Thursday 4 Sep. 1997

Dear S,

Now this is just a quick letter to accompany your prezzies. Happy Birthday for the 8th, chick.  I hope you like my presents.  I decided to go for a different feel this year, I hope you like it.  If you don’t, just pretend, OK? I’ve decided this year to go for a theme. Nostalgic Kitsch.

Lets start with the animal world.  Do you remember Sea Monkeys®? Remember how there used to be advertisements for them on them on the back of those Archie and Richie Rich Comics that we always read around Christmas time on our way down to Nana and Pop’s and holidays at Seaspray?  Remember when we talked Mum into buying us some, I remember they were just in a crappy jar though, not the deluxe little arrangement you’ve just received.  After three days we still couldn’t see anything so we tipped them down the sink.  Poor little buggers.  Apparently they can’t survive outside their special solution.  I wonder if Sea Monkeys® can scream?  Make sure Brady doesn’t try to drink out of the Sea Monkeys® “aquarium”.  You don’t know how hard I had to fight with myself not to rip off the plastic and have a peek inside.

The swizzle stick, that’s kitschy.  Please don’t think I’m trying to subjugate women or anything.  I just saw it and it reminded me of when we were in Hawaii, and every drink came with these little swizzle stick things with hula girls on them and I kept having drink after drink after drink cos I wanted to get all the different colours.  Heavens, what a trip down memory lane.

The card I bought in Chinatown (surprise, surprise) at some dinky little toy shop cum newsagency.  I don’t know about you but I just love Asian kitsch.  You don’t know how long and hard I had to search to find a card with a spelling mistake on it that wasn’t one of my own. There were several other items of camp value that I had to strongly resist buying.  Didn’t want to overload it.

The keyring, that’s from Revival.  I love 50’s girlie bric-à-brac.  I also saw some boxes of matches with 50’s topless ladies on them in magic motion.  You know magic motion, those pictures under plastic where if you move them you get two different pictures? You get magic motion Tazos and so on. Anyway, I thought the girlie magic motion matches might be a bit too much for you.

And to possibly the most tasteful gift, the FART BOMB,  it’s from a local Milk Bar. You’ll notice the charming picture on the front with the exploding hotpants, and the highly original English translation on the back.  My favourite is Step 3. “When the bag pop and the stinking will Full the air.” I just love that.  I’ve never actually used one myself, so you must tell me if indeed stinking does “Full the air”.

And if you’re so inclined, feel free to use the FART BOMB as an assassination tool.  If you look down the bottom on the back it says “PLEASE DO NOT PUT IN MOUTH”.  Imagine if you made someone swallow one of these and then kicked them in the belly so it went off. Now there’s a stylish way of eliminating office rivals.

And lastly, I hope this got to you on time.  It’s taken me one day longer than I had thought it would to assemble this enchanting little array of (f)artifacts, and frankly I’m a little worried it mightn’t get to you by the 8th.  There was also one other gift I searched high and low for but couldn’t locate.  Do you remember those wind-up birds that Mum and Dad brought back for us from Japan in the late 70’s?  they had a rubber band inside and wings that would flap. I can remember us chasing those all over the backyard between games of kick the can.  But I couldn’t find them anywhere.  Maybe Xmas, or next birthday. Oh well, gotta go, work to do. Haa-appy Birthday my Big Sis!

Lots of love,

J