Letter Number Seven

              I went up to Fort Wayne to visit my mom and help her paint a couple of rooms this last weekend.  We painted the great room, foyer and hall on Friday night.  Mom found this new recipe online for homemade Moon Pies, and I had one after dinner.  Oh, man.  There’s a reason I have to battle my weight, and it’s not all Hashimoto’s Syndrome.  So I made a rule: no more Moon Pies at Mom’s house.  Especially when it’s too cold to run the next morning.

              So, on Saturday Mom had to work from 8am till noon.  We’d established that I would take the morning off to sleep-in and when she got home we would move her bedroom furniture and paint in there.  Instead, I got up at 8:15 and did it myself.  I finished painting her bedroom by 11:45 and was washing brushes and rollers at the sink, scraping at a crust of paint in the rolling pan with my thumb nail when I heard a familiar –POP—from the bedroom.  I dropped the paint pan into the sink and bolted through the dining room and great room, arrived at my mom’s bedroom doorway just as the second –POP—happened and a little burst of displaced air ruffled my hair.

              At the foot of Mom’s bed lay a blue rectangle.  Letter Number Seven:

              I vaguely recall those dandelions.  And the TV commercial I imagined myself making.  I’d just seen a car commercial the night before, and when I saw all those dandelions I just started selling them to a camera I imagined rising up above me, looking down, like the commercial for the car lot.  But I don’t remember thinking anything about god.

              Future Me is right about two things: first, that I am skeptical; and second, that rules are made to be broken.  I ate another Moon Pie as soon as I was done reading the letter.  Nothing like getting permission from your older self to break the rules.

              I’ve been pretty good lately.  I deserve it.  I’ve been running, lifting weights.  I surprise-painted Mom’s bedroom.  And I’ve been diligently (and secretly) sewing toaster-coils to a pair of underwear for two weeks now.  I think they’ll be ready for a test run in another week.