) class assignment. I remember writing "Allabajawikiwoo" at the top, but I don't remember why.

Allabajawikiwoo / Dear Uncle Roger, Last summer at your house I beat Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time after two years. I started at Ganon's castle. First I explored 6 puzzle rooms to dispel the barriers protecting Ganondorf. (I only needed Laurel and Michell's [sic] help with the lava and ice rooms.) Then I beat the Sub-Bosses guarding his lair by myself. No help! Then of course Michell [sic] killed Ganondorf for me (with a little advice) but when he came back as Ganon, I banished him myself. Then there was a spectacular celebration that actually felt real! But I still have secrets to unlock, places to explore, and [Gold Skulltula] tokens to get. So I guess I didn't finish it after all! Sincerely, Christopher

To the Purple Stars

Yes, I used to threaten innocent girls. In sixth grade I was in a band called "The X-Rays" (briefly called the Chris-Rays) that never performed any concerts or even had any instruments, but had formed for the sole purpose of combating a rival band called the Purple Stars. I miss those days when anything was possible. My reference to them as "Philistines" was undoubtedly drawn from Susan Simmons' father in "My Teacher is an Alien". Early on I realized that the inclusion of the first person's name at the end was mean-spirited and uncalled for, and I erased it, but it was still legible so I blotted it out for publication anyway.

To Carrie, Whom I Mistreated

I could never actually give it to her, because she moved away as suddenly as she had moved in. But maybe someday she'll happen to see it here.

Dear Carrie, I am very sorry that when we found out you weren't going to basketball practice with us in 3rd grade and [redacted] & [redacted] cheered

A Hispanohablantes Imaginarios

To the New Girl from Texas

For some reason, she took an instant (platonic) liking to me and we were becoming close friends when an unexpected schedule change completely derailed that.

This is a letter from Study Hall and everyone here still misses you. I'm just writing this because in Earth Science Lab we can't really talk without losing points. That's just barbaric. Why did they have to completely rearrange your schedule like that? Anyway I don't want you to get in trouble for reading this in class and I have to stop before I say something stupid(er) so bye.

To Another Girl from Study Hall

In ninth grade, I had a crush on this one senior girl in study hall and these other two senior girls, one of whom was her cousin, kept urging me to grow a spine and use their pickup lines on her. This was a letter to the not-cousin one.

I was eating one of those Dove chocolate things with the messages on the wrappers and it said

The other side of the paper, which isn't worth my time to scan, says "fort zone on a daily basis. Now I am much happier"

To the Same Girl and Her Friend

Yep. I just didn't know when to quit. Even now, it kind of scares me to see how neurotic I was. Bonus points if you know where the phrase "whelk's chance in a supernova" comes from, and extra bonus points if you even know what a whelk is. The "obvious reason" I didn't play soccer was that our school only had a girls' team.

A Semi-random Conglomeration of Thoughts / Happy New Year. Try not to screw it up. At the time of this writing it would be customary to say

that would deal with a freshman freak for more than two seconds. (Freshman and freak are being used as collaborative words and not synonyms.) For example, while no one can deny that Ewoks are extremely cute, they are simultaneously and unanimously despised by almost as many. (Not nearly as much as the Gungans, and specifically Jar Jar Binks, but that's enough geekiness for here.) / Secondly, I'm not really sure pickup lines work that great. Especially when some of them aren't exactly, shall we say, tactful. I'm sure they work if you're a steaming hunk or if your wallet is overflowing or something. But I can't imagine being taken seriously. Mom says,

daughter was freaking out like a cat in a roomful of rocking chairs. It seems faster than last year, which was faster than the one before that, and so on. And the school year is almost halfway over when it seems summer vacation just ended. What's really weird is that it seems weird, even though it's clearly just the way things go. I'm really going to miss the seniors, which is irrational considering how little I know any of them. I miss last year's seniors, which is irrational considering that I don't even recognize most of them, except Matt Smith who said

Same Thing, Take Two

I never even printed this one. I probably shouldn't have posted it either.

To the "Ludicrous Larry"

This one was meant to be emailed to the school newspaper but never was, which is just as well since it's very poorly written despite not being nearly as embarrassing as the previous one or the one before that.

