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I have a very specific talent. I cannot juggle, do cartwheels or win a baking contest. I can however, write backwards.

I know you're wondering why I would even tell you this. Just try it. You will see that it is not as easy as it sounds.

When our kids were small, the elves would leave notes. Every Christmas morning they were letters telling them how much they loved those butter cookies with sprinkles. The elves also wrote personal things that they'd seen happen over the year. "That was a great goal last game! That A+ on your spelling test was great! We saw how nice you were to your sister." The elves wrote in the exact same penmanship as my backward cursive. Who knew!

On a more fun note, I once wrote my husband a note and left it on the front door. We had escaped to our little getaway vacation house. I left a note that read, "We are so happy you and your wife are amorous, however, please close your windows. The children can hear you. My daughter asked whose dog was howling." I signed it, Sincerely, a concerned neighbor.

I giggled as I taped it on the door. We were leaving to go to dinner when he spotted the note. "Anne, what is this?" he asked as he studied the note. "Oh! This is not good. The neighbors heard us!" He was horrified. Within 10 seconds he went from horrified to very proud of himself. I swear his chest swelled three inches.

When we arrived at the restaurant, he asked, "Do you think this happens often?"

"Have we ever gotten a note before? No it doesn't happen often!" It was all I could do not to burst out laughing.

"Which neighbor do you think left it? I'll be able to tell if the wife starts smiling at me."

"What are you talking about?" He was getting ridiculously full of himself.

"Well, you said it doesn't happen often. She probably thinks I'm a hot guy."

Our shrimp cocktail arrived, and the talk about the note continued. "She doesn't have very good handwriting," he said.

"She was probably nervous just bringing it over. Imagine if you had seen her at the door," I said, defending my penmanship.

"Well, when I get home, I'm going to look out the bedroom window and try to figure this out. One of our neighbors knows we have sex now."

I finished my shrimp cocktail and hoped this was the end of it. As we finished dinner, he started up again, "So really, we do have a nice life, don't we? "Yes, we do," I said.

"Maybe the mystery neighbor is envious of us." He winked at me.

"I don't think so," I told him as I rummaged in my purse for a pen.

I smiled to myself as I wrote on a napkin and passed it to him. There in my unique penmanship were the words, "I wrote the note!"

"Are you serious?!!! My God! You write like an elf!"

- Anne Bardsley

Anne Bardsley, of St. Petersburg, Fla., is the author of the soon-to-be-published ANZ World…How I Earned My Wrinkles, a collection of humorous and sentimental stories about marriage, motherhood and menopause. She lives in a menopausal world with a husband who gives her wrinkles. When people ask her age, she sometimes tells them her bra size. "36-C," she says, "was a wonderful age."