I took a week’s vacation and caught a flight to LaGuardia. I stayed with my friend Aaron Grill, who has an apartment in Park Slope. He was overall a gracious host but he made two unforgivable offenses:

1. He cheated at poker (again).

2. He banned me from smooching his sister.

Dear Aaron,

I don’t mind the five bucks you stole—what I resent is that every time we play poker you get incrementally wealthier than me. I lose five, you take five, so at the end of the night you’re ten ahead. And that’s just my cash—you fleece everyone else at the table too. We all know you do it, and you know we know, but you keep doing it. Sometimes I don’t understand you.

Normally I wouldn’t say anything about your pocketing of chips and clumsy slight-of-hand, or do anything in retaliation, but I was pissed off at you for banning me from making out with your sister Molly. She was smart and sassy and blessed in the looks department, so when I saw you poach a twenty-five cent piece from Levi’s pile I was fuming. Next day, when you were at work, I emptied out a little bit of every product you own, to cost you money and even things out.

You now have half as much shampoo as you used to, which I reckon’ll cost you five bucks since it was fancy salon shampoo. Your pricey Olive Oil followed half a bottle of Hendrick’s gin down the drain—that’s thirty dollars reclaimed justly. Your Pepto Bismol, your GNC vitamins, all gone all flushed. We’re square now in my mind but I wanted to let you know what I’d done, so we can start fresh.

Yours,

JJH