John locked himself in his room last night. He was on a tear yesterday, making messes everywhere he went, calling people, including his beloved babysitter Jennifer, dumber—I have to assume this word is related to the word dumb—and yelling if he didn’t like, for example, the food on his plate at his class’ Thanksgiving lunch. Take it off my plate! Right now! Well, I immediately instituted a rational system for training him to behave better and he was able to control himself. Just kidding! He continued like this for the rest of the day, including a period in the later afternoon where he ran from room to room trying to lock himself in. Jennifer was able to thwart him in this plan for most of the afternoon but didn’t realize that he had a lock on the door to his room, and so while I was making dinner his efforts met with success.

John’s door fits smoothly and almost seamlessly into its frame. The hinges are on the inside, and the only hardware on the outside is a very small, barely attached brass knob, and a tiny keyhole useless because we have no key, because John had stuffed a stick in it, and because in any case it isn’t attached to the lock mechanism. I know how the door locks, it locks on the inside with a tiny button on the bottom of the black box the knob comes through. I was sweet and calm. I spoke to him gently. His big eye looked out at me through the keyhole and my big eye looked back at him. I told him what to do to unlock the door. Instead he rattled the knob. I tried to tell him again. He kept rattling the knob. I said, John, sit on the floor please and look up at the black box on the door and just move that little button over and he said, I want the workmen to come and break down my door. Then I smacked my hand against his door so hard it turned red, frightening him and making him cry.

Then the crazy period began, in which everyone in the house stood outside John’s door and tried to get him to unlock it and he stared at us through the keyhole and jiggled the knob instead.

We called the workmen and Dom, the owner’s father, rushed over to our house with tools and realized that he had to crawl out onto the roof so stepped out onto the roof and broke the screen over John’s window and climbed in and unlocked the door and everyone was happy. There hasn’t been, yet, an appropriate time for me to take John aside to tell him that if he ever pulls a stunt like that again I’m going to kill him.

Dear Person I Don’t Know,

Please believe me when I say that you and I are one. We eat the same food, drink the same wine, hum the same tunes under our breath. Remember when the window came down suddenly and crushed your finger the other day? We both say Mother Fucker when that happens. Listen to me: I happen to know that you experience, as I do, transcendent happiness watching someone run for a bus. When it’s time to say goodbye you try to pretend that you’re going to see the other person in a little while. Then you’re able to leave without saying goodbye, or kissing. For some reason we prefer things this way. Wide streets are vertiginous for me. And for you! Neither of us feels any guilt about stealing books from friends.

Nothing is as soothing as spaghetti, for us. We expect to take short showers, but never can. We like it when we’re somewhere we can’t understand what anyone else is saying. We are jealous of the people who work in shipping stores, and as baseball scouts. It’s difficult to keep driving past motels.

I could go on, but I know you're busy, and easily bored. And I know you believe me. How could it be otherwise? Yes, you are me and I am you. Love me. Do what I want you to do.

Yours, etc.