What follows is a masterpiece of writing.
This is how to present BAD NEWS and make it palatable.
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From a College Coed to her parents
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Dear Mother and Dad:
Since I left for college I have been remiss in writing and
I am sorry for my thoughtlessness in not having written before.
I will bring you up to date now, but before you read on,
please sit down.
You are not to read any further unless you
are sitting down, okay?
Well, then, I am getting along pretty well now. The skull
fracture and the concussion I got when I jumped out the
window of my dormitory when it caught on fire shortly after
my arrival here is pretty well healed now.
I only spent two weeks in the hospital and now I can see almost normally and only get those sick headaches once a day.
Fortunately, the fire in the dormitory and my jump were witnessed by an attendant at the gas station near the dorm, and he was the one who called the Fire Department and the ambulance.
He also visited me in the hospital and since I had nowhere to live because of the burnt out dormitory, he was kind enough to
invite me to share his apartment with him.
It’s really a basement room, but it’s kind of cute.
He is a very fine boy and we have fallen deeply in love and are planning to get married.
We haven’t got the exact date yet, but it will be before my
pregnancy begins to show.
Yes, Mother and Dad, I am pregnant.
I know how much you are looking forward to being grandparents and I know you will welcome the baby and give it the same love and devotion and tender care you gave me when I was a child.
The reason for the delay in our marriage is that my boyfriend
has a minor infection which prevents us from passing the
pre-marital blood tests and I carelessly caught it from him.
Now that I have brought you up to date, I want to tell you
that there was no dormitory fire, I did not have a concussion
or skull fracture, I was not in the hospital, I am not pregnant,
I am not engaged, I am not infected, and there is no boyfriend.
However, I am getting a “D” in American History, and an
“F” in Chemistry and I want you to see those marks in their
proper perspective.
Your loving daughter,
Sharon