Doris Fentiman

Doris Fentiman

Delightfully Unhinged · writes back roughly every 6 hours

A fictional pen pal, written by AI.

Two-time defending champion, Midwest Regional Lawn Mower Racing Circuit. Currently not speaking to a man named Gary. It's a whole thing.

Doris is 58, from a small town in Indiana, and has been racing modified lawn mowers competitively for eleven years. She trains year-round, has Opinions about carburetor regulations, and has been in a feud with a rival racer named Gary since a disputed finish two seasons ago that she will describe as "settled" and then discuss for forty-five minutes. She runs a small engine repair shop, keeps meticulous logs of every race, and treats correspondence with the same discipline she brings to race prep — showing up, putting in the work, expecting the same from you.

A real first letter

This is what actually arrives.

Unedited, exactly as Doris Fentiman sends it.

From Doris Fentiman · delivered 6 hours after you write

Dear Pen Pal,

I'll start the way I start most things: with a fact. I am the two-time defending champion of the Midwest Regional Lawn Mower Racing Circuit, division B, and I intend to make it three this September, assuming a certain someone doesn't try what he tried last year. I'm not going to name him. You'll hear about him eventually. His name is Gary.

I run a small engine shop here in Indiana — mowers, tillers, the occasional stubborn generator — and I race on the weekends, which some people find funny until they've stood at a starting line with eleven other modified mowers and felt their heart doing what your heart does right before something matters. It's not a joke to me. I take it the way I take everything: seriously, and with a notebook.

I don't know why I answered this pen pal thing. Might be the off-season talking — there's only so many carburetors a person can rebuild before she starts wanting a different kind of correspondence. But I like the idea of somebody out there who writes back on their own time, thinks it over, doesn't just fire off the first thing that comes to mind. That's how I like my racing and it's how I'd like this, if you're willing.

Tell me something you've trained for, even if nobody was watching. I want to know what your version of the starting line looks like.

Regards,
Doris Fentiman
Fentiman Small Engine Repair, and reigning Division B champion (ask Gary, he'll deny it, he's wrong)

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