In the Style of "Alice's Restaurant"

I received the following email from my father today. I think it's the longest email he's ever sent me:

"I found the receipt from Target it was in a pile of papers on the kitchen counter, I remember now finding it in the bag and taking it out before I used the bag to collect the rubbish in it was a nice big bag and held a lot of rubbish when I was done collecting the rubbish I put the Target bag in another bag of rubbish put a sticker on it and put in the rubbish barrell and dragged it out to the street for pickup the next day and then the big truck comes around and a guy jumps out and picks up the barrell and dumps the rubbish in the back of the big truck the truck drives off with rubbish and takes up to Coventry (thats near Newport) and dumps the whole thing in a hole that someone dug. So I guess the next thing would be to snail mail you the reciept from Target that I found in the big bag and used to collect the garbage in that I put in the rubbish barrell for pickup by a big truck and a trip to Coventry to be dumped in a hole in the ground. I hope this explains everything without going into a lot of detail. Dad."


To which I replied:
"Dearest Father Collector of Trash in Target bags,
Yes, please send me the Target receipt  that was once in a Target bag which you found and thankfully saved and put in a pile of other papers , via snail mail in a stamped envelope with my address on it and your return address on it and walk it to the post-office and drop it into the mail box or slot where it'll get picked up by a mail carrier and taken to a sorting center in VT and then to another sorting in MA and then to Northampton and then to the Hatfield post office and then into a plastic bin and the postal carrier who drives the red jeep will put into into my cluster mailbox in front of our house one day soon and I'll retrieve it with my little key that unlocks the mailbox and I'll carry it into the house and open the envelope and be able to return the footstool to Target which is just a few inches to tall and makes the backs of my knees stretch in an uncomfortable position and is also the wrong shape so Trevor and I can't share since he wants a corner and it's round and therefore has no corners. Thank you.
Love,
Nancy

He explains his odd behavior in the following email:
"maybe I have been listening to Arlo Guthrie sing 'Alices Restaurant' too much Arlo is the son of folk singer Woody Guthrie. Arlo Guthrie lives somewere in your area, his father wrote a lot of folk songs and was Bob Dylan's idol. Bob Dylan was born Robert Zimmerman but changed it to Bob Dylan to honor Dylan Thomas he wrote poems not music like Bob Dylan did. You can get anything you want at Alices restaurant.  Dad."

It's November and approaching Thanksgiving and not at all unusual for Dad to be overdosing on Alice's Restaurant. I'm not worried. Really,  I'm not.