A Prank

Have you ever heard the story of of Scheherazade? The legend goes that the King of Persia found out that his wife was betraying him, so he had her beheaded. Then angry at all women he decided that every night he would marry a new virgin and then have her beheaded at dawn. Well he quickly ran out of virgins and there were only a few left in the kingdom: one of which was Scheherazade, who bravely volunteered herself to marry the king. On their wedding night she began to tell a story. The king listened in awe as she told the tale through the night, but when dawn came she said there was no time to finish before her beheading. Desperate to hear the story the King spared her life for one more day. The next night she did the same thing and again the King spared her life to finish the story. The cycle was repeated day by day until Scheherazade had told a thousand and one stories, and by then the King had fallen in love with her.

What's the moral of the story? Never bore your audience. That is the first great rule of writing. Now I'm not saying that my brother, Justin's writes boring letters, but they don't exactly satisfy his audience. For example, a few weeks ago I wrote him a letter telling him about the frostbite on all of my toes. I expected an email back or at least just a mention of me in a letter to the family but no... nothing. Instead it was just, "Such and such person that you don't know is progressing well" and "Joe Stranger is really great." In frustration I called my mom who turns out has a similar complaint. She always asks Justin questions which he never answers. So I decided some revenge was in store

I wrote an email to Justin telling him that my frostbite had gotten worse and that my doctor had scheduled a time to have it amputated.  "I'm going in for surgery this Saturday so by the time you read this email I will only have 9 toes" Additionally I told him that once the toe was removed I would be getting a tattoo that reads "Gone to Market" with an arrow pointing to my missing piggy. Much like this one:

Well Justin finally emailed me back and here's what he said:

No way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So are you officialy a 9-toe-er. That is.... ummmm.... almost funny and very sad. Sorry to hear about that. But don´t worry, in the resurrecion you will have all of your 10 toes again! Love you sister, even if you only have 9 toes Have a fantastic day, good luck with your feet. I´...ll be praying for you.

He gets home in two weeks so he can just believe me till he gets back and see's my feet. That ought to teach him not to ignore my emails.