Her Favorite Part Was That I Came Back

Dear Candi, Thank-you for coming to our class even when you live in [where I live--30 minutes away]. My favorite part of it was that you came back Monday and we wrote more poems. Not that you came I know the meaning and how much fun writing poems are. My favorite poem that we wrote was the one the we had to write "dear wholy pants" or something like that. that was my favorite. Well this morning I was in my car and the thing that we did yesterday I did it with my dad. He was very confused. But he didn't get it. Well thanks again from coming. Sincerely, Rebecca

I'm not exactly sure what she said to her dad in the car but I think it has something to do with the excerpt I read that day from Don Delillo's White Noise where the dad and the son have a crazy discussion in the car about whether or not it's raining and the son refuses to say yes even though it's raining. 

The character is 13 or 14 just like the kids I was teaching. So they thought the parental banter was subversive and funny. And they are right! 

So the son tells the dad that he heard on the radio that it was going to rain later. The father says but look it's raining now. The son says no they said it would rain later. Then the father falls into the funnel of words and truth. The son never does admit it's raining.

Of course, Rebecca's "dear wholy pants" deserves mention here too. I had the class write formal letters to an inanimate object of their choosing. This girl wrote to a pair of pants. Wholy is her spelling and I refuse to say "sic" in brackets because it seems too good. I know she meant Holy or Holey. But Wholy. Spelled wrong. And so it's right. Correct. True with a big T. And so I'll write to my own wholy pants now...

Whole Me Pants

Dear Pants, 

Why do you hold me?

I am so unholy.

The holes in your knees

are not from praying.