Dear Anya, Anka, but definitely not Anna or Hannah,

My mom called me about 10 o’clock last night. She called to tell me how you called down at the bowling alley, saying you were a friend of Jodi’s and that I’d know who you were. You offered very kind of condolences about the closing of the alley in May.

That was nice.

But the thing with a bowling alley is that you can’t hear shit on the phone. At all. You just kind of hope to guess you are hearing what the hell the person on the other line is saying. For me it’s easy because when I work Friday nights the only thing people want to know is if we have open/midnight/starlight bowling. All I ever do when I answer the phone is shout HELLO DAN PATCH LANES. Then I wait a beat or two for some sort of mumbling and then I say, NO! WE HAVE LEAGUES. SORRY.

If you call on Friday night and ask anything else, you will get the NO! WE HAVE LEAGUES. SORRY shout. You’ve been warned.

So anyway Anya, Anka, but definitely not Anna or Hannah, my mom was going to ask you to spell your name since she had no idea what you were saying, but she never got around to it. Sadly, unlike what you said, I have no idea who you might be.

But I thank you anyway for your thoughtfulness. Life will be different post-bowling alley, that’s for damn sure.

Love,
Jodi