Writing on writing: A short short

Writing on Writing

  When I took driver's ed, it was held at a near-by college campus. The driver's ed simulation room was near-by the freshman English composition classroom. On a bulletin board between the two rooms, students' one, two or three sentence works were posted. Some were amusing; some were "meh"; I assume for the sake of argument, some were horrible, but I can't remember any of those.
The one that I remember all these years down read like this: "A guy asked me for an aspirin. I gave him a Mydol."


My short short for this post is in the picture at left, transcribed below:

Some students, unwilling to revise their writing, seem to imagine themselves as some kind of Pontius Pilate of composition saying, “What I have written, I have written.” (cf. John 19:22)

a table not next to the wood stove

I just posted a lie as a comment at a friend's posting request. He asked his Facebook friends to lie about how they met him. I am (much) more pleased with my lie than it deserves, so I thought I might inflict it on you as well--a kind of a "short-short" story. (You may hear an imperfect echo of a Marty Robbins song.)

We met...

Down in the West Texas town of El Paso, where I was drinking a Dr. Pepper.

You sat at a table placed next to the wood stove, and asked, "What do you think on a day like today?"

Thinking that this was the espionage pass phrase

I had been waiting for I answered thus, "Like the tide when the moon is leaving the seaside, your hair line, though dark is receding."

You started to jump up in umbrage proclaiming, "That is the rudest thing I've heard all day!"

Apprehending your meaning was not based in spying,

I tried to leave quietly, out the back door.

The waitress, though cute, had no patience with vagrants however they looked.

She brought a bouncer, bounced me back to the cashier. I was embarrassed and red.

This was not the unobtrusive meeting my handler had said.

And you were astonied, as they tossed me out, muttering, "I just bet he listens to old rock and roll five times a week if not daily!

We never saw each other again until, ironically, I was checking meal tickets and collecting lunch money at the serving line entrance in an El Cajon campus. Mostly unobtrusively, but without any espionage to keep me warm.