My sister's family is in the process of remodeling their home, and they've spent the past few months dismantling their basement, parting ways with long-held artifacts of yesteryear.

In the process, she came upon a few letters which I apparently mailed to her when I was nine-years-old. (Or, more truthfully, letters I wrote, placed in envelopes, drew stamps on and just handed to her.) One of these letters may be a little too odd to keep to myself.

(click pic to enlarge)
My sister is much older than me, and was already in her own house by the time this letter was written. She'd gotten into the habit of bringing me packs of stickers whenever she dropped by. Though the untrained eye might believe differently, this seems to be a thank-you letter for one such set of stickers.

Largely just a mismatched pile of doodles, the core "note" section reads as follows: "I got the new stickers you sent me. They are cool! I also like the postcard with the monkey with gun. I hope you like this Corvette in Hollywood! Write back!"

Hmmm. The "postcard with the monkey with gun?" I do have some vague recollection of a photo of a chimp with an exploded gum bubble covering half of his face, and I can only assume that the "postcard with the monkey with gun" refers to this. Frankly, it's obvious that I only wrote words on the page to make it work legally as a letter. I was far more interested in doodling random bullshit.

And what doodles the are! The central piece is a pink Corvette in a Hollywood setting. I titled the car "Corvette '88 Super Star," for reasons that have been completely lost over the twenty years that have passed since this was written. Also interesting is my pathetic attempt at a palm tree, which looks more like a feather duster, or possibly several thousand palm trees superimposed on top of each other.

The top third of the letter is riddled with much more random scribbles, including a series of fake stamps and stickers. There's a stamp marked "N.Y. Lamborghini," which really makes me wonder if I was more into cars that I seem to recall. The three stamps at the top depict a boy with sunglasses, Earth with one of Saturn's rings, and a whoopee cushion? The hell? Why did I make a whoopee cushion stamp?

The phony stickers on the left are equally puzzling. One lists a bunch of video game consoles, while another reads, "I'm Not DEAF I'm Just Ignoring You." A final sticker simply says "Bug Jokes." What the fuck are bug jokes?

And just in case my sister wasn't clear that some of these doodles were intended to be stamps, a final stamp-shaped doodle reads... "STAMP."

The lower third of the page is the real money shot, featuring a scene from the old Rampage video game, with Lizzie being joined by the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man on a destructive romp in the Bronx. I loved crossovers.

Incredibly, she even kept the envelope. I assume that these random Halloween stickers were the ones I was thanking her for. Check out that swank Headless Horsemen, and the awesome space marked "PLACE STAMP HERE."

I don't remember being this weird. Now that I have proof of it, the course of my life is starting to make a lot more sense. I dunno, though. I can deal with most of this stuff, but it's pretty hard to reconcile the "Bug Jokes" thing.

Q: Why did Bumble Bob get detention?
A: He wasn't "bee-ing" good.

Wait, wait, UPDATE: Someone pointed out that it doesn't say "Bug Jokes," but rather, "Bag O Jokes." Now I'm even more confused.

Posted by Matt on 07/09/2008. E-mail me!