Letter #9 to Oliver | Subject: Smiling, Turkeys, Smiling Turkeys

16. December 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , ,

Dear Oliver,

As you may know, we celebrated your one-month birthday two weeks ago. We made you a cupcake with the fraction “1/12th” on it. Then we ate it. You didn’t get to have any. I’m sorry, but those are the rules. Forever. Maybe when you’re older—15, say—we’ll give you a little taste of frosting. Probably not. You see, your mother and I really like cakes, cupcakes, pie, and most other pastries. (Shepherd’s Pie is false advertising, NEVER TRY IT.)

Anyway, when you’re 18, you can go buy your own cake. Of course, I’m kidding, you’ll get to have some soon enough. Next month, we’re going to make you another cupcake, but with the simplified fraction 1/6 on it. We’re going to continue in this fashion until your actual birthday; we think it’ll make for some fun pictures. OK, OK, it’s just an excuse for us to eat a lot of cupcakes, accidentally make a “mistake” when writing with the frosting, eat the defective cupcake, and start over on another unblemished one, whereby the process continues. (As of this writing, I weigh 798 pounds.)

We’re also excited to celebrate your Pi Day (3.14159265359 years after your birth). I should clarify.  By “we,” I mean, “I”. Your mom thinks I’m a bit of a loon. Anyway, we’ll be celebrating it on Tuesday, September 8, 2015, so mark your calendar. Your future self might consider this too nerdy; however, given that you will be three and won’t have much to contribute to the issue, we’re making the call for you. (Plus, you only get one Pi day.)

In addition to your one-month birthday, you graced us with your first smile. As you may know, it’s pretty hard to tell when an infant is smiling at first, as babies make a funny face called a “gas smile.” I don’t know why they do this exactly, but it looks like the little one is smirking, sort of like if he or she were doing an impression of the Mona Lisa. (Come to think of it: This probably says more about the background of the painting than I care to know.)

Anyway, for a few weeks, every time you had the slightest facial expression your mother and I would immediately begin our newest infant-related game: Is it mirth or flatulence?

At first, it was all gas smiles, but then one day there was no question about it. You were grinning like we gave you a gondola full of gummy bears. (Trust me: that would be good.) Since then, smiling has been a daily occurrence, and I can usually get you to smile, though you like to make me work for them.

You especially like it when I make turkey-like noises. Since then, it has sounded like Thanksgiving at our household. Of course, you were only impressed by the standard turkey impression for so long, so I had to improvise. Now there’s the crying turkey, the laughing turkey, the turkey taking up yodeling. I’m working on the German turkey. (It is a turkey that yells a lot.)

In addition to smiling, you’re also growing. You’re now pushing 12 pounds (you’re probably over that, actually), and you sometimes down seven to eight ounces of breastmilk in a sitting. Then you belch like a biker.

In fact, you’ve grown so much that you no longer fit into the newborn clothes or the 0-3 month size. I don’t know if a Big and Tall-type clothing store for babies exists, but we’ll probably have to start looking.

Anyway, you’re currently dozing off next to me, (and snoring), and your mother and I are about to put you in your bassinet, so I’d better go.

Still can’t believe it’s been six weeks already.

With love,

 

Dad (and Mom)

Letter #8 to Oliver: Subject: Eagles, Toys, Robots, Books, the Olympics

16. December 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , ,

Dear Oliver

So it’s already been two weeks since you’ve been born! I’m sorry I haven’t written sooner; your mother and I have been quite busy at home with you, and it’s been an absolute blast.

Anyway, I’m happy to report that you reached two major milestones yesterday: You played with your first toy, and your umbilical stump fell off, so you now officially have a belly button!

First, let’s talk about your belly button. It’s an innie, and after realizing it was there, we immediately pressed it, but sadly, nothing happened. Kayli and I had hoped that if we pushed it perhaps something good (cake or pie maybe) would appear, but alas, that was not the case. (Our own belly buttons remain stubbornly inoperable.) This belly button setback notwithstanding, we remain convinced that someday a belly button will live up to its potential.

You also played with your first toy yesterday. It is a rabbit toy, and like all rabbits, it is slightly terrifying. I don’t know why people think rabbits are cute. They have oversized teeth, they’re smelly, and they reproduce far too quickly. In this respect, they are like certain patrons at the local Walmart.

Not only did you play with your first toy, we also read you your first book last week. As I need to dig out a bunch of my children’s books, I went out and bought you a bunch of them, including some standards, Curious George, Babar, The Slightly Irregular Fire Engine, and a whole bunch of others. You now have your own bookshelf, which we plan on adding to in short order.

