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October 10, 2008 |
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Thanks for Teaching Me My Lesson
FOUND by Joshua Fruhlinger
in Baltimore, Maryland
I found this on 37th St in Baltimore's Hampden. The handwriting says "grade school," but there's some very weird and adult dynamics going on here.
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Cartweels October 24, 2004 |
A Nice Home July 13, 2007 |
Fleet Week July 14, 2002 |
Attn: Police August 18, 2007 |
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We collect FOUND stuff: love letters, birthday cards, kids' homework,
to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, telephone bills, doodles -
anything that gives a glimpse into someone
else's life. Anything goes...
Teach me more!
Is that name for real?
I am afraid to ask what that person did to teach Crystalle a lesson?
and yeah what IS with that name?
Mabye Crystalle's mom gave her a silent 'e' in honor of Crystalle's father who ran off and will never be there for her.
Stille more questionse thane answerse ine thise FINDe.
GEEK you are a flippin trip!
You crack me up!
That is all.
Looks like left-handed writing by a right-handed person. Maybe Chrystalle felt her "teacher" had treated her like a child, and is being sarcastic with this childlike "thank you note." Kind of like "Hey, thanks for losing me my job, dude." The recipient may be the sort of person who demands apologies (read self-abasement) constantly, so they can forgive you--for something **they've** just done.
I hope that Baby Basil is right... Otherwise, Crystalle's deference is slightly disconcerting.
I want to know what Crystalle did to mess with the note's intended recipient. A fake love note from a crush? Lip gloss replaced with rubber cement? The possibilities are endless...
What I find interesting besides what it says is the way the paper has been folded. Let me try to reconstruct:
1. fold bottom third of paper upwards
2. fold left and right sixth parts inwards
3. fold in half horizontally
@ Doctor Jones (Can I call you 'Indiana'?)
I think you got steps 2 and three backwards. The creases of the left and right sixths are precisely the same distance from the center crease. (yes, I measured them) I don't think Crystalle would have gotten them that way without first folding along the center.
(about to print out a screen shot to prove my theory)
Okay, well, as a third grade teacher, here's what I think happened.
1. Crystalle did something disrespectful, like make faces behind teacher's back.
2. Teacher sends Crystalle to the principal or school counselor's office.
3. Principal/counselor gives Crystalle a lecture and says "Now go write an apology letter to the teacher."
I know from experience that when you have kids write out of their heads, they produce some weird stuff. They have no idea of all the nuance adults put into things like "Thanks for teaching me a lesson."
@ Geek NOT in my mom's basement
You're probably right. It's still strange to first fold up the bottom third, though.
Let me know what your hardcopy reconstructions added up to. As an archeologist I'm very interested in stuff like that. And yes, you can call me Indiana :)
"Thank you sir. May I have another?" -- Animal House
that's vertical, not horizontal
@ H in A- I think you've hit the nail on the head!
Perfect scenario...most likely an apology letter.
Dr Jones,
I have determined the image we see on our screen is a cropped version of the whole page. The horizontal crease is close to 1/4 of the way down an 11" piece of paper. (You can tell by the angle of the fold it was not a precise job) The vertical creases on the sides are equidistant from the center and are not as sharp as the horizontal crease, which makes sense because there are more layers of paper to fold at this point. And Crystalle is probably young, with not-so-fine motor skills.
My full-scale printout of the portion of the note we see here proves this, although I welcome any conspiracy theories.
@ Geek:
I have another theory. This note is, in fact, not a real note at all. It's part of a collaborative campaign by the folks at HP and Epson to sell ink cartridges for their desktop printers. Starting in Baltimore, corporate agents have been dropping cryptic notes, drawings, Polaroids and defaced one dollar bills on the sidewalk for people to find and post on this website, knowing full well that millions of people like you will print them out for further examination, thus depleting the ink in your printer.
I've also got a theory about the third, fourth and fifth gunmen in Dallas on that fateful November day, but that's for another post.
Dear Geek and Indy,
Will you show us how to make an origami swan next? Please?
Yours in folding,
Nightingale
8-)
I wonder if...
Crystalle was writing to her mom's new boyfriend-- she's not too crazy about the guy (he's not daddy!) so she thought she'd mess with him a little. The guy wasn't too happy about it, but he tried to teach her a lesson on why she shouldn't mess with people, as he tried on the role of responsible step-parent.
It's kind of like the teacher scenario, but I just can't make the note match my idea of a teacher-student relationship.
@ Indy: I can't believe I fell for their evil scheme. I have my tinfoil hat on and everything.
@ Girl: I think you're onto something about the teacher-student relationship. Interesting theory.
Yeah, as a 2nd Grade public school teacher, I can say we don't use the term "Teach you a lesson" when it comes to discipline.
That's more of an "at-home" thing for some unfortunate kids.
I think it's wierd how it says MY lesson.
Crystalle had a piano lesson and was messing with her teacher. Her mother made her write this note to apologize for acting up...."Thanks for teaching me my lesson".....her piano lesson.
