thaings bin tuff.

I'm about to divulge some super-secret information here. So listen up, and I will tell you about a secret message inside my house.

Yesterday, you learned about the map of my property which hangs proudly in the house which it illustrates. You also learned that I bought the frame secondhand. The frame is hand-made. If you turn it around, you can see the where they stopped staining the wood. They did a good job, certainly better than most anything I've ever made.

When I bought the frame, it was displaying a painting of a little girl standing in a field of sunflowers. That description sounds very nice and soothing, but the picture was not. There was something creepy and sad about it, like it was a picture of little Jenny from Forrest Gump hiding from her drunk and abusive father. I couldn't find a copy of it online, though I did find many nice pictures of little girls in sunflower fields. Art is art, and maybe this picture was meant to be depressing, but I wouldn't want it in my house.

As it happens, it is in my house. The picture was printed on some kind of sturdy cardboard, and so I kept it to be the backing and just covered up the front with my map. I will probably never have to look at it again, because the map is sorta fragile and I'm not going to risk damaging it by removing it from the frame. However, the creepy sunflower girl picture is not the secret.

The secret is on the back of the sunflower picture. There is a message, presumably written by whoever gifted the homemade frame and picture. I reproduce that message exactly for you here.

Baby,
Happy V. Day. I just won't you to know that I love you so much. Sorry if some times you don't think I am showing it enough. Becuase I say things the wrong way. I am trying my hardest every day to say things the right way. I know that thaings bin tuff for you and me but I know that we are two strong people who wont a happy famiely. I know you are trying. So am I. I know we can make it. Deep in my heart I know I married a very special wife and going to be mommy. Who try's her best. I also know you are doing a great job in beeing a good wife. It is tuff but you can do it you are a lot stronger then you think. So give your self alot of credit. Thing's will get better because together we can beat any battle together because we are a strong team.
Love your,
Husband

I am spoiled, because I date a poet, but I have to agree that the fella had a tendency to say things the wrong way. Well, he made a nice frame, even if his writing skills weren't great. Hey, he is trying, and that's not nothing.

It is easy for me to come up with a horrifying picture based on this message. Something about the combination of terrible spelling, a troubled marriage, and a baby on the way paints an image more vividly sad than the little girl in the sunflowers. But that's not fair. I have an official personal policy to assume the best when I'll never know one way or the other. The story that I invent around this message only affects my mental state. So let's just all assume that these two kids worked it out and their baby grew up to win the Nobel Prize.

This is the kind of thing you end up with when you shop at the thrift store. Pretty much everything has its own little history, though usually it's not written in sharpie on the back (though sometimes the Goodwill price is). And now you know one of my house's secrets. Feel special.