I purchased one book—Edward the Emu—based on the title alone. As you might expect, it is about an Emu. (He lives in a zoo.) We read it to you, but every time I said “emu,” you cried. We took this as a sign that you didn’t like the book. As a sign of solidarity, your mother and I both pledged to try to find, and eat, emu-on-a-stick at the upcoming Minnesota State Fair.

Right now, however, things are emu-free and you are more content. You are currently sleeping on a pillow next to me. You are lying on your back with your hands straight up into the air. I think you are either having a dream about being arrested or you are practicing to be a football referee.

Your mother is sitting here, too, and we’re all watching the 2012 Summer Olympics, which are being held in London. The Olympics have been a lot of fun to watch, though your mother and I think we would be better commentators than many of the folks that NBC has hired. (They all seem like pretentious jerks.)

Your mother, and I, however, would have more unorthodox comments. For instance, while discussing the dominance of the U.S. and Australia in swimming, we agreed that the U.S. is good likely because we are pretty wealthy and have access to lots of pools. I mentioned that Australia is probably good because they have the ocean to swim in; your mother looked at me, shook her head, and said, “No, Brett. It’s the sharks. Their swimmers are good because they are chased by sharks.”

Your mother and I also agree that the medals could be improved. As I understand it, the actual medals themselves aren’t actually as advertised—gold and silver medals are both mostly silver, but the bronze medals are actually bronze.

If we’re not going to go with the actual metals, let’s get a little more creative. We think it’d be great if the gold medal were an oversized version of one of those chocolates covered in gold foil. The silver medal could be a Peppermint Patty, and the bronze medal could actually be bronze, but we think it’d be great if the third-place finishers didn’t know it wasn’t candy before they bite into it. That’s what they get for placing third.

Finally, you might be wondering what your first few weeks of life were like.

The best way I can put it is: living with a newborn is like living with a tiny frat boy: they sleep all day, they’re obsessed with breasts, and they’re practically guaranteed to puke on you three to four times a week.

With that said, it’s been an absolute blast. We both wish we could simply stay home with you all the time. (I already had to go back to work. It was pretty hard.)

As a sign of our how much we like you, your mother and I have already given you a bunch of nicknames. The most popular ones right now are:

 

Ollie McGolly

Sir Wigglington

OllieBollie

Fuss-Fuss-McGus (when you are fussy)

You haven’t been awake all that much, but you are a hungry little guy. And when you want food, you want it now. You make this abundantly clear because your fingernails are like little eagle talons. And when you’re crabby, you’re even more aquiline: you make a bunch of squeaky bird-like noises and dig in your claws into whatever—or whoever—is nearby. I am covered in scratches.

When you cry, you waive your arms around like the Robot from the TV show Lost in Space. You probably don’t have the slightest clue what I mean. Let me explain: It featured a robot that waived his arms around a lot whenever he sensed danger and said “Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!”

I suppose he doesn’t seem like a very impressive robot to you. You live in the future, and you probably have robot friends. For all I know, we may even have a robot President.

In any event, I’ll try to keep up with the letters, so you can have an idea of what your early days were like.

With love,

 

Dad (and Mom)

 

 

 

 

A Letter to Congressman Chip Cravaack, Subject: Disability, Wasteful Spending and Entitlements

06. September 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Dear Congressman Cravaack,

I’m a constituent in your district, and I recently stumbled upon your financial disclosure forms for the year of 2011.

I was perplexed by what I found. In 2011, you received $92,273 in union disability payments. As I understand it, you have sleep apnea. It’s a serious illness, and it’s certainly worthy of disability payments. I’m sorry you have it.

That’s not why I’m writing. Rather, I’m writing because I noticed that in the same year that you received disability payments from your union, you also received the standard salary that members of Congress receive—$174,000. (Unless you opted out, you also received that salary this year.) Furthermore, as the “assets and earned income” section of the financial disclosure forms make clear, you also have quite a few other assets. You have a couple houses, a cabin, not to mention bank accounts and other funds worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. (The checklist of that page looked a bit like a tic-tac-toe game gone wild.)

Truth be told, it seems disingenuous for you to claim disability at all. You’re working a full-time job (and have a great deal of other assets), and as a Congressman you’ve made it clear how much you dislike unnecessary, wasteful spending.

But you’re taking part in exactly such wasteful spending yourself; the only difference is that we’re talking about a private disability trust. Nonetheless, the principles are the same—other disabled Delta workers no doubt need that money far more than you do. After all, not everyone at Delta earned a pilot’s salary, can hold down a good-paying full-time job, or has your net worth.

