When Pen Palling Goes Wrong [The Life and Times of Evil E]
Dec10

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When Pen Palling Goes Wrong [The Life and Times of Evil E]

 

A Proof of Nerd ID by Else “Evil E” Duff

“In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” — Martin Luther King

I don’t know exactly how true those words will be “in the end” but it is one of my favorite quotes. Sadly one thing I seem unable to forget is the day my junior high pen pal dumped me. At the time I was horrified and yet now all these years later – I am sharing it with all who want to see. Yes, here it is – for your amusement the rejection letter, dated exactly 1 month after I turned 13 years old, from Miss Jennifer Pratt, my junior high pen pal….

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I never met Jennifer Pratt in person, I don’t think we ever even talked on the phone, but for a period of time fate lead us to become pen pals as part of a project during a junior high English class. I guess you are wondering what I did to inspire my pen pal to dump me so cruelly.

I’m sure kids today have it a bit easier, if their pen pals (or is it e-pals) decide to tell them off they need to look no farther than their “sent box” to see what words they wrote to evoke such a response. I’m only going on my memory and I seem to recall it had something to do with this: It was at this time girls my age were starting their menstrual cycle.

Talk about a difficult and embarrassing time for a girl, getting your first period was not easy. But one of my friends embraced this time of change, she didn’t hide it, she wasn’t embarrassed, she sent out postcards to her closest friends ANNOUNCING it. I was in awe of this obvious display of female empowerment, completely in awe. And I think I attempted to do something similar – but for me it went terribly wrong. I didn’t inspire Jennifer Pratt with the same level of feminine unity and strength – instead I inspired her to dump me as her pen pal. Who knows maybe it was something else I said to piss her off, we were barely 13 years old so that was certainly possible.

I guess I will never be able to exactly remember what happened. But when I recently found the letter while cleaning out my childhood home it did bring back some emotions however they weren’t the ones I had when I first got the letter. I remember being absolutely mortified reading the letter when I got it, but finding it 25 years later well lets just say it inspired tears of laughter. In a way while dealing with the horribly depressing situation of cleaning out my mom’s house after putting her into a nursing home – finding the letter was the one thing that made me laugh the most and I guess in a way I owe my old pen pal a thank you for that.

I have no idea whatever happened to Jennifer Pratt, hell maybe she has a MySpace page. Being that she was from Flint, Michigan, I must say I can’t watch the Michael Moore movie “Roger and Me” without thinking of her. As for the girl who was the aspiring feminist, yup we’re still friends.

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