BLAST FROM THE PAST- 2001

Just to get a feel for what some of my friends who's e-mails I didn't have back then, I'm adding a few excerpts from past years.

Nov. 2001

COSTCO CO.

To Whom it May Concern:

I would like to congratulate your company first off for building the only contraption that my sons Houdini age 3 and his Faithful Assistant age 2 have yet to be able to get out of. Your 5 point harness system is the best around.

This is the reason why I am writing to you today. I would like to know if it would be possible for me to order 2 more of the harnesses directly from you without having to buy 2 more car seats. I most certainly hope so as the future of my home and family hangs in the balance.

You see, other than being escape artists, my sons are food artists. As much as I try to keep them in the kitchen with it, they seem to think they have an allergy to the kitchen table and the kitchen in general once they get food into their hot little hands. Add the fact that any great escape artist naturally finds it easy to break into just about anything as well, and you can see that unless I plan to stand guard 24 hours a day in the kitchen or hire a retiree from Buckingham palace, it is unlikely that I will be able to stop all the pilfering of food from my kitchen that goes on around here. What happens to all this food? While anyone can see that they eat very well, they also feel a need to spread the joy around and since my house is their immediate world, they feed the world by feeding my house.

I don't know if any of you have ever lived in a home decorated in contemporary food fight, but let me tell you that after a while it does terrible things to your psyche, not to mention the health hazard. I'm sure we will soon have some kind of mouse or roach infestation, and stepping on slippery and crunchy things is a real slipping hazard. Add to this the fact that I am expecting another one of these little prodigies, and movement in general makes me seasick and all this bending over to pick crud up off the floor seems to bring up the contents of my stomach. As I get bigger it gets harder to bend over AND to chase little slippery guys around so in all I've got a home on it's way to making it onto the Health Department's list of homes to visit. I could just hang in there till I deliver, but

I know better. If the two of these guys can use each other as a diversion to get away with twice as much now, another helpless screaming creature will only add to the confusion. Especially when you consider that my children so far have all been champion nursers so for the next 2- 4 years I will have to contend with the fact that I will have a little barracuda latched onto me some 3 hours of the day off and on which will leave me as a sitting duck. Even if I chase after them and subject their sibling to milkshakes, it is sure to slow me down.

My solution to this problem is simple. If I barricade the doorway and put 5 point harnesses at their seats at the table, I can strap them in and their food can only get as far away as they can throw it. It might sound a little restrictive, but I figure it is much, much more humane than sitting on them, and they will most certainly be able to eat their food easier this way. I would of course not leave them unattended since I not only have safety to take into account but the fact that if they use this system on such a more regular basis they may learn to escape from it if left to their own wiles and then I couldn't drive with them anywhere either.

Please let me know how soon I could get these parts and what the cost may be.

Sincerely, Shellie Espinoza