Your Loving Daughter, Mary

It has now been three months since I left for college. I have been remiss in writing and I am very sorry for my thoughtlessness. I will bring you up to date now, but before you read on, please sit down. YOU ARE NOT TO READ ANY FURTHER UNLESS YOU ARE SITTING DOWN, okay? Well, I am getting along pretty well now. The skull fracture and the concussion I got when I jumped out of the window of my dormitory when it caught fire shortly after my arrival are pretty well healed now. I only spent two weeks in the hospital and I now can see almost normally and I only get those sick headaches once a week.

Fortunately, the fire in the dormitory and my jump was witnessed by an attendant at the gas station near the dorm and he was the one who called the fire department and the ambulance. He also visited me at the hospital and since I had nowhere to live because of the burnt-out dorm, he was kind enough to invite me to share his apartment with him. It's really an attic room, but it's kind of cute. He is a very fine boy and we have fallen deeply in love and are planning to get married. We haven't exactly set the date yet, but it will be before my pregnancy begins to show. Yes, Mom and Dad, I am pregnant. I know how you are looking forward to being grandparents and I know you will welcome the baby and give it the same love and devotion and tender care you gave me as a child. The reason for the delay in our marriage is that my boyfriend has some minor infection which prevents us from passing our premarital blood tests and I carelessly caught it from him. This will soon clear up with the penicillin injections I am taking daily.

Now that I have brought you up to date, I want to tell you that there was no dormitory fire. I do not have a concussion or a skull fracture, I was not in the hospital, I am not pregnant, I am not engaged, I do not have syphilis and in fact there is no man in my life. However, I am getting a "D" in history and a "F" in science class and I wanted you to see these marks in their proper perspective.

Your loving daughter,
Mary