So in the end, you’re taking a handout—and one that you don’t even need. For someone who argues that “Congress must learn to do what families in Minnesota do every day, live within our means” that’s quite a strange example for you to set.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Take care,
Brett Ortler

 

 

 

NOTICE OF EVICTION (for Oliver)

13. July 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Note: Our first son, Oliver, is due July 20, 2012, but my wife and I would like him to be get here sooner rather than later, as we really want to meet him. (Also, the 100-degree heat-indices have been no fun for her at all.) We’ve attempted to communicate this to him in many ways (speaking, light signals, semaphore) but we’ve received no response. To that end, we have decided to serve him with somewhat fanciful eviction papers.

NOTICE OF EVICTION (for a fetus), with amendments/explanations

LANDLORD(S): Kayli Schaaf, Mother and Brett Ortler, Father

Address: Your mother’s womb

City State Zip: Wherever your mother is; usually somewhere in east-central Minnesota

Phone: Your mother’s womb has no phone, but it does have an umbilical cord that could theoretically function as one. Anyway, given that fetuses can be startled by loud noises, we know you can hear our repeated attempts to encourage you to enter the world.

TENANT:

Name: Oliver William Ortler

Address/City State Zip/Phone: We have already discussed this, see above.

District Court Summary Ejectment Case Number: 00000001. (Also, ejectment is an awful, awful word.)

TENANT:

The sheriff (your father wearing a sheriff’s hat) is scheduled to evict you on July 20, 2010 2012, your due date.

The eviction will take place on the date named above unless you either:

1. Move out of the property and return control of the property (your mother’s uterus region, in addition to secondary aspects of the property: her hormones, her bladder, her personality, etc.) to the landlord;

or

2. Pay and Stay. The tenant has the right to pay the amount ordered by the Court (your mother) in the warrant of restitution to the landlord to stop the eviction. However, the Court would really like to go through with the eviction, so to dissuade you from paying this amount, the Court hereby demands 100 trillion American dollars, 65 rubies, an 8” x 5” platinum dinosaur and 120 boxes of Little Debbie Snacks. Your father demands an aircraft carrier full of wooly mammoths. The Court also demands as much ice cream as you can possibly purchase with your remaining funds. The tenant has the right to pay the redemption amount to the landlord (your mother) or landlord’s agent (your father) in cash, certified check, money order, or Skittles-brand candy at any time before actual execution of the eviction order. (Note: Placentas, umbilical cords and/or amniotic fluid will NOT be accepted in lieu of payment because that would be very gross.)

Addendum: As an additional incentive for you to leave the premises, we will actually pay you to come into the world. We have already prepared (1) a place for you to stay, your accommodations have (2) many toys, (3) many adorable outfits, (4) two pet dogs and two pet cats, (so you don’t even have to beg us to get you one) and we have also notified our friends and family about your imminent arrival, so you already have your own entourage. Addendum to the Addendum: Once you make your grand appearance in the world, your schedule will likely be booked up for some time; your grandparents are already reserving weekend babysitting time slots months in advance. Once you are born, we recommend you immediately hire an executive assistant.

On the day of eviction, the payment shall be made to the landlord or landlord’s agent in the presence of the Sheriff to stop the eviction.

Warning:

Once the sheriff begins the eviction, any personal property that you leave in the leased premises is considered abandoned. The tenant does not have any right to re-enter the property or re-claim any property after the eviction begins.

Addendum: Please pay special attention to that last part. You may not, however much you liked the womb, attempt to re-enter the “property.” That would undoubtedly scar the entire family for life.

Any abandoned property may be disposed of by the landlord at any time after the eviction begins. The landlord is strictly prohibited from putting the abandoned property in the street, the sidewalk, alleys, or any public property.

Addendum: We will most certainly dispose of any abandoned property, because anyone who wants to keep a placenta hanging around (literally) is more than a bit off. We certainly promise not to deposit it in the street, where people would probably mistake it for some sort of deceased jellyfish.

This is the final notice of the date of the eviction that you will receive, even if the eviction date is postponed by the sheriff or the court or due to medical necessity.

AFFIDAVIT OF POSTING: I hereby certify that I posted a completed copy of the above notice on the premises (Kayli’s stomach) described above on 7/12/2012.

