sonja
excerpt from a 1995 letter

Did you know there are people who make a habit of dialing 800 numbers when they're bored? Worse yet, my number, in addition to being 1-800-gumption, also happens to be 1-800-Hump-Tim.  

Last week I got a call from Sonja. She was babysitting and got bored, so she called me. She doesn't know me and I don't know her, but the call is free so what the hell. So I talked to Sonja for a while. Sonja is 18. She lives in Florida with her parents and goes to high school. She likes high school because she has lots of friends. Next year she'll go on to college at one of the local 4-year colleges. This fall she went out with this guy who was in college 45 minutes away. He's a freshman. He loves it. He goes to frat parties every night. He gets wasted on drugs a lot. She's afraid he's going to get into trouble. Her parents don't like him. He sells drugs. She broke up with him after a month or two but he still calls her. He did buy her all this stuff though. This really nice shirt, and this pink sweatshirt that cost $40, and lots of other stuff. She wants to be 22. That's the perfect age. You're still young but you're old enough to live alone and old enough to go to bars and clubs. Sonja and I have some common ground here. If I could be any age I think I'd like to be 22 also. She stands a better chance of becoming 22 than I do. She has brothers and sisters who are 8, 10, 18, 20 and 22. The eldest two are married. She doesn't like the other 18 year old. Sonja has a job as a model. It's a hassle because you have to change clothes all the time and then they only take a few pictures and you have to change again. You also have to shave your arms for the suntan lotion shots so that your arms look really smooth. She'll stop being a model when she goes to school next fall. She wants to become an interior decorator, or maybe a marine biologist. I suggested she go with marine biology. There are these two brothers who used to live across the street. The older one, Dave, used to come and throw rocks at the window at night and ask her to come out with him. She would open her window and tell him, "I don't think so." Anyway, that was a long time ago, but recently the younger brother, Ben, came over and started talking to her. She knew who he was because everyone knows him. See last year this guy at her school got killed. A friend of Sonja's. He was riding on top of a car when it rolled over. He broke his neck. And then at the funeral a convertible drives by and this guy, Ben, stands up and shouts, "Hey, cool!" So she doesn't like Ben. He asked her to go out somewhere with him and she said, "I'm not going anywhere with you." He's lucky she doesn't kill him.

I enjoyed talking to Sonja, but I'm happy I have my own life.

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