tuesday, may 9, 1944

dearest kitty,

i've finished my story about ellen, the fairy. i've copied it out on nice notepaper, decorated it with red ink and sewn the pages together. the whole thing looks quite pretty, but i don't know if it's enough of a birthday present. margot and mother have both written poems.

mr. kugler came upstairs this afternoon with the news that starting monday, mrs. broks would like to spend two hours in the office every afternoon. just imagine! the office staff won't be able to come upstairs, the potatoes can't be delivered, bep won't get her dinner, we can't go to the bathroom, we won't be able to move and all sorts of other inconveniences! we proposed a variety of ways to get rid of her. mr. van daan thought a good laxative in her coffee might do the trick. "no," mr. kleiman answered, "please don't, or we'll never get her off the can.

a roar of laughter. "the can?" mrs. van d. asked. "what does that mean?" an explanation was given. "is it all right to use that word?" she asked in perfect innocence. "just imagine," bep giggled, "there you are shopping at the bijenkorf and you ask the way to the can. they wouldn't even know what you were talking about!"

dussel now sits on the "can," to borrow the expression, every day at twelve-thirty on the dot. this afternoon i boldly took a piece of pink paper and wrote:

mr. dussel's toilet timetable

mornings from 7: 15 to 7:30 a.m.

afternoons after 1 p.m. otherwise, only as needed!

i tacked this to the green bathroom door while he was still inside. i might well have added' 'transgressors will be subject to confinement!" because our bathroom can be locked from both the inside and the outside.

mr. van daan's latest joke:

after a bible lesson about adam and eve, a thirteen-year-old boy asked his father, "tell me, father, how did i get born?"

"well," the father replied, "the stork plucked you out of the ocean, set you down in mother's bed and bit her in the leg, hard. it bled so much she had to stay in bed for a week."

not fully satisfied, the boy went to his mother. "tell me, mother," he asked, "how did you get born and how did i get born?"

his mother told him the very same story. finally, hoping to hear the fine points, he went to his grandfather. "tell me, grandfather," he said, "how did you get born and how did your daughter get born?" and for the third time he was told exactly the same story.

that night he wrote in his diary: "after careful inquiry, i must conclude that there has been no sexual intercourse in our family for the last three generations!"

i still have work to do; it's already three o'clock.

yours, anne m. frank

ps. since i think i've mentioned the new cleaning lady, i just want to note that she's married, sixty years old and hard of hearing! very convenient, in view of all the noise that eight people in hiding are capable of mak- ing.

oh, kit, it's such lovely weather. if only i could go outside!