The Midnight Hour

I think it’s time to repost this one. I recently let the proverbial cat out of the bag concerning the “Letters from Pat” prank. Before departing California I told my friend and co-worker that Pat was a creation of mine and another Marine, and that Pat never really existed. My co-worker was overjoyed to discover this. It turns out he debated going to NCIS (kind of like the cops for the Navy and Marine Corps) about the issue, but his wife talked him out of it. He also quizzed all of his family members thoroughly trying to discover whom Pat really was. Read and enjoy.

“Letters from Pat” is a series of fake letters that another Marine and I sent to a colleague of mine via motomail. Motomail is a great system for sending physical paper mail to deployed service members. You enter the text through the motomail website and it is then sent electronically to one of several bases in Iraq, printed, and gets to the service member in 2-3 days. All you need to sign up for motomail is an email address, and it’s free. The general gist of the prank is that my colleague get’s a piece of mail from Pat two to three times per week.

As I first described in “Electrons, Hand Sanitizer, and Sunflower Seeds” Pat is a fictitious person created in our minds. Pat is an interesting character. Is Pat a man or woman? That’s left to the reader. What is Pat’s exact connection to my colleague at work? Also left to the reader. However, a few things can be definitively said about Pat. Pat is from the same state and general area of my colleague. Pat’s return address verifies this to my colleague, and occasional weather reports confirm his locality. Pat is also not very bright. Pat asks a lot of very naive, silly, and downright stupid questions. Pat is also quite strange. Pat is just getting started, but over the next 1.5 months Pat will become increasingly strange, leading to obsessive, and eventually psychotic. Pat will be most angered that my colleague will not so much as pick up a pen to write back to his devoted follower. Pat also makes many spelling and grammar errors, partly to further expose Pat’s character, and partly to hide the identities of Pat’s true creators.

The first 3 “Letters from Pat”

21 June

What’s up?!?!Hey man! I just heard that you were in Iraq and thought that I’d drop you a line to say hello and see how you were doing. Write me back if you get a chance my address hasn’t changed. Best of luck and stay safe over there.Take care,
Pat
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23 June

Hello,
I’m not really sure how this works, don’t know if the first letter got to you yet. How are things going in Iraq? What’s your job over there? Do you have to do all that crappy stuff like in the movie jarhead? Saw on the news that you got Zarkawi - way to go! Are they going to send you home early now? Things are going fine here. It’s getting warm, I’m sure you are warmer though. Hey, I think I passed your brother on the road not too long ago. How is he? Boomer recently passed away. It was sad, he was great to be around and always made us laugh. Take care and write when you can. Your friend,
Pat
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26 June

Hi,
I hope your weekend went well. I’m sure it felt nice to take a break from working in the hot desert sun. Anything fun to do in Iraq? How often do you get to go out in town? Any walmarts haha?
I keep watching the news but I’ve never seen you. They show marines all the time doing patrols and stuff. I spent Saturday at the mall. Looking to buy a frame for the picture of Boomer we had made. Gonna put it above the urn in the living room next to dad’s bowling trophy, he deserves it. Other than that it was pretty quiet. It’s been raining a lot around here lately so I just stayed in today and watched movies. Steel Magnolias, what a tear jerker. I guess that about wraps it up, hope you have a great week. Stay safe, hope to hear from you soon. Your friend,
Pat
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Stay tuned for battle damage assessments, and feel free to comment.