Monday, December 28, 2015

Charlie isn't my one and only.

Sorry, Charlie, I've met someone new. I have another pen pal. I call her Cupcake and I send her love letters from "A Secret Admirer."

We met just a couple years ago at a Dirty Bingo game. It plays like regular Bingo except that there are gifts involved. The dirty part is that, at some point, you get to steal gifts from each other, potentially foisting off a white elephant onto someone else.

I ended up with a box of greeting cards that featured cupcakes decorated in copious amounts of pink glitter. I can't imagine that I actually traded for this gift. If I did, it was only because what I had was more hideous than glitter cupcake cards.

They weren't hideous to Cupcake. She wanted them!

I teased her about it and told her she couldn't have them. After much coaxing, I agreed to give them to her - twelve of them - one at a time, each month for the next year. Her girlfriends joked that it would be fun if I sent them as a secret admirer to see if I could make her husband jealous.

And, so it began.

I sent her cards of fluffy admiration, telling her how beautifully sweet she was and how I longed to see her. She began to look forward to the arrival of my card each month while her entire family began to wonder who this mystery writer was. I don't think her husband was ever truly jealous but he was definitely curious.

When the year was over, she begged her husband to furnish me with another set of cards (or better yet, to write them himself). By this time, it was known to her husband that I was her admirer and nothing to worry about. Nevertheless, he found no reason to furnish more cards.

And, so, I did.

I found another set of cupcake greeting cards and continue to send one every month. Sometimes they arrive on a day when she really needs a pick-me-up. She'll send a photo of the unopened envelope to let me know that my timing was perfect, that she was having a terrible day, and that just the sight of the pink envelope was enough to make her day.

And that makes my day.

One a year or once a month, it doesn't matter. I love my pen pals.

(I heard from Charlie on Christmas Day so we're all good there, btw.)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Love you Cupcake!!!!