Hi, this is Elizabeth, Mo' Bob's daughter.  I wanted to thank all of you who
wrote to me, saying how much I liked my letter.  Thank you.  I got 27
letters, which my dad said was really hard to print out without reading.
One of the people asked me to marry him because he thought it would be the
only way he could get a word in edgewise from dad.
 
Dad almost had a stroke this week, and it was my fault.  Not really, but
saying that makes him feel better.  I was at his house to print out some
photoshop things I drew and he has the color printer.  He says he uses it
for scientific applications, but I think he just likes printing out pictures
of bones.  From the pictures on the walls, I think his favorite color is
red.  Well, he has all these icons on his desktop and they accidentally all
got clicked when I threw away my drawing.  And I flushed them.  I noticed
something was wrong when the counter said I was throwing away 120 MB, and
called him in.  His eyes got real big and his mouth opened and no sound came
out.  He almost died trying to get to the cancel button.
 
Anyway, I caused his address book and a few other files to leave the planet,
so he was a little upset.  I thought he would get real mad, but he just
hugged me asnd said the ferrets have done worse.  And he's right!  (Someone
should ask him about the ferret that pooped in his CD player.  He took it
apart to clean it, and hasn't been able to get it back together right.  He
says he is contemplating the problem, and should have the solution any time
now.
 
Alot of you wrote to ask me to tell another story about dad, so here it is.
This happened a couple of months ago when dad bought two more file cabinits
for all his papers.  He was loading them with his stuff and I was helping
him because he kept whining about this cut on his hand making it hard to
pick stuff up with.  I told him he should have had it stitched and to be
quiet, but thought helping him would make it easier to go the the Blue Note
and listen to music with my friend Todd.  Dad doesn't like Todd.  He says
Todd is too cute for his own good, and really hates it when Todd calls him
Mr. Church.  When he calls, dad yells out "Its Todd the Bod!"
 
We were loading papers into the bottoms of the file cabinets first because
dad thought the cabinets would fall over from the weight if we started at
the top.  To tell the truth, I think someday his whole floor is going to
break through and we will find him crushed in the basement under his
disseration.  He says he doesn't care because it is killing him anyway.  We
filled up the bottom three drawers and dad went to change the music.  Dad
listens to really cool music, nad plugged in a Metallica cd.  He says life
is easier when you rock, and if you can't rock, then laugh.  He has all
these Monty Python, Tom Lehrer, Allen Sherman, Spike Jones and Dr. Demento
CDs.  He FORCES me to listen to them!  Its ok, because I am strong!  He even
has a poster of Julie Brown on his wall and swears her song "I love them big
and stupid" is about him.  No way, he's not that tall.
 
While dad was gone, I snuck some of his ferrets into the top drawer of the
file cabinet.  He came back over and opened the drawer, then leaned over to
pick up some files.  Moose, who loves to jump, came out of the drawer and
jumped on dad's shoulder.  Dad must have thought he was a spider, because he
spin around and started brushing him off like mad.  Moose went under dads
hair, and then dad really started to go crazy, saying something like
"geeeeahhhh" and trying to get the giant spider off his back.  He finally
got Moose out of his hair and gave him a look like you would give a spoonful
of rotten egg.  He couldn't figure out how Moose got into the file cabinet
and kept muttering at it all day.  He never could figure it out!
 
If any of you really want to get dad, he hates spiders.  Not the kinds he
can see.  He once had a pet black widow and always picks up spiders when we
are in the woods.  But he really hates the spiders he can't see.  He gets
the willies when walking into webs.  Its so funny because dad is not afraid
of anything else (I saw him kiss a rattlesnake once.  I also saw him put a
bunch of scorpions on his arm when he was teaching inner-city kids about the
woods.  He volunteers time every summer and takes kids from east LA up in
the high Sierras).  One day Stella got into the basement and came out
covered in cobwebs.  Dad picked her up, and this tiny dead bug dropped off
Stella's back and swung on a cobweb and landed on dads arm.  Dad works out
and also has a black belt and just about broke his own arm trying to kill
the "spider." Stella freaked and went down his shirt.  Imagine a longhaired
guy spinning in circles, whacking his arm, and trying to get a ferret out
from inside is t-shirt all at the same time!  He had this huge bruise on his
arm for a week!  Now whenever he acts macho, I just ask him if he has
karate-chopped any spiders lately.
 
Dad said I could write but it had to be about ferrets.  Was this enough
about ferrets, B.I.G?  Dad said B.I.G. stood for Bill Gruber, but wouldn't
tell me your middle name because he said you were in the witness protection
program and nazis from California would come after you.  Then he said it was
Igor.  Then he admitted he didn't know and said he would give the name to
one of Crystal's kits if I could find out, but I didn't have much of a
chance because everyone has tried and you wouldn't tell.  I bet its a
romantic German name.
 
Elizabeth "EC"
[Posted in FML issue 1758]