G.I. Weather

Dear Midge:

Thank you for the cookies. They could not have come at a better time. We have been in the field since New Years day, and such things are hard to obtain up here. Due to the rough handling they received from our local mail jousters the cookies that were left whole were well padded by the innumerable crumbs the smashed ones so generously provided. This did not matter much, however, for the weather froze the crumbs together again, making a rough but delectable aggregate.

It has been so cold here that when I climbed out of the shower I noticed a marked resemblance between myself and what many people say Adam must have looked like. Which is to say, my navel was so full of goose pimples that it almost disappeared.

Unfortunately, I will have to mail this specimen of modern English when I return to Furth, on Jan 31. I forgot to bring any stamps with me, and even if I had remembered them the saliva I used to freeze the stamp to the envelope would have eventually melted, thus diluting the glue and causing the stamp to stick to the first thing that brushed against it. The mailman, therefore, might have been wearing a stamp that would not be sufficient to send him anywhere, and you would have to pay for my scrawl.

Love

Steve.

 
Dear Carl:

I have recently been informed that I do not show the proper respect for time because I do not put the date on my letters. I have discovered, however, that a chronology of my correspondence merely reveals the sparseness of my literary endeavors and serves no useful purpose unless one wishes to make a scrapbook, patch work quilt or something else out of my epistles. If you do wish to make something out of my letters, let me suggest a lampshade for a Christmas tree light. This should make a colorful reading lamp, and it is a hell of lot easier to make a lampshade out of my hieroglyphics than it is to make any sense out them. Besides, I rather like the idea of people describing my writing as colorful.
 
The weather here leaves a great deal to be desired at this time of year. It is so cold that it registers an eegads on the goose pimple scale. I am afraid I cannot give you a more accurate reading of the temperature because the Fahrenheit scale is too busy fighting with the centigrade scale to make a comment. What I can tell you is that the mercury has dropped clear out of sight. That last drop that always falls in one’s trousers after he has urinated has also frozen my zipper shut. Thus a great deal of ripping, chipping, swearing, and dancing has become a necessary prelude to draining my bladder.

In case you are wondering why I have made so many references to the weather, it is because I am out in the damn stuff. We have been in the field since New Years day and will not return to our barracks until Jan. 31.

Give my best regards to your lovely wife.

Sincerely

Steve (the ice sickle) McKeand

First published in macsbackporch.foxtail-farms.com on Jan 26, 2010