 

Printed Name: __________________    Signature: ___________________ Date: ___________

 

Letter to My Future Son #6 | Subject: Baby Boot Camp, Chemical Weapons, Umpires, Construction Sites

19. April 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dear Oliver,

I’m sorry for the delay in writing; your mother and I have been pretty busy lately. We’ve been organizing the house for your eventual arrival, and we’re getting ready for a whole bunch of baby showers in your honor.

We also signed up for a couple of parenting classes. One of them is a day-long class, and I’m assuming that it will be like a parenting version of basic training. But instead of drill sergeants ordering us to do this many pushups or peel so many potatoes, the drill sergeants will be actual infants and they will not be quiet until they get a good burping and you give them their nooky-nook.

I also expect that instead of running and push-ups for physical training, there will be fathers practicing wind-sprints to get ice cream for their screaming wives, and we’ll practice pulling up Pull-Ups and diapers on mannequins of small children. Like in basic training, there will also probably be exposure to chemical weapons, but instead of being exposed to actual chemical weapons, they will probably make us change a really, really smelly baby raised entirely on breast milk from a mother who eats only cabbage-filled bean tacos and washes it down with pickle juice. (OK, that actually wouldn’t cause gas in the baby—just the mom, but still, you get my point.) And of course, there will no doubt be lots of practice marching around, but instead of the “You will love your rifle! You will care for your rifle!” you might hear in the U.S. Army, we will march our sample-babies to the crib, to the floor for tummy time, and so on.

If it’s like any of the marching I’ve seen on TV, we’ll no doubt be marching and singing. In fact, I’m already preparing for this—and for your arrival—I’m already trying out songs to sing to you when you get here. One of my current favorites is “Ollie, Ollie, Ollie, get your adverbs here.”

About the singing: You can blame your Grandpa Ortler for this. He is always walking around singing songs he makes up on the spot. (And he wonders why I ended up liking writing and poetry.)  For instance, just the other day, he and I were talking about one of the rovers that has been cruising around on Mars, and I mentioned that it has survived for years and driven over 15 miles. He said, “That’s a long way to go without talking to anyone. I bet it’s humming as it’s driving along.” Now every time I think of it, I think of a Mars rover driving along and doing a little dance, probably holding some sort of umbrella drink.

Anyway, you should know that your mother looks absolutely adorable. Because her center of gravity has shifted, she carries her weight differently. When you combine that with her now-noticeable belly, she looks something like an adorable umpire. And when she’s on the couch and attempts to get up, there’s a moment in her ascent where she’s essentially in a half-crouch, as if she’s standing behind a catcher. And sometimes, her attempts to get up aren’t entirely successful, so she’ll hover in that position for a second, and it’ll look like she’s calling a game and can’t decide on what her call should be (continue getting up, or return to the couch). Usually, this results in a return to the couch and a request that I go get whatever she needed.

Of course, I don’t have much of a problem fetching her whatever she needs, especially since I’ve been reading about the biological processes at work. It’s like a construction site in there. Her hips are moving, her organs are shifting around, and all the while, you’re whirring about, like some sort of adorable dynamo. Most of the time at the ultrasounds, I expect to see orange cones all over the place and all of her organs in reflective vests and wearing hard-hats. (I wouldn’t quite know what to make of a “Men at Work” sign, though.)

While my organs haven’t moved much, a lot has changed for me too. I mean, everyone says how much a child changes your life, but they never tell you how. I never realized how often I lived in the present tense. I’d decide to go to a movie or I’d go camping on a whim. If anything, I planned things out one weekend in advance, or a few weeks at most.

When you have a kid, that kind of planning will no longer do. Suddenly, everything switches to the future tense—where you want them to grow up, what schools to look into, all that. Your mother and I have had more conversations about the next four or five years in the last few months than we had in the years we’d been together. Until you, everything else in the future had been hypothetical and tentative, like a report of a spate of beautiful weather on the horizon, but when we saw you on the 3D ultrasound, you were concrete, imminent.

It’s a good change—and one that we are ready for—but there’s no real preparing for it, I can tell you that. One day, it just sets in. For me, I looked at your mom’s belly and I said, “Yep, I think it’s about time we finish that bedroom.”

Take care,

Pops

 

 

 

A Zany Letter to My Mayor | Subject: Sim City, Mayor McCheese, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

07. March 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A Zany Letter to My Mayor

Dear Mr. Mayor,

As a mayor, I imagine you’re a pretty big fan of SimCity. Do you model your virtual city after our fine community? Or does your SimCity secretly represent a bigger city, like Coon Rapids, that you one day hope to run?

