The Phantom Lodger
Once my daughter had moved to the Cape, my wife and I felt completely cut off. No longer a ten minute car ride away, our over-riding desire to get close to her was offset by putting pen to paper and writing some really newsy and well illustrated letters.
Perhaps letter writing is a little old fashioned in this day and age.
Yet say what you will, there is something special about the written word. To me, it beats the telephone hands down. You see, once the words have been typed in, or written down, with luck and a decent ballpoint pen, they may remain to all eternity.
Once my daughter had moved to the Cape, my wife and I felt completely cut off. No longer a ten minute car ride away, our over-riding desire to get close to her was offset by putting pen to paper and writing some really newsy and well illustrated letters.
E-mail of course. Then came the first big crunch.
A year went by, and then another, and quite frankly between us we ran out of ideas
“What shall I say now?” I asked, gazing into the computer screen for some kind of inspiration.
“How should I know…… think something up.”
Looking out of my study window, I watched Mrs. Chambers open her front gate, and walk up the steps towards her front door. She was in her late sixties, and when her husband passed on, she took on a gentleman boarder to help out with her finances.
Thinking of her predicament, I had a sudden surge of inspiration. I’d invent a lodger!
After the usual comments regarding the weather, I added a single line to my letter that was destined to create an earthquake down there in the Cape.
“Mom and I have decided to take in a boarder.” Those few simple words hit home with devastating effect.
The turn around time in our correspondence hit a new high, of thirty-six minutes. “Don`t put him in my old room Mom, I won’t have it. Besides I`ve left Teddy there and there’s some of my clothes in the wardrobe, and if he SMOKES!!!!!”
Talk about hot under the collar. I calmed things down a mite by mentioning that we’ve only just placed the ad, and I thought a young lady around thirty-five might be more entertaining for us both.
Her next letter was an absolute corker. “Don’t even think of it!” Were her exact words. “She’ll dowse the place with cheap perfume and block up the toilet with her thingies!”
Of course, my wife and I were in stitches. Our daughter’s concern was astronomical to say the least, then another big crunch came.
We were discussing that Henry might bring a girl friend home for our approval when there was a knock on the door.
You’ve guessed it! There stood my daughter, and as mad as a snake.
“Where the Hell is this Henry Sullivan… no way is he going to bring flowers to my Mom!”
Sheepishly, I looked across the hallway at my wife, and then at my daughter.
Our wonderful plan to spice up the correspondence between us had suddenly gone horribly wrong. My brain was working overtime in an attempt to think up something that might sound plausible when my wife stepped forward and hugged her daughter.
“Henry left this morning darling….a transfer he called it…to….to…..” I chipped in with a very safe “Poffadder.”
So it’s Sunday afternoon again, and I’m sitting at my computer writing to my daughter.
As usual, I turned to the Missus. “What the heck can I say next Love?”
A sly grin lit her face, “Ever thought of becoming a reserve in the Police Service?”
