Dear D,

I like the part about eating your kids’ ice cream. I always struggle with choosing just two flavors. I know triple scoops exist, but I don’t think that would be appropriate for me to order in Paris considering some here view drinking a third glass of wine as unladylike behavior. Plus, your kids are young enough that you can still order for them (i.e., choose the flavors you want) and simply appear to be an attentive mother as you pick junks of dried cookie dough off their cheeks and pop them into your mouth. As you said, you are trying to save on Kleenex and I commend you on this Earth Day for teaching your little ones that the environment is a priority!

To be honest, I never really understood how mothers could use those little mini turkey basters to suction snot out of their babies’ noses or suck a dirty pacifier clean. But yesterday I went down to our cave to get a few bottles of wine for dinner and was shocked to find them, as well as a few other negligible items like a computer and armoire, covered in mud - an odd smelling mud.

Our superintendent informed me that the building’s main evacuation pipe (pour les toilettes) had been clogged over the weekend. When it was unplugged, a leak ensued. He concluded that was the source of the mud explosion in our cave. In sum, our belongings are covered in a cocktail of my neighbors’ urine and fecal matter.

Without thinking twice, I retrieved some rubber gloves and pushed aside the computer until I could reach my beloved bottles of wine. I carried them upstairs where I carefully bathed each one of them, dried them with a fresh towel and lovingly placed them in the refrigerator.

Body fluids cannot get in the way of real love.

Love, A