In any case, SimCity seems like pretty good practice for a mayor. I used to play it a lot, and it was pretty clear I’d be a terrible mayor. I’d always run out of money really quickly because I was always building zoos and amusement parks and all these other fun additions. (I was ten.) But then I’d suddenly be in the red and have to cut spending and raise taxes, and then the game would suddenly become markedly less fun. Thankfully, the version of SimCity that I played allowed you to trigger all sorts of natural disasters—earthquakes, tornadoes, even Godzilla-like monsters. When I ran out of cash, whammo: One second my virtual citizens would be commuting to work and the next their homes and workplaces would be leveled by my fiery wrath. (I almost always set my first plagues upon the treacherous giraffes and hippos that had led me into virtual fiscal disarray.)

Do you ever wish you could do that? If you somehow obtain such power, please avoid everything east of Whiskey Road, as I like my house.

Speaking of houses, does your simulated version of our fine city have a whole bunch of abandoned lots on the south side of town like the real one does? I call that area Abandonland, and I run there all the time. One day, when I was running, a tumbleweed actually rolled across the sidewalk in front of me. A tumbleweed! When I saw it, I had to stop and whistle the theme from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. You know, the one with the whistling that goes wah-wah-waaaa. I do that every time I see tumbleweeds. It’s kind of my standard policy.

Anyway, I know it’s not your fault that the housing market crashed, and I’ve actually thought you’ve been doing a reasonably good job given the rather terrible circumstances. (I voted for you, and will again.)

I was wondering though, there’s got to be something we can do with all that land. I know that developers still own the land, so a community garden or the like is probably out, but maybe we could shoot a post-apocalyptic horror film there. After all, it has roads, sidewalks, streetlights, just no houses. It’d be the perfect place. Now, since I came up with the idea, I’d like to name the movie.

I’m partial to calling our feature film Abandonland, maybe with the tagline: “The land may be abandoned, but you’re not alone.” If you don’t like that one, perhaps we could fudge a little; we could shoot the film in Abandonland but name the film after the streets in nearby Ramsey, MN, many of which are named for minerals or chemical elements.

Some possibilities:

It came from Krypton, Street.

The Disaster at Uranium Street and Tungsten Way!

Yttrium!

Come to think of it, maybe we could somehow incorporate the natural wildlife of Abandonland. In my experience, I’ve seen two forms of life there: that one tumbleweed I told you about, and sand burrs, or as we call them, “stickers.” Those things are everywhere. Maybe in our film, we can have a radioactive truck spill its contents, creating a sentient radioactive sticker that spawns thousands of smaller stickers, sort of like Tribbles. But instead of being cute and furry like Tribbles, they’d be all spiky, and soon they’d be latching onto everyone’s faces, etc. Then at the last second, we could have the town saved by a Master Gardener from the University Extension Service (my dad could play this role). And if we wanted a sequel, we could show one stowaway sticker making it to the next town, say, Saint Francis. Anyway, let me know what you think about the film.

Also, do you ever attend mayoral conferences? If so, does Mayor McCheese ever attend them? I don’t know what I think about him, but it seems our city is on pretty good terms with him, considering we have a McDonald’s in town. That pretty much is his embassy, right? Is it sovereign territory like national embassies and do its ambassadors have diplomatic immunity? If so, I’d watch out for the Hamburglar, who is probably their ambassador.

Finally, maybe you can answer this one last question: If Mayor McCheese is the mayor of the city of McDonaldland, what is McDonaldland’s sister city? Is it obesity?

Thanks for all your hard work, and take care.

Brett Ortler

P.S. This is a writing project.

You can become a fan on Facebook here.

You can follow him on Twitter here.

You can join him on Gather here.

 

 

 

 

 

A Zany Letter to the Folks at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) | Subject: Radio, Apologies, Oxiclean, the Interstellar Neighborhood, Nirvana, American Idol

03. March 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dear Folks at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence,

I’ve been a fan of SETI for some time (I run SETI@home, username: gutenfrog) on my computer, but I’ve got a couple of SETI- and space-related questions that I saw weren’t answered on your website, so I thought I’d send y’all a note.

First of all, as I understand it, SETI listens for evidence of intelligent life in outer space, most often in the form of radio signals. But do we ever take the signals that we’re broadcasting into space into consideration? If not, I think we should. I know we’ve beamed a few messages out into space (the Arecibo message, for instance), plus we’ve sent interstellar snail mail in the form of the Pioneer plaques and the golden discs on Voyager 1 & 2. I mention this because we should probably apologize for the 1990s and the early Aughts.

