Well, of course I thought about who could have possibly sent it and used my detective skills to solve the mystery. The address used “East” in my street name. Now my street only recently had “east” added when a new part of my subdivision was built a few years ago. I never use “east” when I write my address, so I figured it must be someone relatively new to the area who doesn’t know that we don’t really use “east.” My second clue was the stationery that was used. It was Gwen Frostic stationery and a particular friend of mine (who is new to the area) and I had gone to Gwen Frostic’s a month or so earlier. The third clue was the smiley face as this particular friend has a habit of overusing smiley emoticons.
Mystery solved. So, when I saw that friend next, I gave him a big a hug (the first time I had hugged him, I think) and thanked him for the note. We were at a party with lots of people around who were talking to him so it didn’t register for him right away. It wasn’t until the next day when he confessed he did not send the note. How embarrassing for me. And puzzling. The next person I suspected was my dad, because the stationery had a toad on it and he loves toads. But I didn’t recognize the handwriting as his, didn’t think he would use “east,” and whenever he sends me something that he doesn’t sign, it’s from Pumpkin Jones.
Pumpkin Jones is a friend of the family my dad made up when I was real little. He’d send me postcards from exotic places. When I was that young, I didn’t notice that the postmark was from my city. I just thought, ‘wow, this guy sent me a postcard from the Alps’ and ‘now, Pumpkin Jones is in Paris!’ When I got older and realized that Pumpkin Jones was fictional, my dad still sent me stuff from him. One time when I was in middle school, I discovered a stuffed frog named “Bilbo” in my locker, a gift from P. Jones. Yeah, my dad’s cool like that.
But, as I told my friend when he confessed, I didn’t think it was my dad. And if it wasn’t, I had no idea who it was, and that was potentially creepy. I went home that evening relatively upset. One because I had thought my friend was really sweet and it turned out he wasn’t (well, you know what I mean). Two, I had made a bit of a fool of myself by guessing the wrong sender. And, three, there was potentially someone creepy stalking me.
A couple days later, I finally asked my dad if he sent it, and he did. I told him why I thought my friend had sent it and why I thought he hadn’t. He said he started adding ‘east’ because there’d been some mix ups with the mail, and he thought I’d outgrown Pumpkin Jones. Furthermore, (and I had totally forgotten this) when he was about to preach for the first time at this church he was really nervous and I had sent him a note saying the same thing. He told me he had taped it inside his Bible for that speaking engagement, which is about the sweetest thing I’ve heard in ages.
So the moral of the story is, don’t send me anonymous mail because I might give someone else the credit or worry that I have a stalker. Also, I will NEVER outgrow Pumpkin Jones.