The Gum Thief - Douglas Coupland [58]
BTW, in the new year I’m going to be a PDA Associate. I took a three-day training seminar taught by what appeared to be an eleven-year-old who had no social skills; welcome to the twenty-first century. Everyone understood what the guy was saying but me, and man, did I feel old, so to make myself feel less old, I forced myself to memorize the entire PDA user manual to learn all there is to know about these suckers. I can now tell you how to program one into sending your mother a 6:00 a.m. wake-up call on her 117th birthday—assuming you wanted to. I truly wish to see the shock on everyone’s faces when I effortlessly show users how to flip between the Gregorian calendar and the calendar used by the Japanese imperial family. I know they’re all waiting for me to crash and burn, but they’re not going to get that satisfaction. Using a PDA is easier than I thought it would be, and it’s fun and gives me something to do when I can’t force myself out of bed.
I sound like I’m in a worse space than I am. I’m only mad at the world.
You can’t hear Wayne howling. He’s got some kind of bug and won’t eat properly. I’m probably going to take him to the vet this morning, which will sorely tick off Fearless Leader—we’re understaffed today, Dell Day, no less. Oodles of shit is going to hit a massive fan blade.
Fun sending a FedEx . . . never done it before. I feel like a confident industry professional, and it’s great having the drop-off box outside the store’s front door. It’s like we have our own private mail system.
Don’t happy, be worry. Oops . . . other way around.
R.
Zoë
Hi, Dad.
I really love Mowie Maui and today I found a clam. We had a sWordfish for dinner last night. I have my own room and it has free soap. I have to go now.
Zoë
The Epke Family
At this, the most special time of the year, it brings great pleasure to wish you and yours the best for the holiday season.
Dear Friends,
Excuse the impersonal “mass mailing” of the family newsletter, but email is so mechanical and I don’t want to handwrite a hundred Christmas cards!
Chances are you were at our wedding mere weeks ago. Joan has made an honest man out of me. Our honeymoon was a blast, and young Zoë overcame her fear of waves and was a paddle-boarding fiend on our Maui “Wowie” adventure. Returning to the “real world” was pretty darn hard!
The new house is coming along well, although we lost momentum fixing it up in spring and there are still several walls with unpainted plaster patches. One room we will certainly have to fix up is the nursery because, yup, there’s a “bun in our oven”! Expect big things early next summer! And Joan wants to make sure I tell everybody that she’s quit smoking, but only until fall, when she promises to be lighting up again. Between then and now, I’m sure we’ll be having some pretty energetic debates on that topic!
On the work front, all goes well. I’ve landed gigs on ten new productions, three of which were renewed for two seasons, but I don’t want to jinx things and am trying to work hard and earn what was a great opportunity to show the company all I’ve got!
Everyone is in good shape, especially Dad, who had his angio in September and is now 110 percent. He’s discovered fleece jackets and likes to walk a mile every day. What next—marathons!?!?!
Thank you to everyone for giving us such great wedding presents, and for making our wedding day the magical day it was. Let’s hope that next year is as good as this year.
Greetings from Brian, Joan and Zoë
Bethany
VIA FEDEX
Hi, Roger.
I hope Wayne is better. He’d love England