An Accurate Error, a 24-Hour Bug, and a Delightful Tidbit
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Looking through job ads on Craigslist yesterday, I came across an error that reflects the current state of the economy:
“Compensation commiserates with experience and training.”
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Do you ever have one of those 24-hour bugs? Not the stomach kind, the head kind. Like a mini-depression. The three criteria for me are: not once going outside; not getting dressed; and eating treats at such a rate that, were I a dog, I would have at least a couple dozen Roll over!s or Speak!s under my belt (and, come to think of it, I would have at least earned what I ate).
Taking extremely long showers is one symptom of this bug. Just now I spilled a half hour’s worth of water for no good reason, mindlessly resoaping parts already perfectly clean and badly singing the one verse of “Mr. Tambourine Man” that I could remember. Occasionally I would bust out a new line, but then it would get redirected back to the corresponding part of the one verse I remembered, like a flow chart. The air around me turned thick steamy white and at this point I felt like a spittle bug. The spittle bug is a cowardly creature that lives in the center of a glob of what looks exactly like human spit. When I worked on a farm in New York, as I harvested winter savory and chocolate mint, I would occasionally stop to dig out a poindexterous green cretin from his cover of spittle and make him own up to what he was. Cruel, I know — but these are the kinds of horrors I am willing to admit to on my down days.
The spittle bug, shorn of his spittle. Photo by limowreck666, not me.
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I will leave you with a tantalizing tidbit (i.e., go and read the whole thing!) from a delightful post in which a formidable blogger goes up against a subpar rhyme on a baby shower invitation, and wins. Demolishes, even. Her humor is understated and measured — the stuff of good poems, actually.
Leaving aside the important question of whether diapers, while necessary, are likely to fill expectant parents with ‘glee,’ or really be a gift I’d consider ‘from the heart,’ it must be plainly evident that this is dreadful verse.
I know, it’s very hard to actually write good verse. I’m not saying I could do better. (It’s easy to criticize. Fun, too.)
But good people, please.
There’s no way this scans. It is painful to the mind’s ear to try to recite it. It has leaped over my low Doggerel Threshold and into my Verse Hatred Lobby.
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