Dear Momma

Dear Momma,

This is your girl again, still doing okay all the way over here in —— with the army. I hope you are doing okay back home, too. As usual I am talking real slow because I know your ears don’t work so good now, and because our equipment here don’t work that good anymore also. Doc Evie says it’s because everything we got is ——, if you will pardon my French. That is a new saying I learned not too long ago, it is an old way to say sorry for cussin’.

Anyhow, thank you for your letter that I got just this morning. It is too bad that your package did not make it through, but I am sure the cookies and cake were delicious, even if I didn’t get to eat them. I am sorry to hear that Aunt Muriel caught AULA and lost half her brain. I hope she likes her new one and I am sure she will be able to play the piano again soon as she can buy the right drivers. It is a shame that Cousin Ned played such a dirty trick on her, but maybe she will learn to like the sound of bagpipes too?

I apologize for not writing as often as you like, Mom. It’s just they keep me real busy here in camp. I am the only person who is mostly human in admin and the ‘bots are all pretty old and most of the time not a lot of help.

Take Stucky, for example. I call him Stucky because sometimes he gets stuck doing the same thing over and over and over until I hit him with a wrench to get him working alright again. Last week he submitted Form — in hundred-licate and not just triplicate like he was supposed to. Boy you shoulda seen Colonel N—’s face when the delivery came. Thankfully I was able to trade the extra, um, “pizza ovens” with the —— for some “ice cream” and all was well. They got an outbreak of ‘ceps over there not too long ago and had to burn most of their nursing staff.

Then there’s Eileen, who does our filing. She works real hard, but her system is a little weird and takes a while to get used to. When I first got here I could not find anything I wanted for a whole three months because — — — — and when I asked her why the heck she would do that she said it was because she thought the I’s got lonely so she always put them together with the U’s. Anyhow, she and I get along real well now… but don’t worry, I still remember what you told me and I’ve not gone walking about with her, not like that rotter Gordo from maintenance. She is too good for him anyway, if you ask me.

Um.

Oh! I am sending you a gift with this recording, Momma. I hope it gets to you okay, but just in case it doesn’t, I will tell you what it is, too. It is a necklace with a heart-shaped locket. It’s a little melted in the back, but still looks very nice. I put in a picture of me inside, so that you can see what I look like now. I won it a month ago from Jeb in a poker game. Jeb works in disposal and always has a lot of interesting things because of the work he does. Between you and me, I don’t think he’s supposed to have half the stuff he has, but disposal is a hard job and most units don’t even have a single human working in that department, only ‘bots, so the Colonel just looks the other way when sometimes Jeb walks in to the mess in a shirt that’s a bit small for him or wearing shoes too big on his feet.

I get along great with the Colonel now, Mom. I’m not sure I told you, but when she replaced Colonel U— I thought for sure she was gonna be trouble. Not for anything bad or anything, but she’s career army not drafted like us regular folk and I was worried that she wouldn’t treat the ‘bots like people like the old Colonel did. She wanted to replace Doc Evie at first, because Evie is an old model and has “too much of a personality” that can’t get wiped no matter how many times she gets reset, and a lot of brass sure have tried. The Colonel even put in an order for a replacement, a ‘bot so fresh off the line it still had its protective plastic films on. (I had a lot of fun peeling them off.) Thank goodness she agreed to see how the new ‘bot did versus Evie. At first it didn’t look too good, let me tell you. The new ‘bot’s efficiency rating was just loads better than hers. It wasn’t until the Colonel saw the post-op results and noticed how Evie’s patients recovered three times better that she let her stay, but even then it was almost too late since she’d given the order to Jeb already. Dr. C— had to bribe him to put Evie all the way in the back of the day’s list to give me enough time to get those reports in front of the Colonel.

That was a real exciting week at camp, boy let me tell ya.

Anyhow, after that the Colonel got a lot better about things, and now she doesn’t even mind that Stucky sometimes orders too many “thermometers” or that a quarter of the camp walks about with Eileen or that DC is with Evie.

Oh yeah, Dr. C— is with Evie now. I mean, they are together with each other, not just walking about. Um, I know this isn’t how it was done back when you were still young and thought about stuff like that, Mom, but I think… I think about what they say, that the world is hell. And if the world is hell, why can’t people try and hold on to what makes them happy? And I think that DC and Evie are real happy being together.

And I think… I think I will start to talk to Eileen more, too. Because, because she makes me smile a lot, Momma, and I also think that it’s sad for the I’s to be alone.

Anyhow, um, this recording is getting too long already so I guess I will end it here.

I hope to hear from you soon.

I love you, Momma.