October 16, 2002

Today is the day to be ashamed of yourselves, all of you.

Hey, do me a favor and let's all pretend the the constantly fluctuating length of the entries of this serial story is due to my love of variety, and not because I sometimes leave it until the last possible minute before I have to leave for work.

23

"So," said George, during mouthfuls of dinner which he, in his opinion, charitably choked down, "What's new with you two?"

"Well, like we said," said his mother, getting a bit testy, "We were going to go on a cruise today until you visited."

Barry patted her on the arm nervously; he didn't like strife. "Now now, honey, we have a lot of other stuff going on."

"Oh yeah?" George replied, feigning disinterest. "Like what? Arthritis?"

"Well, as you may know, we've been doing a little bit of writing ourselves! Seems like maybe we had genes for it that we passed on to you, and we just didn't know it!"

George shuddered at the thought of his parents somehow being responsible for his writing genius. He'd rather inherit hemophilia than any of their 'creative talents.' One look at his mother's hideous hand-painted Precious Moment knockoff figurines confirmed that as far as he knew, his parents had no talent at all, except for creating talented progeny.

Of course, as was the case with Prof. Geflen, talent seemed to have nothing to do with it.

"Oh yeah?" George forcefully pitched his voice so high with false interest that he sounded like he was 12. "Like what?"

"Well," said his father, "I got a piece in the opinion section of the Cherokee Circle Bugle!"

Cherokee Circle was the condo complex where George's parents lived. George breathed a sigh of relief.

"And," Barry continued, "My neighbor, Joe Janes, he liked it so much, he's going to have me write a piece for the Herald!"

George cringed. The Herald wasn't much more than the CCB in terms of writing talent, but it did have a much higher circulation rate.

"And I got a story into Reader's Digest!" said Ester so excitedly that Barry, proud of his wife, leaned over and gave his wife a kiss.

George's eyes rolled so hard they hurt.