Letter from a Precocious Youth to His Grandmother

12 June 2008

Dear Grandma,

Thank you for the pajamas you sent me for my birthday. Even though I was hoping for a new set of water skis (I believe I mentioned this to you over Thanksgiving and again in our phone conversations on March 12 and May 7), pajamas are a much more practical alternative, so I can understand the substitution. Unfortunately, they do not fit and are purple; nothing against the color, but I'm pretty sure you grabbed the garment from the girls' aisle, yet again. You also forgot to remove the price tag. I apologize if this sounds ungrateful, but $3.99, Grandma? You really broke the bank on that one.

As you should well know, I am now in the third grade. While I have a near prodigious knack for numbers (enough to know you are exactly six point five times my age) and what Ms. Lindt calls a "darling precociousness," among many other gifts, what I am lacking is a new titanium-framed bicycle. If you do not know what one looks like, please consult any of the folded pages in the enclosed catalog (which you will probably recognize from three previous mailings). In lieu of a bike I see you've chosen to provide me with another coloring book - one that used to belong to Annie Hodgekiss, according the inscription on the inside front cover, a daring, but talentless young artist who thought - and drew - outside the lines on more than half of the well-worn pages. I would like to say that my love for you does not hinge on your gift-giving ability. However, since my parents deem in necessary to live in excess of three thousand miles from you at all times, and I remember you only as that funny lady with spotted hands who smells like stale cigarettes, all other discriminating factors on which to base my affection are simply unavailable. Purple jammies and used coloring books are about all you have going for, or against, you at this time.

As a minor, I am denied rights in a manner not unworthy of its own constitutional amendment. Daily, I am reminded of my own powerlessness in a most humiliating and demeaning fashion: the need for permission to make a bowel movement during gym class; a school system that fears ingenuity and praises conformity in all matters of spelling, mathematics, and even world history; and a weekly "allowance" that keeps me dependent on adults for all but superfluous items like bubble gum and Cheezits. My parents exercise tyrannical control over every aspect of my existence. My broccoli intake, the cleanliness of "my" room, and even my sleeping regiment has been predetermined by their primordial insights on child-rearing. I bring this up only to assure you that I am not capable of any serious maliciousness. Any ill will I feel can and will only take the form emotional absence: a cold shoulder at our yearly reunions and my refusal to sign any future greeting cards purchased by my mother, but sent to you on our entire family’s behalf. However, by observing my parents I have learned how powerful emotional unavailability can be, and so I shall wield it like a heavy iron bludgeon in your general direction.

Act now, Grandma, and you can salvage the unsalvageable. Without drastic and immediate improvement, however, the future of our relationship shall bear the unmistakable signs of spiritual and emotional emptiness. It shall be cordial, of course, but also disingenuous, superficial, and painfully unfulfilling. Perhaps this does not seem like the greatest of threats to you now, but when I'm in my prime and you're on your third artificial hip, you will see the error of your ways, and it will be too late.

Yours in relation and obligation only,
Timmy

Encl: Bicycle Catalog; Itemized List entitled, "Suggested Gift Items for Use in the Immediate Future".