Letters to Kevin

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Dear Kevin: I’m writing this letter only because something keeps happening to stop me from speaking to you on the phone. First of all, I thought of calling you from my apartment in New York City, but I don’t have a phone. So I picked up my bed pillow, held it to my mouth and said “Hello, Operator? I’d like to place a call to a Kevin Wafer in Palo Alto, California.” Nobody answered, so I picked up my alarm clock and shook it to get it ticking again. Then I pulled out the alarm switch to make sure the clock would ring when the call was made to you and said to the clock’s face “Operator, I’d like to place a person-to-person call to California.” I of course knew I needed a real phone to make along distance call. But I thought using my clock or pillow would be a much cheaper way. I remembered that the family who lives across the street from me has a phone. Both our apartments are on the fifth floor of five-story buildings, and almost every time I looked out my window to see how the weather was, someone in that family was on the phone. So I yelled across the street “Hey, can you call a number for me in California and ask Kevin Wafer there to speak extra loud into his phone so I can hear him from across the street? Then I’ll speak extra loud from here so he can hear me through your phone.” A young girl on the phone at the time waved for me to shut up so she could finish her call. Iyelled across the street “But my callis kind of important also, so could you please hurry up with yours?” She put her hand over her free ear as if she couldn’t hear the person she was speaking with on the phone because I was yelling too loud at her from across the street. I waited till she hung up. Then I yelled the Palo Alto number I wanted her to dial. She pulled down the window shade.

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