Dear WBOR-FM Fundraising Appeal:

I was so happy to receive your latest solicitation letter and I wish to apologize for the delay in my response. I am a long-time supporter of WBOR-FM and its superb programming and I am honored to be included in your fundraising appeal again this month.

Circumstances far beyond my control prevented me from responding quickly with a generous donation as I assure you I had every intention of doing. As it happened, Enid Dribblepitt (of the Topeka Dribblepitts) was visiting and taking up residence for an unspecified amount of time, (but rather substantial amount of space), on the fold out sofa in my cozy, living room. One day during her stay the television was on. (I rarely watch television myself, but I like to leave it on for the cat).

As I mentioned, I wanted to send a check to you post haste, and to that end I left your fundraising flyer on top of the television where I would be sure to see it. Strangely, on the very day I planned to send you my generous donation, heat from the television caused a bizarre chemical reaction with the ink on your flyer.

Now please understand that Enid is a sensitive sort of gal with severe environmental allergies. After arising from the fold-out couch that afternoon, she was crossing the living room in the direction of the kitchen to get another wheel of Jarlsberg cheese when she was overcome by the fumes emanating from the aforementioned ink on your flyer. She collapsed. Her rather ample frame now covered most of my once quaint and cozy living room.

During Enid’s rapid descent to the floor, an old back injury flared up. (The original injury took place in 1994 at the Woodstock 25th Reunion Concert in Saugerties, New York when Enid was performing her Mama Cass imitation atop the Saugerties water tower. She had just begun to sing when she was booed off the tower by a group of aging, unforgiving and anal-retentive hippies, who were outraged at Enid’s performance since everybody knows that Mama Cass was not at Woodstock in 1969.

In Enid’s embarrassed and hasty descent from the water tower, she lost her footing and fell 100 feet, landing atop one of Sanitary Sam’s porta-potties. Perhaps her fall could have been prevented if, between run-throughs of “Dream a Little Dream of Me” and “Don’t Call Me Mama Anymore,” Enid also practiced scampering down the rickety old water tower ladder while wearing her long flowing, tie-died caftan and fringed thigh-high faux naugahyde boots with spike heals, while being pelted with rotten vegetables and tangled strands of love beads. But that’s neither here nor there.)

Back on my living room floor, poor Enid’s back was in spasm for five weeks and she could not be moved. As luck would have it, when she crashed to the floor she landed squarely on top of my checkbook making a contribution to your most worthy radio station difficult, at best.

Unfortunately for Enid, but fortunately for you, I was finally able to extricate my checkbook last week because Enid is dead. Her body was removed from my living room and sent back to Topeka in a plain brown wrapper. It was a sudden and tragic demise. While in spasm last Tuesday, Enid suffered a fatal head injury when one of her wildly flailing thighs knocked over my large antique floor lamp. Sadly, the weight of the cast iron lamp was more than Enid’s left temple could bear. The lamp was a family heirloom, surely irreplaceable, but I never cared for it much. It was missing one leg and wobbled terribly. I would have thrown it out long ago, were it not so heavy and impossible to move. But all is well since along with Enid, the lamp was removed from my apartment by the coroner to be used in his investigation. Now, with both the lamp and Enid gone, I have much more space and am considering redecorating!

In closing, I do wish I could send a larger donation, but Enid’s estate is in litigation and will be for some time. However, I hope that you are able to put this small but nonetheless generous donation to good use. And to that end, might I suggest your next flyer be printed with ink that is less toxic so that the untimely death of Enid Dribblepitt will not have been in vain.