Fern Munk’s Apology

Dear Bob:

I’ve never written a letter of apology before, and while the concept still seems a little foreign to me, I still need to explain. I had no choice but to rescue my French poodle pin with the clear rhinestones and an emerald green rhinestone for the eye when it dropped down the back of the plumber’s trousers. How I came to be standing right behind him as he fiddled with my pipes is another story, but let’s just say that he mistook my groping inside his trousers for some other activity.

Getting his trousers off at that precise moment was my prime objective, although not for reason he was thinking. In addition, now that I think about it, maybe getting down on my knees to search in folds of his underwear at his feet for my poodle wasn’t the best idea.

You know how I love that pin, Bob, even though Aunt Dixie said she got it in Niagara Falls, but I knew she had found in the parking lot of a motor lodge outside Windsor, because Uncle Fred got drunk on Mai Tais one night while playing Parcheesi and he told me.

Still, I loved that little poodle with all my heart. It was almost like having a real dog, which I can’t have in real life because of my intense lack of mothering skills and a bunch of allergies.

My precious pooch has seen me through so many trying moments, like when you introduced me as your cousin to your oldest friends. You told them my name was “Doris.”

You can see why I couldn’t stand the thought of losing it. I searched and I searched in the plumber’s trousers. I have to confess it wasn’t a completely unpleasant experience. When I called the plumber, I thought he was going to be the stereotypical image of an overweight, middle-aged plumber, who hadn’t showered or shaved in a month, but imagine my surprise to find out he was quite young, good looking, and built like a Miami cabana boy on ultra strength vitamins. In addition, he was wearing a decent pair of white underwear.

As I uncovered the last fold of fabric, something sparkled in my eyes. There it was! My French poodle pin!

I was so happy to find it that I opened my mouth wide to let out a cry of joy. Well, you can imagine what happened. I cannot say what I felt at that precise moment, because I was physically unable to speak. Of course, I thought it was a simple mistake, and the situation would shortly rectify itself, but after five or ten minutes, I felt like someone was taking advantage of me.

I tried to signal my distress. Perhaps, he took my rolling eyes as pleasure, but there was a serious lack of oxygen. I was getting down right dizzy. There was a faint buzzing in my ears, and little exploding spots of light were going off in my vision. It was worse than that time you held a pillow over my face while we made love.

In an act that I can only say was self-preservation, I did the only thing I could. I whipped open my poodle pin and rammed the pin straight into his ass.

The poor dear let out a yelp and ran screaming straight for the pool, my poodle riding his bare skin like a little cowboy. How was I supposed to know he was allergic to bees and thought he had been stung?

I ran after him to find him in the water, drenched and paddling for his life like a dear little puppy.

“Here boy,” I cried out, slapping the side of the pool until I caught his attention.

By the time, I got him out of the water and the pin extracted from his rump, he was shivering. The poor dear. I felt truly bad. I knelt down to help him pull up his wet trousers when the situation presented itself again. What could I do? I had nearly sent him to a watery grave.

That is why I was giving the plumber a hummer by the pool when you stopped by with your parents, Bob.

I’m sorry your mother felt the need to scream “Whore of Babylon” and threaten to cut off my finger if I didn’t take off your great aunt’s engagement ring right that very moment. I’m sorry that your father felt compelled to take a picture and then refuse to give up the camera. I’m also sorry that you felt the need to faint, thus falling on your face and breaking the crown I paid for, when your front tooth broke because I gave you that stale chocolate rabbit last Easter.

It wasn’t a malicious sex act meant to hurt you. It was only a series of unfortunate events that I tried to correct with a good-hearted gesture.

In fact, if I weren’t wearing the asymmetrical, handmade, knitted pink crochet peek-a-boo poncho with fringe that you gave me for Christmas (which I know you had your housekeeper whip up in her spare time for free) my poodle pin wouldn’t even have fallen off in the first place.

Just in case if you’re wondering how I’m doing, I lived in my car for three weeks after your threw me out, nearly begged for a job at the Pussy Kat Lounge as a shot girl, but then I ran back into the plumber. We’re now living together in a trailer behind the Mobile Quick Mart, and I’m working as a waitress at The Waffle Hut.

Best regards from your former fiancé,
Fern Munk

p.s. If you had just given me those damn Tiki bar mug glasses I wanted in the first place instead of the sweater, I wouldn’t have been breeding this hidden resentment for six months and felt compelled to drop your 10-year service watch in the garbage disposal in the first place.