"LOVE LETTERS," or, "VOL LOTTA SHAKIN’ GOIN’ ON"

I don’t know what inspired us to try out the game. But we weren’t drunk on sake, which makes it all the more amazing.

An apartment in Bed-stuy. A Sunday afternoon spent secluded from the gloomy weather outside. K’s mattress on the floor of her bedroom, faded daylight tainting our great white happy through the skylight on the ceiling.

I don’t know if it was youthful ennui, the Mad Libs we had just played, the bread and cheese platter K. made for lunch, or any combination of the above. All I know is, K. broke out a pencil and paper and wrote down a name. I recognized the name instantly. After all, it was my own.
She spelled out my name and hers in capital letters, then wrote "TRUE LOVE" in big caps as well. Not across, though, but a pair of columns:

T L
R O
U V
E E

Next, she examined both her and my name, one letter at a time, counting up all the T’s, all the R’s, U’s, E’s, etc. Combined, our two names didn’t have many of the same letters as a phrase like "TRUE LOVE," so the counts came out as:

T=1 L=2
R=1 O=1
U=2 V=1
E=3 E=3

Adding each column vertically, she ended up with "7 7" This became 77; apparently, K. and I had a seventy-seven percent chance of being a true love match.

Neither of us took the results of the game seriously, of course. I wasn’t about to let some first grade playground time-waster dictate my future, especially if said time-waster was biased in favor of people with T’s, R’s, U’s, or E’s in their names. I balled up the page with the results, tossed it in a corner, then scoffed in its general direction. Five seconds later, I decided to change my name to VOLTER VOL EVERTREE, and coded those letters into their respective columns. Good news! As long as I am VOLTER VOL EVERTREE, K. and I have a 168% chance of being a true love match. Not that a stupid game means anything.

(Now, I know what you’re going to say: Phil, if the game uses a two-column system, all you need do is adopt a name composed entirely of T’s, R’s, U’s, and E’s. It need not be a long, funny-sounding name like VOLTER VOL EVERTREE. My answer: VOLTER VOL is most certainly not a funny-sounding name. The "V’s" go gliding from the lips with all the grace of springtime butterflies.

Secondarily, while a name like REVERE U. TUTU is a quick 100 points all by itself, I am trying not to make a complete mockery of this institution. It’s not marriage, after all.)

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Thanks for enduring the above post. As a reward, I am going to let you all in on a big secret: I have started a new blog exclusively for movie reviews. Rick gave me the idea.

To go to my page, just click on the link to THE SUR-REEL LIFE. My most recent reviews include the vampires vs. werewolves epic UNDERWORLD (2003), and the Japanese film NOBODY KNOWS (2004). Mangia!