Dud Sea Scrawls The Writing, clearly, is not on the wall!

This is one of the crazy things I did when I was a kid. (Memory evoked - courtesy LaLouve). And before anyone starts bashing me for my shenanigans, do keep in mind that it was all in the spirit of schoolboy-fun and never malice.

When I was in post-puberty school, I had this neighbour/ classmate who had juuust started getting into the pen-friend thingy.

Now, I was an old hand at pen-friendship already, knowing all the intricacies of the game, but didn’t tell anyone that I used to do the pen-friend thingy. The secrecy was one way of making sure that not many people could get their hands on foreign stamps, so that the valuation of one’s own stock was always high. (There were ample kids who had this secret way of obtaining great stamps from across the world, but wouldn’t admit to it. It wasn’t really a macho thing to do).

Very enthusiastically, my friend had registered with the penpal service providers, and invested into those IRC coupons (which were the erstwhile currency to send to these providers), etc - the whole jingbang, in short.

I persistently and confidently told him that no-one was going to write back to him since there was NOTHING interesting about a third-world nerd like him, since he didn’t even collect stamps. But the chap was quite hopeful that at least SOMEONE would write to him (it was quite charming to see his faith in his profile and in God).

So, since I did not want to see a nice guy like him get disappointed, I went and purchased some costly foreign looking stationery (glossy airmail envelope, feminine looking letter-pad with flowers on it, purple felt pen) and drafted him a nice letter in americanese from some precocious babe called Becky (name picked up from ol’ tom sawyer, where else?) from the US of A.

I changed my handwriting, and put in some superfluous details about her life and amriki social life (picked up from archie comics, where else?), to make it seem fully authentic.

I also sacrificed a suitable looking US stamp from my precious  collection, stuck it on the envelope and then coming home from school early (riding really fast on my bicycle), I covertly dropped the envelope into his mailbox.

Then I sat back and relaxed, waiting for him to come home. I knew that I would be the first person he would come and show it off to, since I had pulled his leg so much on the subject.

Sure enough, after an hour, I hear someone chucking pebbles at my window, and I open it, and here’s my friend, all glowy, and excited and panting!

I yawned and asked, "What happened, man? Why are you so jumpy?"

He says, "Ha! I got a reply from a penfriend! From the USA! Now you better EAT your words, you demoralizing spoilsport!! And you know what? Its a GIRL! And a really pretty one! YOU will never get a penfriend like that even if you tried!" (I don’t think he would gloat as much even if he had won a lottery or something)

I acted like I didn’t really believe him, and challenged him to prove it.

So he pulls out the letter from his pocket, and reads it to me, and then he hesitates at a particular point, with a tinge of embarassment.

I say, "Why are you stopping? Go ahead, read it!"

So then he looks around a bit to make sure no-one is listening and lowers his voice - "She is asking me for my NUDE photographs!!! How can I send her something like that? How to manage THAT? But if I do, then she promises to send me HER pictures!!!"

I am like "Whoa! How did you get so lucky!!!"

After acting suitably and open-mouthedly jealous, I mulled over the issue along with him - those days there were no digital cams (yeah, I’m THAT old).

With careful consideration, I suggested a few ways of accomplishing the task (recommending some sidey non-existing photo studios on the other side of the town, etc), which he listened to very carefully.

I also offered to do some handwriting analysis on the letter (I used to read stuff on such stupid subjects then) so that he could get fresh insights into his lovely Becky, and he was quite gratified at my offer.

I did ask him if I could have the stamp from that envelope, since he didn’t collect stamps himself. Indeed, it would have looked suspicious if I had not made the request. In his delirious drooling dreamy happiness, he very generously promised to give it to me later, and then excitedly ran off to show the letter to other common friends.

Unfortunately, one of my other nosy neighbours (who knew of my elaborate prank) spilled the beans on me (I did give him a couple of wallops later on for that bit of treachery).

I had to lie low for some time, and that bastard didn’t even give me my precious stamp back - instead he gifted it to the kid who had a collection to rival mine. Some people just dont have any sense of humor
 
(Later, obviously, my friend clued in to the right face-saving reaction and started acting like he had known all along that it was ME who had sent him the letter and he was only pulling my leg in return to see my reaction:))

LL, I do hope you didn’t have any friends like me in your pen-friend days! )