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Rebus Challenge 1

When I was a young tyke, I would write notes to my mother. What made me a little odd for your typical grade-schooler is that I often wrote them in code of one sort or another. Included in this correspondence (and stored for posterity by my mother) was a series of rebus puzzles, which turn out actually to be a combination of rebus and homophone and occasional other literary tricks. I present the first in the rebus series in honor of my mother's birthday, which was yesterday. (My siblings and Katie and I took her out to IHOP for dinner, which my mother chose because she once worked at IHOP as a waitress and wanted to reminisce. We didn't run into any of the people Mom worked with 45 years ago.)

Can you figure out my birthday message below? (Click for a larger image.)



Favorite part #1: That I drew a picture of a cat with a huge X through it to depict our dead pet Siamese cat, Happy.

Favorite part #2: That my map of Asia, while including a disclaimer that it is not to scale, has two Malaysias, no Vietnam or Iraq, and has China completely landlocked!

ANSWER KEY:

Dear Mom,
Happy Birthday!
I love you.
I hope you like this.
Signed,
JM Andresen

Line by line:

Dear Mom = deer, monday + m - ynda
Happy Birthday! = happy (our dead cat), bird + t + hay (move the d two spots to the right)
I love = eye, lock + venus - usnkc
you. I = yo + up - p, eye
hope you like = ho + ep (swap the last two letters), u, lie + k (move the k one spot to the left)
this. = hits (anagram)
Signed, = asian + bed - baa
JM Andresen

The only problem I have with my younger self is that the "signed" doesn't make much sense. I don't know why the map of Asia should depict the adjective "Asian." I'm also troubled that would misspell it as "sined." I do homophones such as "eye" for "I" but all pure rebus words are spelled correctly. Perhaps I erred in just forgetting about the "gn" and spelling out "sied." Can someone else figure out a way to get to "signed" (or something else that makes sense)?

Comments

  1. Rachel6:50 AM

    I *love* these. Very cool.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous9:48 PM

    I actually interpreted the last bit as "I hope you like this side" which I found a bit odd, but not totally unreasonable.

    ReplyDelete
  3. J. Michael Andresen7:16 PM

    There are two problems with "I hope you like this side." First, there is a large period right after "this". Second, I indicated in other words in the rebus where two letters should be swapped, and the anagram function had to be specifically invoked. So I think the letter order of si+ed needs to be honored. (I have the faintest memory of making an embarrassing mistake in one of my puzzles, and leaving out the "gn" of "signed" might just be it.)

    ReplyDelete

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