The Day After Valentine's Day

It definitely made my day today [Ed. note: "Today" was 2/15/07, the day after Valentine's Day, when the author wrote this] to see a red card-sized envelope addressed to Ms. C. E. Kiely and adorned with heart, cloud, and Winnie the Pooh stickers sitting on the communal mail table. Inside was a funny card and a check (memo line reads: “Valentine beer?!”). Awwww. But, of course, like anything ever sent through the mail involving my mother, the card did have its quirks. This is an approximation of what the inside looked like:

CEK— (written in my mom’s handwriting in a blue ballpoint)

Happy Valentine’s Day (the card people printed this)

Love,

Dad (dad’s writing, blue felt tipped pen) & Mom (mom with a red pen)

The check was written with a black ballpoint but the envelope addressed with the blue felt tipped one, which means that two different people and at least four distinct pens were involved in the composition of a card that contained a grand total of five words, if you count my initials and the ampersand as words. With my mom it’s hard to tell whether the multiple pens were used for artistic effect or whether she just completed all these tasks at different times, perhaps on different days. Regardless, I think I know where my ADD tendencies come from.