[2001] in Humor
HUMOR: Mst tel frnds
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (abennett@MIT.EDU)
Mon Apr 7 09:29:25 1997
From: <abennett@MIT.EDU>
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Mon, 07 Apr 1997 09:25:30 EDT
Date: Sun, 6 Apr 1997 23:53:59 -0700
From: Connie Kleinjans <connie@interserve.com>
=46rom: janos@netcom.com (Janos_Gereben)
Yurt Hemline Gores Heem
JON CARROLL
IT IS MY CUSTOM to write a note to myself when I remember some chore
or task that needs doing. I put these notes in a special place in the
kitchen.
Likewise, when I get an idea for a column, I scrawl it on a piece of
paper and put it in a basket on the table behind my desk. I have
before me one such fine idea: ``Decycling, noto to only sell.''
That's right, at some point I thought it would be a fine idea to
compose 800 words on the arcane process of decycling (so different
from recycling, it apparently involves mere random destruction as a
way of saving the environment) and the noto of . . . well, whatever.
You'd think that I would eventually learn to write notes to myself
that I could later read. You'd think that I would select handwriting
that would at least be legible. But no, I trust my own keen powers of
observation. ``I'll remember what this means,'' I think, scrawling
happily away.
But I don't. Last week I found a note that said ``V. importunt: Poo
Retched Tools!!!!'' This was particularly alarming because I
deciphered ``Very important'' right away and was left with ``Poo
Retched Tools.''
I had some previous experience with ``Poo''; it usually means
``P.U.,'' which is my super-secret abbreviation for ``pick up.'' So I
had to pick up something or someone. I knew it couldn't be
dry-cleaning, which is usually ``doy clearing'' or some variant.
The first letter is usually correct. The first letter is often big and
bold and perfectly readable. It's the weird scrawl after the first
letter that is problematic. It's like ``Wheel of Fortune'' now. ``P.U.
R -- -- -- T -- --.'' Righteous Tsars? Raccoon Tasters? Ratchets
Tuesday? Wait, Tuesday sounds right . . . Ah. ``Pick Up Rachel
Tuesday,'' which is almost a Rolling Stones song but not quite.
I may be giving the impression that all my attempts at deduction are
ultimately successful. This is not true. I have thrown away pieces of
paper with v. important notes on them because I understood that I
would never know what they were trying to convey.
NOTES ARE WRITTEN at precisely the moment when the information is most
vivid, so the need for communication with one's future self is not
pressing. The note is a mere formality, a gracious gesture.
Sometimes I space out on the note so completely that it becomes
useless even when legible. I make a lunch date for a week from Friday,
and I carefully turn to that page in my datebook and write in a firm,
clear hand, ``Friday.''
No clue as to who or where, just the word ``Friday'' on a page already
labeled ``Friday.'' I pray that whoever will reconfirm because if not
I'm dust.
Sometimes the notes are so old that their reappearance is
surrealistic. I came across one that said ``Water,'' and I was tempted
to write ``Earth Fire Air'' on it and put it back where I found it.
But of course ``Water'' is a verb as well as a noun, and I was
supposed to commit watering, according to the note.
BACK TO THE BUSINESS at hand, which is ``decycling.'' Ideas for
columns are not all that common; an idea for a column equals one-fifth
of a weekly salary. So this note is money in the bank, if only I can
read it. Wheel of Fortune again: ``D -- -- -- N
-- -- T --
O -- -- S -- --.'' There appears to be a ghostly apostrophe in the
next to the last word, so ``one's'' emerges. Which means that the next
word is probably ``self.'' Thus ``D
-- -- -- N -- -- T --
One's Self.''
So the ``to'' is probably right and the ornate second o in the
previous word could be ``es,'' so ``D -- -- -- -- Notes To One's
Self.''
Aha! ``Deciphering Notes To One's Self.'' What a fabulous idea for a
column. Many funny misspellings and bursts of wit, and later we'll all
go to the seashore.
_________________________________________________________________
=A9 The Chronicle Publishing Company
_________________________________________________________________
Thursday, March 27, 1997 =85 Page E10
=A91997 San Francisco Chronicle
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