NICOLE PARTON IS IN PATAGONIA

What’s on my mind? Mischief!

Don’t ask why (dunno), but it’s not even April Fool’s Day and I’m already torturing my brother, René, who believes every word that falls from his big sister’s face. 

When René wrote that the Christmas tart pans I sent him arrived in the wrong size (What sane person understands $%#@ metric???), I was too weary to sort it out, so Himself did.

 

Yesterday, without a word of explanation and with Himself in on the joke, I sent René a phoney “AUTOREPLY” that “NICOLE PARTON IS IN PATAGONIA UNTIL APRIL, 2022. SHE WILL ANSWER WHEN SHE IS ABLE.”

Himself answered René’s email, telling him how to return the tart pans we’d bought via Amazon and saying Himself would order them in the correct size. Himself is some sort of metric genius. 

Again, with no explanation of the reason for my trip, Himself wrote René: “Hi René!  Labels have been emailed to you from Amazon. Please print and follow instructions to send back. Nicole says hi from Patagonia. She reports she is very hot there. (Ohhh, YES!!!) Happy New Year!”

At the close of his thank you to Himself, René wrote: “Cheers, beers and happier new year(s) to you both.

 

René

 

PS: Patagonia!?”

A few hours later, I wrote René: “Hi from Patagonia, Chile, where I expect to be researching for 16 months. There was a problem with the tart pans …? I don’t know what, but Himself has apparently fixed it. It’s already Jan. 1 here. I’ve had trouble sleeping (jet lag) and must hit the hay again. My email reception is sporadic, so I’ll wave bye-bye for now! xox Nicole 

PS: Himself, if you’re dealing with the Amazon, I may have had a better shot at it from here, though I’ve been told we have no post office - just a mail boat every 10 days.” 

This morning, when my ever-trusting brother wrote again, I’d already fixed the header on my email to read: “Re: Tart Pans! Re: Re: Re: AUTOMATIC REPLY”

“Hi, Nicole ... and happy new year to you.  I was sure surprised by news of your current whereabouts, and now I look forward to hearing about the nature of your research. (I'm assuming you’d already considered just doing a Google search.) Hope you get your internal clock / circadian rhythms back to normal soon.

xoxo

René 

After waiting an appropriate length of time, I answered:

“I guess I can cancel my auto-reply. It’s very humid here. I’ll be living in a tent in Maquinchao for the next few months before moving on to El Bolson. The other researchers are extremely wary of pumas, but I’m not in the least afr

 y3ch weCREe jegeacsh A64JZL>?*””LKJ HY4

© Nicole Parton, 2021