After all, there are about 40 stars that are 20 light years away or less, and the signals we broadcast in the late 1990s are just now reaching some of them. That’s just embarrassing. I mean, take the Gliese 867 system. It’s about 15 light years away, and we already know it has planets. Our radio and TV signals are just getting there, and any life there is being treated to Jewel and infinite discussion about James Cameron’s Titanic. If there’s life there, they probably think our entire planet is inhabited by fourteen-year-old girls. I bet they are planning a full-on invasion just for the sake of the galaxy. I know I would.

And even if they aren’t planning a giant attack, they probably got right in their super-fast light-speed spaceships for the ten-year trip and on the way, they probably produced a whole bunch of ‘90s-era clothing so they’d fit in. So when the President steps forward to greet our new interstellar neighbors, he’ll be wearing a great suit and they’ll pop out in a flannel shirt, torn jeans and a Hi, How Are You? T-shirt.

Even when one looks at more recent history, 10 years ago, say, things don’t look much better. In 2002, CSI: Miami was released. That show is terrible! We’re really sending David Caruso’s acting performance out as a representation of our species? Yikes. Even worse, 2002 was the year American Idol was released. That’s far worse than CSI; in some cultures, that could be viewed as an act of war.

Anyway, so as I figure it, working at S.E.T.I. must be like waiting to get a call back from a prospective date. But instead of waiting by a telephone, we’re waiting by a giant array of radio telescopes. And instead of expecting a call from a boyfriend or a girlfriend, we’re waiting for an alien lifeform that may or may not have tentacles. (I know it’s anthropomorphic/geocentric of me to project cephalopod features onto aliens, but you have to admit, tentacles are cool. There is rarely a day when I don’t wish I had them.)

Anyway, when things are frustrating searching for extraterrestrial intelligence, do you ever consider cheering yourselves up by searching for extra-intelligent terrestrial people? You could certainly do this by listening to terrestrial radio, and if you did, you wouldn’t even have to search on the AM band! (Top 40 would be out mostly, too.) On the FM side, there are some pretty smart people on NPR, but you might happen to receive their transmission during a member drive and then you’d (justifiably) think that your radio signals were on a loop, as 95 percent of the words you’d hear would be “insightful” “in-depth coverage” and “unparalleled” or other paeans intended to entice you to become a sustaining member. (In any case, a public radio member drive makes for a great adjective drinking came.)

If you couldn’t find any proof of extra-intelligent terrestrial people via radio, you could always try television, though that might be problematic, especially if you only get the over-the-air signals. That means you’d be doomed to watch endless infomercials and you might determine our society is obsessed with creating complicated, inefficient solutions to simple problems, such as how to cut up produce in a timely manner (the Magic Bullet), how to handle hot things (the Ove Glove) or how to lose your hearing as a guy tells you to GET ON THE BALL and simultaneously encourages you to buy a cleaning product (Oxiclean).

Of course, one could take a more direct approach and actually interview living humans, but you’d have to promise not to interview SETI employees, as that wouldn’t be fair, as y’all are wicked smart. Going to MENSA meetings would be cheating, too. Besides, I wouldn’t want to subject you to Mensa, as it’d probably be pretty awful to hang out at the Look-at-me-I’m-Really-Smart-Club. I bet it’s a one-upping fiesta there.

In any event, I sincerely wish you luck in your search, and I’m damn excited to try out SETI Live, which I just heard about this week. And I’d like to make it clear that this is just one letter in a series of wacky letters; I mean no disrespect by it and was just hoping you’d get a kick out of it. I’d love a response.

Take care,

Brett Ortler

You can see more letters here: www.brettsletters.com

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A Zany Letter to Mr. Clean | Subject: Brawny, British English, Names

10. February 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: comedy, fun, funny · Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dear Mr. Clean,

So I was walking through the grocery store the other day and I saw one of your products, and I realized I’d never written you a letter. That’s an oversight on my part, as you have always seemed so friendly—always there to help clean up, and hardly saying a word when doing so. That’s more than friendly—that’s almost benevolent, and I guess that makes sense because I associate the word benevolence with religion, and you could certainly pass for a deity, even though you don’t have a beard and have a bit more jewelry.

Instead of writing, I was just going to give you a call, but then I realized I’ve never heard you speak. You do speak English, right? I guess you could speak any language, really. It’s perhaps a bit ethnocentric for me to assume you’re an American. I know that on rare occasions you’ve spoken in commercials, but that just means you know some English. To make your native tongue clearer to the TV audience, I think it’d be great if your cell phone rang in one of your commercials and you answer it only to bust out in a foreign language like German or Italian, or maybe something a little more esoteric like Esperanto or Klingon. In any case, the call should probably be from your mother and she should tell you to clean your house pronto because she’s coming over in half an hour (my mom does that all the time).

