How to Tell Your Parents That You Got Bad Grades

Dear Mother and Dad:
It has been three months since I left for college.
I have been remiss in writing and I am very sorry
for my thoughtlessness in not having written before.
I will bring you up to date now, but before you
read on, please sit down. You are not to read any
further unless you are sitting down, okay.

Well then, I am getting along pretty well now. The
skull fracture and the concussion I got when I jumped
out of the window of my dormitory when it caught fire
shortly after my arrival are pretty well healed by now.
I only spent two weeks in the hospital and now I can
see almost normally and only get those headaches
once a day.

Fortunately, the fire in the dormitory and my jump
was witnessed by an attendant at the gas station near
the dorm, and he was the one who called the Fire Dept.
and the ambulance. He also visited me at the hospital
and since I had nowhere to live because of the burnt
out dormitory, he was kind enough to invite me to share
his apartment with him. It's really a basement room, but
it's kind of cute. He is a very fine boy and we have
fallen deeply in love and are planning to get married.
We haven't set the exact date yet, but it will be before
my pregnancy begins to show.

Yes, mother and dad, I am pregnant. I know how very much
you are looking forward to being grandparents and I know
you will welcome the baby and give it the same love and
devotion and tender care you gave me when I was a child.
The reason for the delay in our marriage is that my boyfriend
has some minor infection which prevents us from passing our
premarital blood tests and I carelessly caught it from him.
This will soon clear up with the penicillin injections I am
now taking daily.

I know you will welcome him into the family with open arms.
He is kind and although not well educated, he is ambitious.
Although he is of a different race and religion than ours,
I know that your oft-expressed tolerance will not permit you
to be bothered by the fact that his skin color is somewhat
darker than ours. I am sure you will love him as I do.
His family background is good too, for I am told his father
is an important gunbearer in the village in Africa from
which he comes.

Now that I have brought you up to date, I want to tell you
there was no dormitory fire; I did not have a concussion or
a skull fracture; I was not in the hospital; I am not pregnant;
I am not engaged. I do not have syphillis, and there is no Negro
in my life. However, I am getting a D in sociology and an F
in science; and I wanted you to see these marks in proper perspective.

Your loving daughter, Sarah

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