A funny thing happened to my daughter recently. A boy at high school passed her a note in the hall (Yep, I’m old enough to have a high-schooler now. Yikes). The note was written in a language she couldn’t read, so she did what any right-thinking kid would do – take it home to show dad.
The note was, in fact, not written in a language from this earth. Say what? Are you just fiddling with us, Bryun? Nope. The boy had written my daughter a note in elvish, as in Tolkein’s Middle-Earth elvish! Now, I didn’t possess the ability to speak this language, but had enough geekiness from a former life to know it was from Middle Earth and did a search online for the key to translate the runic letters.
Fast forward a few minutes for the search and a few more to translate and figure out how vowels worked, which letters translated, and read a few paragraphs on which version of Tolkein’s elves wrote that particular dialect (I said it was a former life, not one that had completely gone away).
So what did the note say? Good question. Let me explain… No, there is too much, let me sum up (another geek reference for anyone who caught it). It said:
“Dear Kate,
You are an elvish princess and I think you’re pretty and I’ve got a crush on you.”
Not in my life, Legolas…
So, with my newly discovered key to geekiness, I couldn’t let this opportunity pass. I didn’t tell my daughter what the note said, and promised I wouldn’t tell her until she delivered a note from me (written in elvish) to her wannabe beau. This is what MY note said:
“Dear target-of-my-wrath,
If my daughter is an elvish princess, that makes me an elven king. As a king, I have a legion of elven warriors waiting to destroy you at my signal. Watch your back.”
She delivered the note, and said his reaction was thus:
“Your dad speaks elven?”
Worried look comes over his face and he walks off mumbling, “No way, no way, no way…”
Fast forward a few days. Legolas is no longer interested, Kate is relieved after telling her what his note said and I’m feeling pretty tough now. Way to go, King Crush-Destroyer. No more love notes, no more elf-stalkers, no more worried dad .
So, for Kate there’s a happy ending, as the boy is completely disinterested in her. For one of her friends it’s not so happy, as she became the new target of the elven boy’s affections.
And as for my legion of bloodthirsty elves, they’re still waiting for my signal…
Description
Dads are protectors. Sometimes it’s planned (when they dress up in camouflage and hide in the bushes before a daughter’s prom date) and other times it’s unplanned, like the story behind this post.
This is one of my daughter’s favorite memories of her dad and one of her dad’s favorite memories from her high school years, and is reprinted here in it’s entirety from my One Crazy Dad blog.
Project details
- Date : December 2014
- Client : Me
- Client url : www.onecrazydad.com