Sunday, December 2, 2007

i tried to find a photo of a letter made out of a chain, but instead found a drawing of naked men conforming into letters of the alphabet.

i think this is better.


i didn't get an email account until like three years ago so i missed out on all of the teenage email chain letter hijinks, but when i was around the age of seven i received a chain letter in the mail from someone. his name was yougel and the ornately written letter was postmarked from gstaad, switzerland...

dear american colin,

i have found your name in american phone directory. please relay this message to seven people to avoid disease and misfortune.
this is all. good day to you.

sincerely,
yougel

...my parents said not to forward it because 'we don't support the swiss'. at the time i didn't bother to ask why, i suppose i assumed that it must have been some sort of political vendetta...

...nope. actually it was due to food poisoning from expired fondue cheese. swiss fondue cheese. apparently she was REALLY sick. Anyhoo, with tricia don's permission we visited switzerland as a family two years ago and had a lovely time. i held on to yougel's letter all this time and while we were there i attempted to look him up. after depositing about thirty swiss francs and an hour of my time into a public telephone i was able to track down his mother, who had since moved to genthod, which is a small town right outside of geneve. over the telephone she informed me that yougel had passed three years prior, and i said i was sorry to hear that, which i was. we visited her the day we were to fly out of the genevian aeroport and she told us the rest of the story that she didn't have the heart to disclose over the phone. yougel was swimming around the shores of lake geneva with his friends and contracted a deadly strain of 'duck pouse', which leeches into the water from the feces of swiss, orange-billed mallards.
he died ten days later from symptoms usually associated with amoebic dysentery. we did however get 'harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban' as one of the inflight movies, which was shown on those cool video monitors that are built into headrests of the seats. i think the other movie was something shitty like 'mona lisa smile'. i hadn't thought of this until just now, but his original letter to me mentioned something about '...disease and misfortune...' if i did not participate in his little charade. curious to say the least.

okay, so i guess we've established that it has been awhile since i had an opportunity to participate in any form of chain-lettering, but i just was 'tagged' by corey carlson (...who, i might interject, was recently attacked, and presumably taken advantage of, by a crazed individual on a denver bike path). so here, at the risk of myself contracting the hanta virus and suffering a horrible/painful death, are five things you don't know about me, maybe.


(with a slightly aggressive and punctual tone) fact.

1. i too was watching 'how to loose a guy in 10 days', but did not finish it because decidedly it was not up to par with tom hanks' films in the genre, my personal favourite being 'you've got mail'...i will say though that the new film with hilary swank has definite potential.


2. i was once involved in pretending to be a seductive young asian woman on aol instant messenger...who asked a sexed-up, pre-SAT taking teen for his measurments. he sadly complied.

3. i bought the entire set of 'rudolph the red-nosed reindeer and the island of mistfit toys' action figures (dolls) off of ebay when i was ten (sixteen). i think i used my mother's credit card...without her knowing.

4. someone was wondering what the name of the "...troll dolls with the gems in their belly buttons and colored hair..." were officially called the other day, and in my head i was able to chime in with 'treasure trolls' far too quickly...okay no more doll related facts.


5. my parents refuse to buy real christmas trees these days because of the hassle, as in you have to give it water and a corner to live in..."i already have look after two kids, and i don't need a third", so we have a nice, swedish fake one that is supposedly flame resistant. key word "resistant". i think that the class newly made trees in sweden must attend to learn about the dangers of fire is probably similar to lesson in school when the police officers used to come in and teach us about saying no to drugs. after people ask me multiple times if i want to smoke hash with them i eventually stop saying no. i guess you might say that i am "hash resistant"...not to be confused with "hash proof".


6. not really a secret, but when i pour cereal into a bowl at breakfast time i ALWAYS add far more to the bowl than i intend to eat...so that i can dump the excess in the sink.


(pause)...i think i'm missing the point maybe...were they all supposed to be embarrasing?...or just five things out of the ambiguous "things you don't know about me category"? whateve. i'm going to go watch tonight's installment of 'project runway'.




...it was a baker's dozen.