Can't see anything else in this
@ Pastor Z
I overheard some of the execs at Epson and HP, they're onto you. You might want to be careful and watch your back. They don't like smart guys who can figure them out.
@ A GIRL- Absolutely! Now that I read the FIND over and over...I'd concur that this might not be a *teacher=student relationship*. But more of a *father/mother=child* relationship.
Definitely makes more sense, doesn't it?
As usual, the comments are the best part of the find- thanks for starting my day off with a laugh!!
Is it possible this is actually signed
Cry Stolle
?
Crystalle is a pretty normal name for Baltimore. Believe me, it gets MUCH more bizarre than that.
I love this site! I found it with the almighty stumble button. What I love most about it is the handwriting. I study graphology obsessively and now every time I see peoples' handwriting, I can't help but analyze it, it's like an extra window into people's lives.
what I can tell from this letter:
She's either not sorry or she was going to say something else and changed her mind. Either way, she's probably lying about something. (the large gap between "I'm" and "sorry" isn't condusive to a natural writing flow, she had to think about what to say hard enough that it broke her concentration). Also, the word "sorry" as it's written is an island unto itself in the note
She's confused about her self-identity either consciously or unconsciously and is very likely emotionally unstable as her letters slant both to the left and to the right while some of them are centered.
She's got what's called a "manic D" which is when your lowercase D's have very far left or right slants or long tops, generally it's just a weird looking D that doesn't have the same characteristics as the writer's other letters formed the same way like a lowercase b. 90% of serial killers share this trait. Not saying she's an axe murderer or anything, but it's a sign of someone who is very emotionally troubled
She either messes with this person A LOT or didn't think she had done anything wrong and couldn't remember what exactly had upset the other person (the large gap between "you" and "yesterday")
Whatever the lesson was, it probably wasn't pleasent, the word "lesson" is sloped downwards meaning the writer has an unconscious aversion to it (if you look back at old letters you've written, you'll notice that in your handwriting too). Likewise, if a word has a noticeable upper slant, it's got a postive feeling associated with it.
I agree with what someone else had said, that this is a kid's handwriting (well, a teenager probably, but that's a "kid" to me too). Not just the handwriting (as some adults have very childlike writing), but the folds that someone else was talking about. They look like the "make your note into an envelope" fold that kids do. My daughter does that with her notes and when you open them, they have all manner of strange creases, but when folded it looks like a little square or a diamond
WOW
Sounds like Crystalle has some self esteem problems.
@lost consciousness - I'm with ya on that one!
I hereby nominate N8tive Me as the official Found Magazine Resident Graphologist.
Is graphology something you can take as a correspondence course? I want to learn my lesson.
Wow, same spam Q twice in the same day.
Also, I'm naming my next band Manic D.
@N8tiveMe If what you say is even half correct than that's really impressive and scary that one's handwriting gives so much away. Very glad you will never see my handwriting-
I'm with H in A and N8tive Me. This is an assigned apology to a teacher from a student who not only did not agree with what she was accused of, but did not quite comprehend it. She was probably written up for something defined in administrationese as "disruptive behavior" or "insubordination." Not knowing what any of this was, she maybe admitted to "messing" with the teacher, and wrote accordingly.
lol @ people passing out from the long post. Sorry, I get long winded, but the awesome thing about the internet is that you can scroll right past it and not read it.
You can take graphology courses at most colleges I beleive. I had gotten a book about it from my sister for Christmas and it got me interested so I started taking classes and it really IS scary how much handwriting reveals. It makes it REALLY hard to look at old love letters and stuff like that lol
Looks like Crystalle's parents were into the kreaytuv naym spellung thing when their daughter was born.
@N8tiveMe: thank you for sharing your wisdom. There have been many, many Finds of the Day where we all have tried to analyze notewriters' handwriting, but I don't remember any of us posters actually having any real knowledge on the subject. Most of our analyses come from our own experiences, which obviously differ widely, and that's half the fun.
I hope you'll become a regular poster here. I second the motion of our friend above who nominated you as our resident graphologist-lol. Welcome!
Uh oh... Seems that my mind is in the gutter this evening. I thought, perhaps, that it ws some kind of Bondage/Domination "lesson". (eeuuuww)
N8tive, Awe & Night -- I third the nomination!! We have a very thorough cryptographer here... can you imagine if there were *three* sentences in this Found?? lol
@Hiplainsdrifter: Cry "Stolle!" and let slip the dogs of war.
To corn a phrase.
I'd like to go down to the corner bar and cry "Stolle" for a bit...think I will...
Waaaait, is that... Joshua Fruhlinger of the Comics Curmudgeon? Please let it be true.
My handwriting looks just like this and I'm 18....
Holy crap! I live on 36th street in Hampden. Nice to have a hometown find.
Oh and, by the way... the conversations I hear outside my window lead me to believe this note could have been written by any of the white trash on that street, not just children.