Given your occupation, I imagine you’re a neat-freak around the house, but I suppose the opposite is possible—fifty years of being the incarnation of utter cleanliness might be enough to make you want to go home and dump coffee grinds on the couch. Or did they give you the Mr. Clean position because you’re a total and utter germophobe? I have a friend like that; sometimes he burns little caps full of rubbing alcohol to “purify the air.” I’m pretty sure that if he had a biohazard suit, he’d wear it. I hope you never take things that far; Mr. Clean, if I ever saw you in a biohazard suit, I’d be really, really worried.

So, I don’t mean to pry, but what nationality are you? If you’re not an American, I’m going to guess British, only because you look a lot like Patrick Stewart, and he’s British. If you are British, do you ever walk around saying things like “Engage!” and “Make it so!” and “Earl Gray, Hot!”? If not, why not? I’m not British and I do that anyway. (True story: Sometimes I inadvertently activate the “voice command” button on my phone and my phone says “Please say a command.” I usually make some arbitrary request like “Make me a sandwich!” or “Get me a pickle!” but once in a while, I’ll say “Fire the photon torpedoes.” Unfortunately, nothing ever happens; as it turns out, the voice command sounds way cooler than it is.

Update: While doing some research, I found out that your first name is Veritably. That means you’ve got to be British, right? I mean, that word just sounds so British; it’s like the word barrister or windscreen. I can just picture you cleaning a kitchen during a commercial, and then sitting down for a cup of tea and a scone after the cameras stop filming. And then you’d tidy up the place and just before leaving, you’d say something like Veritably Clean, if I do say.

Update #2: Oh, I just read that your name was chosen as the result of a contest. That had to be kind of depressing, being named by a contest. Then again, it’s probably a good thing that your name was selected back in the ‘60s, as I’m pretty sure nobody from my generation knows what veritably even means. If they held that contest now your first name would probably have been “Really Really” or “Xtreme.”

If it’s OK, I’ve got a couple other personal questions. I see that your Facebook page indicates that you’ve got a bunch of hobbies—bowling, cooking, working out (obviously)—but after work, do you ever go and hang out with the other corporate mascots? If so, do you know the Brawny guy? I’ve always thought that he seems like a jerk. He’s just so smug, standing there in his stupid lumberjack shirt with his arms crossed as if to say, “Remember that forest that used to be here? I made paper towels out of it!” Don’t tell him I said this, but I bet you could take the Brawny guy in a fight any day.

Speaking of paper towels, I don’t understand why the Bounty marketing folks haven’t taken advantage of the rather obvious mascot tie-ins with their name. I mean, at the least, I think their logo should depict a fugitive fleeing from justice, but I think including a mutineer would be even better.

Finally, I’ve got one last question—it’s about your host company, Procter and Gamble. Mr. Clean, that may be the silliest name for a company ever, and it’s one misspelling away from sounding like a crime drama featuring a teaching assistant with a predilection for high-stakes poker.  I don’t gamble, but I’ve proctored a bunch of tests at colleges before; truth is, it’s pretty boring. You just sit there and watch to see if people are cheating, but it’s not as easy as you think, because you don’t want to stare at a particular person for too long or they start getting paranoid, and if it’s a female student, they might think you’re checking them out. So I usually try to cast furtive glances when students don’t notice; in this respect, it’s a bit like being a spy, minus all the danger and state secrets.

Anyway, please let me know what you think, and thanks for the cleaning products.

Take Care,
Brett

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Letter to President Obama #74, Subject: Spies, Caffeine, and Blastocysts

03. February 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: babies, baby names · Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Dear Mr. President,

So my wife and I are expecting a baby.

It’s our first child, so it’s all pretty new to us, but one of the things that I didn’t expect about the whole process is the level of initial secrecy that is involved.

What I mean is, after we found out that my wife was pregnant, we didn’t want to go around telling everyone because she wasn’t very far along, and the first three months are still a pretty uncertain time, as far as pregnancies go.

So we had to keep things a secret. This was a lot harder than it sounds. First of all, my wife works at Target. Now, I imagine you don’t go to Target much these days, Mr. President, so let me fill you in: Target stores have a lot of female employees. At my wife’s store, there are about ninety women, most of whom have husbands, fiancées, long-term boyfriends, and so on.