To Jessica from EFY

Including one of the counselors, there were four gorgeous Jessicas in my Especially For Youth group, "Called Today". This letter was to one of them, before she unfriended me for whatever reason. Apparently there's a page missing between the second and third ones, or maybe I just had a stupid moment and skipped a line while writing it. Something about losing her phone number, apparently. The two letters mentioned at the beginning are not included here because I actually did send them, and the pickup line referenced was "Can I take your picture? I need to show Santa what I want for Christmas." That story is told more fully in my essay "In Defense of Pickup Lines".

Dear Jessica, / It is strange, indeed, to be writing a pencil-and-paper letter in the year 2011. I used to write by hand all the time but I find the editing capabilities of a computer indispensable. Yet believe it or not, this is the third time in the last few months I have been driven to such measures. The others were for a high school alumnus and my own cousin. In your case I haven't been able to gauge your enthusiasm or lack thereof for keeping in touch with me, though I hear you're very busy. (I would be too if I didn't procrastinate on everything but I am actually writing this letter on a long car ride.) Anyway my hope is that since this letter is portable and you strike me as a fast reader, it won't present too much of a burden on your time. Also you needn't feel obligated to write back quickly, or indeed at all, and certainly not to write [as much?] as I'm going to. / First I would like to apologize for a couple of things. A while ago on Facebook you said something about how being single isn't that bad. I wholeheartedly agree; I've never had a girlfriend and won't be getting one in the foreseeable future. (Unfortunately, dating without being a couple isn't really an option in New York, but that's a whole different subject.) So anyhow as you may recall I commented on your status and mentioned that I'd just used the same pick-up line on ten different girls. You deleted the comment so I assume you were offended and I see why. It was rather a Neanderthal thing to say and I didn't think it through, so I apologize and ask your forgiveness. I'll try to explain myself though and I'll do it in another paragraph because this one's getting too long. / You probably figured this out, but the point I was trying to make was that pairing up closes off the glorious world of teenage flirting. My best guess is that you were

offended because I came across as a shallow womanizer. Please rest assured that was not how it went. All the girls involved knew I was kidding around; not to say that the sentiments weren't sincere but that I wasn't looking to go deeper. For one thing I rarely speak to my peers and when I do it is with terrible nervousness, so this sort of thing is in complete contrast to my personality. Moreover everyone knows I've never even tried to get a girlfriend and there have occasionally been attempts to

phone number. So, it comes down to this. If you want to talk, which I realize would mostly happen in the future when you're less busy, and I promise to endeavor with all my soul to avoid awkward silences, then please give me your number again, in a reply to this letter or a post on Facebook or something. If you don't, then please tell me straight out. It would hurt my feelings much less than finding out later and save you the bother of me pestering you. / Now I have a dilemma. I have said what I felt like saying but I have a page and two thirds left. Because I hate wasting paper, I will have to write more. You know, when we first became acquainted you seemed incredibly familiar to me, yet the closest matches that came to mind were Miranda Cosgrove and Selena Gomez, which I mentioned as you may recall. As of right now I still don't know the correlation, but I just watched

ter a suitable waiting period of ten minutes or so, I gathered my courage/stupidity and called her again; and asked her what was going on. When she found out who I was, she freaked out in a good way; I was kind of surprised she even remembered me. Anyway it turns out she's been getting random calls from weird area codes. Go figure. But she wants me to call again, and if I can work out my phone-talking issues with her, then maybe I can have a normal conversation with you.

To Elder Tabor

After a brief stint of hating each other's guts, we were quite close growing up but then I moved for college and then he went on a mission and I never contacted him there, though I intended to. It's just as well I never sent this letter from late 2012 because my assessment of the girl's behavior, like my assessment of most human behavior, was totally mistaken. But I still love Indians.

Dear Elder Tabor, I am a bad person for not having written to you before now. I don't really know what to say so I guess I will just ramble on until I run out of paper, in the hopes that something coherent will take form. And isn't it such a lovely paper, by the way? I knew you would love it. It really brings out your eyes. / I have a girlfriend now. I also have an extraterrestrial living in my closet. Ha ha, just kidding about the girlfriend. But maybe she's insecure enough to become my girlfriend someday. I can dream, can't I? She's amazing - beautiful, Indian (I love Indians), shy and quiet like me, and twenty-four years old. I think she likes me. If you could see how she swoons when I'm around, you'd have to agree.

And of course, let us not forget this one.