Dad’s plea to daughter: Dear Ann Talley, I need a raise

Dear Ann Talley,

I need a raise.

Your mother and I were starting the new year right this week, cleaning and straightening and throwing out old stuff, when we found this letter from you.

It’s from 1996, and you wrote to me at work. You were in seventh-grade at H.E. McCracken Middle School on Hilton Head Island. You were asking for a raise.

You politely made the case that $5 a week for allowance was not enough.

We’ve still got the letter. It survives in your “permanent file” of keepsakes that I’m sure we’ve tried to pawn off on you before. We want you to have those other, big letters for the year you played basketball and the year you played golf, in case you ever get a letter jacket.

But we did throw away your progress reports from First Presbyterian Day School. I hope that over the years you have improved your scissor skills.

Your letter to me is wonderful. You were a more gifted child than perhaps we “relized.”

“I clean my room seven times a week, I sweep one time a week, I empty the dishwasher at least two times a week, I make up my bed five times a week, and I clean the kitchen seven times a week,” you wrote.

Yes, I remember a lot about this era. Work made my life a blur. Much of our time together was in the mornings, when I took you to school.

You were a real weather girl. You checked the weather every morning by opening the front door and standing there for 5 seconds. Then you’d decide which pair of shorts to wear.

You were a delightful child. You would skip down the hall sideways to go to your bedroom, saying: “To the Batcave!”

Little did I realize how immaculate the Batcave was. Or that you were not just a pretty and smart and energetic little girl. You were a team of maids. You were a hawk for specks of dust. You were a spit-shined Marine, polishing our lovely home with the white-glove treatment.

I did the math. You wanted a raise of about 100 percent.

You made such a sweet and convincing argument that I will spare you the tales of previous generations walking 5 miles to school through the snow.

Besides, at this point it would probably pay me to keep my mouth shut.

Mom put your letter on Facebook. “It pays to clean house,” she said.

Everyone is on your side. And they all want to know whether you got the raise.

None of us can remember if you got the raise. Or if you got blisters from all that sweeping.

I hope you got the raise. It seems to me that you and your brother were always getting raises. I began to feel like an ATM machine.

But I do hope you can remember your dear old dad now that you are grown, and making your own living as general manager of Wyndham Vacation Rentals on Hilton Head.

Dear Ann Talley,

I need a raise.

This story was originally published January 5, 2017 at 8:49 AM with the headline "Dad’s plea to daughter: Dear Ann Talley, I need a raise."