In other words, there are almost always one or two employees that are pregnant at a given time. There were incessant jokes about “something being in the water” or so-and-so’s turn on the “pregnancy carousel”—two mental images that I never needed to picture but that I feel nonetheless compelled to share.

Recently however, there had been no new pregnancy announcements, and all the expectant mothers had delivered. In other words, none of the employees were pregnant. Mr. President, I think this actually against store policy.

Noticing this gestational lacuna (I bet that phrase has never been typed before), Kayli’s coworkers immediately set out to rectify this problem, knowing that Kayli and I had recently been married.

There were a few indirect overtures at first (Have you seen the cribs on clearance? Just a thought!) but soon they hardened their resolve. There were upfront questions (so when are you having babies?) or (can I buy this maternity dress for you now?), all questions that Kayli wanted to answer, but couldn’t.

Then there was the espionage.

One Target worker, and a very good friend of ours—we’ll call her Henrietta—began surreptitiously monitoring Kayli’s daily habits for signs of a pregnancy. For instance, as Kayli was making her rounds she might happen to walk by the children’s clothing section. If Kayli made a single glance toward an adorable infant onesie, Henrietta would spring forth from her hiding place behind a rack of nightgowns and negligees in the lingerie department. After the ruckus caused by a half dozen hangers clattering together ceased, Henrietta would exclaim, “Aha! You’re pregnant, aren’t you?

Or, as they’d sit down for lunch, Kayli would simply have water instead of a Pepsi. Henrietta would note this, mentally tallying up Kayli’s caffeine intake for the day, while musing aloud that Kayli’s Facebook statuses no longer mentioned beer nearly as often.

The funny thing is, Henrietta and the Target employees were right-on about Kayli being pregnant.  (In the end, we were pleased as punch to actually be able to tell them. In other words, all their quizzing is well-intended; they are great friends).

Even though we are as ready for a baby as we can be, we picked up What to Expect When You’re Expecting to refresh our knowledge. While I was certainly familiar with the initial steps required to create a baby, I’d forgotten the many intricacies of the very early stages of a pregnancy.

In particular, I’d forgotten that in its first stage of development, the baby (which at this point is a just an itty-bitty ball of cells) is referred to as a blastocyst. Mr. President, that’s the least endearing term imaginable. It sounds like a Russian insult or something. (If you disagree, just yell “YOU BLASTOCYST!” at someone and see how they respond.)

Needless to say, we didn’t want to simply refer to our potential child as an insult, so we gave the blastocyst a name: Bernard. As I understand it, Bernard the Blastocyst is just a ball of cells, and his primary occupation consists of wiggling.

While Bernard is no longer technically a blastocyst, we still refer to him as one. We were going to refer to him as Eduardo the Embryo, then Frank the Fetus, but that got too confusing, so Bernard the Blastocyst has stuck (or B-the-B, for short), and we’ve incorporated discussions about Bernard into our daily lives. (This has had odd ramifications.  When I overhear someone mentioning Bernard Madoff, I feel a rather odd twinge of paternal pride.)

For instance, the other day, I texted Kayli and asked her how she was feeling. I asked “How are you and Bernard?” Given her now near-constant fatigue, she occasionally describes him in somewhat unflattering terms.  Her reply read: “Bernard says muahaha. I am the size of a pea and I will make you feel like you’ve been running marathons. Muahaha.”

Perhaps because I am not the one who is pregnant, I picture him in a bit more of a benevolent light. Given his vim and his apparent fondness for wiggling, I picture him as the host of an eponymous TV variety show, the Bernard the Blastocyst Show.

So at least once a day when I see Kayli, I’ll walk up to her and say: It’s the Bernard the Blastocyst Showwwwwwww. (Then I do jazz hands and grin crazily.) This usually gets a smile out of her. When the jazz hands cease being funny, you have to keep doing them, as it’ll soon become funny again, as long as you keep making a crazed grin.

(Like in everything else, Mr. President, the faux crazed grin is essential.)

Anyway, I’ll keep you posted on how things are going.

Thanks, and take care,

Brett

You can see all my letters here: www.brettsletters.com

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Brett receives a response from T.C. Bear via Twitter!

30. January 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Letter fans: As you may know, I recently wrote T.C. the Bear a letter a few days ago, in which I asked him important questions like: What do you during hunting season, hide?

Well, after Tweeting him (you can follow my tweets @ZanyLetters), he sent the following response.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I then followed up by asking him what his relationship is to Minnie and Paul, and whether or not their taste for Grain Belt is as legendary as rumored, but I have yet to hear back.

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