I have always been a dork

This morning Mom and I had breakfast together. (She is drinking coffee again full-force after temporarily losing her taste for it after the surgery.) I picked her up at her house.

It's against Mom's religion to greet me empty-handed. She always has a book (or five) from a yard sale or a bag of clipped coupons or lotion she knows I like or a new kind of candy that was buy-one-get-one-free.

Today she gave me a black-cherry-scented candle, a "Masterpiece Treasures from the World's Great Artists"-themed 2008 calendar, and three pieces of "correspondence" from my younger days. None of the letters were intended for her or Dad, but somehow they ended up in their hands.

The earliest one was dated Oct. 8, 1992 -- a period in which I was obsessed with pen-pals. I had two pen-pals, Jenny from Georgia and Vanessa from Puerto Rico, with whom I corresponded for years. I also had, I'm sure, at least 15 or 20 others at one time or another until about ninth grade.

Jenny was in my aunt Caryn's second-grade (?) class, and my second-grade teacher set me up with Vanessa. Another pen-pal was the daughter of far-flung family friends, and many others were girls I met at various summer camps. I also found some through what were basically pen-pal matching programs that advertised in the back of magazines like Teen and Seventeen and YM.

I LOVED getting mail and writing letters, to the point that one year Granny and Granddaddy gave me a roll of stamps for my birthday.

Anyway, back to the letters Mom had found. The October 1992 one was written to the postmaster. "I have become interested in the postmarks from various areas all over the United States, and unfortunately I feel our postmark is rather ordinary. I would like to suggest you consider using a more interesting postmark." I proposed coming up with something "informative as well as interesting" -- perhaps "items of local interest, such as festivals or fairs."

The next letter was written the following spring, in April 1993, to Dr. Joycelyn Elders, the former U.S. surgeon general. I literally cringed when I read it this morning. The topic was condoms in schools. I was 13 and clueless, obnoxious and and wa-a-y overdramatic. "I agree that sometimes condoms can provide protection, to a degree. But this does not solve the problem. If you don't care about getting to the root of our country's problems, then read no further." Nice. A few paragraphs later: "I know what I am talking about, more than a bunch of well-meaning yet ignorant people in Washington."

I am holding out hope that the fact that Mom unburied this letter from somewhere in her house means that she or Dad intercepted it before it was mailed -- but I'm afraid the one in my hands might just be an extra copy.

The third letter, from March 24, 1997, wasn't actually a letter but a forged note: "Please excuse Jennifer Loyd after third period. She has an appointment with our church directory committee." At the bottom I had signed Mom's name with a flourish. I can't imagine why I thought that excuse would be believable.

Even though I'm always giving Mom and Dad a hard time about being pack rats, I have to say that once in a while I'm glad they've kept stuff like this so I can look back and laugh.