Care packages

Last week I was informed that a package was scheduled to arrive for my friend Ardith on Friday. This parcel was rumored to contain freshly-picked apples from a place called Iowa. In fact, this shipment was the first reported activity by a subversive organization known as MOCK (Mothers of College Kids). Although the founding of MOCK earlier this month had made some high-stakes negotiation necessary when the new organization threatened to make dastardly Saturday-morning phone calls to innocently sleeping geeks, this shipment of apples was widely expected to restore the general goodwill and amity.

On Saturday afternoon, I found myself wondering idly whether this package had arrived. An AIM conversation aroused further suspicions; I was informed that I myself was to be the recipient of some sort of musical gift.

I was sitting at my computer later that evening when I became dimly aware (thanks to the nearly mystical power of my consciousness) that a small procession was making its way from the young ladies' apartment to my own. Very soon Ardith and her attendants entered the living room with a box and a letter.

I volunteered to read the opening line, which was in creative French. Ardith read the rest of the letter as my friends and I fished our gifts out of the box according to the letter's instructions. Each gift was exactly suited to the needs (real or apocryphal) of the person to whom it was addressed. Scholl received bandages and antibiotic ointment for the finger he cut several weeks ago. Wheeler and Gallagher received shirts to help guard against the subarctic climate of our apartment. I received a CD -- "Romantic Guitar" -- with a note explaining that it had been chosen "because libertarians are reputed to be world-class lovers, or something equally nauseous." . . . I wonder where that idea came from.

In the bottom of the box were the apples Ardith had left after taking enough for her own needs. We immediately took advantage of these provisions.

The thank-you note that Ma Hoyt will receive soon should provide a more vivid, if somewhat less credible, account of our festivities that night. I wrote it myself while everybody was still enjoying apples, and signatures were appended by all involved.

I must express satisfaction at this attempt at cross-civilization contact by the mothers of MOCK. I hope it is the first of many cultural exchanges to come.

By the way, the guitar music is entirely satisfactory. Already I've gotten three proposals of marriage from wealthy young socialites.