Dearest [REDACTED],
I am writing you from the Tik Tok Restaurant and Bar. It is 5:09AM. I was misled about the availability of wireless Internet at this establishment such that this e-letter is being sent well after the fact of its creation. As much as I may desire to, I have not altered this communiqué in the time elapsed.
Despite having no Internet access, the Tik Tok Restaurant and Bar is open 24 hours of the day and offers hearty fare. They also play the Cher song “Believe” and provide several televisions upon which to learn that there will be “Plenty of Rain Showers.” This information is wasted on me as I was showered with several ounces of water on the walk over. The waiter has addressed me as “Boss,” which means that we are fast friends. I would have it no other way. I suspect that the owners of the Tik Tok Restaurant and Bar refill their Heinz catsup bottles with non-Heinz catsup but I understand the harsh financial realities of this universe and take no offense.
I wish so much that I could see your beautiful face and touch your soft and supple skin. It is even worse that the song currently playing, “Mexican Radio,” reminds me of that night we spent eating barbecued iguana. I am planning a trip to Hawaii or Guam as [REDACTED] has told me that it only costs $300 to go to Hawaii. I would rather go to Guam but am unsure of the cost. I hope to do this in March. Speaking of travel, have you heard of credit cards? They give you money that you don’t have, for free.
Eating at this establishment makes me want to write a fresh and unprepossessing vignette about a foolish person writing to their friend that is equally foolish but in a different way, containing the line “It was the kind of place where they don’t ask how the food was because they don’t want to start something.” That is not how the Tik Tok Restaurant and Bar is because the food is as decent as one could expect. I like the feeling of writing a word like unprepossessing, not sure if it is real or what it means, and having your conviction that it does exist confirmed by the spelling checker. If only I knew what it meant, and also the right way to refer to spelling confirmation software.
I am going to include in this e-letter a picture of me dining at the Tik Tok Restaurant and Bar. Not pictured is the half-eaten hamburger and fries that I am currently half-eating. I believe that eating a hamburger and fries while typing on my laptop is probably the most irresponsible thing that I have done towards my computer, but I probably wouldn’t remember the other contenders. To my shock and horror, another patron – a regular at that – has entered the Tik Tok Restaurant and Bar. I have lost my feeling of entitlement and security. I have not felt this violated since I first arrived and a beardo was vacuuming around me. She is chatting up my waiter, talking about perfume and her father.
I have remembered that there is a built-in dictionary embedded in the search bar of my computer. It has informed me that unprepossessing means not particularly attractive or appealing to the eye: despite his unprepossessing appearance he had an animal magnetism. It was not the correct word to use above, but it was a word. I find the example sentence to be humorous, and I wonder where the lexicography capital of the US is; where can one find someone hired to think of sentences that correctly employ a certain word? The waiter just referred to me as “partner,” which makes me very happy and restores my faith in humanity.
I imagine that the word unprepossessing, being the negative form of the word prepossessing, refers to beauty as something that one has possessed before. Before what? Before it was possible to obtain possessions, I imagine. “You are quite prepossessing” is not likely to catch on as an invitation to the boudoir any time soon. “You are invited to my boudoir,” while seemingly unrealistic, is in fact more likely to catch on as an invitation to one’s boudoir.
I would like very much if you would read this e-letter over the song “Men Down Under,” on your radio show. If that is not going to happen, please read it to [REDACTED] while you are both lounging about in your underwear. I have enjoyed all of the songs that have been playing during my excursion to the Tik Tok Bar and Restaurant, except for the current one. I am not surprised to learn that this is Charlie FM, the [recipient's radio show] of the United States of America.
An anecdote: In Prineville, or some other such place in the Great Oregon Desert, my traveling companion and I stopped at a restaurant that is so well placed on the road to nowhere that I have eaten there at least three times. This restaurant has two entrances, as it is a blatant secret that it is half diner and half ice cream parlor. Even if you wanted to, you would be unable to patronize both at the same time, as the kitchen itself separates them. Dining in the half of the restaurant that serves hamburgers were three men, not together. One of them, a regular patron, explained to the waitress that he wanted to try something different. He ordered the fajitas, a food item of Mexican origin. After a moment of self-reflection, he inquired whether there were peppers in it. The waitress said that there were. He was overcome with doubt, and then, with deep resolve, asked for the dish without peppers. “It’s a mix, she makes it ahead of time,” the waitress informed him, referring to the restaurant’s chef. He thought for a second, considering that at this moment he was as far out of his comfort zone as he had ever been, seconds away from committing himself to the consumption of a plant food that he found to be unpalatable. He ordered a cheeseburger instead, resolving at last to never again attempt to try something new.
The definition of “eat”: put (food) into the mouth and chew and swallow it. The example sentence: he was eating a hot dog. I will spare you the vulgar slang definitions. I think that someone who genuinely did not understand the English language would have a very hard time with the example sentence, in particular the words “hot” and “dog” in combination with the defined act. Insert culturally insensitive and reductive joke about an Asian person consuming a canine, such as “Unless they were Asian,” or “I heard Asian people eat literally hot literal dogs.”
After consuming maybe five cups of coffee, my eyeballs are beginning to bug out a bit. I attempted to tell the waiter that I wanted to get the check but it came out as a mumble so I was forced to drink the extra cup of coffee that he thought I was asking for while he ate the breakfast burrito that he split with the other patron. Now the waiter and the cook are outside smoking cigarettes, which means that I am the only person left in the restaurant. It is too early for mischief so I will instead stop in the bathroom and then depart.
It was pleasant to spend this hour and 13 minutes with you, in my mind. I hope that you get my package soon and that you enjoy its contents. I would very much like to see you some day, though often life does not give you what you want.
Kisses,
[REDACTED]
