Letter to a First Grader

Dear Emma,

My name is XXXXX. I hope this letter finds you well. Like you, I grew up in XXXXX but I now live in Brooklyn, which is part of New York City. New York is much bigger than XXXXX. It’s very crowded, and people walk very fast. I ride the subway to work every day and I don’t own a car. I miss driving, but I’m glad I don’t have to deal with traffic on my way to work.

I work for a book publisher. That's a company that makes books. My job is to help create book covers. To do that I have to wake up early every morning and sit in a little cube all day while people come by and bother me. For this I am poorly compensated.

From time to time throughout the work day, I pause to eye my letter opener, wondering idly what it would feel like to jam it into my hand. Sometimes I get so far as picking it up, but I am usually interrupted before I can even reach for it.

I'm sure you know this tedium, Emma. It's very much like the feeling of finishing a test early except that it never stops. No one else ever finishes the test. We all go home and when we return the next day, everyone else continues the test, and the cycle repeats uninterrupted save for the occasional moron leaning in to ask for the answer to a question they should already know.

I do this for 8 hours at a time. Remember nap time? Eight hours is like 16 nap times together.

Don't worry if this sounds boring, Emma. In this economy I would gratefully accept a position servicing bus stop drifters in exchange for an almost-living wage. And it's not all bad. The alienation that prevents me from making any lasting attachments with other people has allowed me free time to pursue my hobbies, like gun collecting. And pornography.

I've also become quite adept at sublimating my impotent rage into activities like "blogging" while maintaining an outwardly cool facade of detached amusement and knowitallism. This is called being a hipster.

Well, it's time for me to get back to work and its accompanying sense of existential horror. I don’t know if you are supposed to write back. If so, I’m curious what your favorite subject in school is and what you want to be when you grow up. Remember to pay attention and work hard in school!

Sincerely,
XXXXX

[Co-written with M. T. ]