Meredith knew she had put it off long enough.
She had hemmed.
She had hawed.
She had worked on things that didn’t need working, piddled with things that didn’t need piddling, and dicked with things that didn’t need dicking. She had even scrubbed all the toilets in the house, answered emails that had languished in her inbox for centuries, and finally scheduled the horrid colonoscopy her healthcare plan had been harping about since she hit the big 5-0 a few years ago. Wretched things, indeed. But not as wretched as the dreaded beast that loomed on the horizon, taunting her with impending destruction if she didn’t take matters into hand.
It was time.
Meredith donned the ceremonial battle robes worn by her people since time immemorial, garments designed to invoke the spirit of the Goddess Truculenta, the ancient warrior queen who had been victorious in the Battle of Folklore Heath. She garnished her head with a crown made of BellaDonnaSummer flowers, the petals of which provided a pleasant narcotizing effect should one be felled in a skirmish. She even sang a brief marching tune in the lost language of her people, which was an amazing feat, really, considering both the dialect and anyone who spoke it had been dead since long before Nero played with matches and a fiddle.
Enough of that. Duty called.
Meredith left the sanctimonious warmth of her Reflection Chamber, exited her Fortress of Solitude, plodded across a field of barley (nodding courteously to Sting), navigated the Forest of Confusion with questionable success (“Recalculating!” barked her GPS device, often and with increasing vehemence), and eventually climbed Every Mountain, finally coming to a halt on the rim of the WordPress Volcano.
She took a deep breath, pulled out her laptop, navigated to her blog, took another deep breath, and then switched her settings to the New Block Editor that the WP programmers had been trying to force upon her for months. She then tossed the laptop aside and prepared to leap into the swirling, unknown lava far below.
Her cell phone pinged.
Meredith whipped it out and reviewed a fresh text. Apparently, her colonoscopy had been pushed out a month, due to an unfortunate misunderstanding that required the examining physician to spend a brief sojourn in the county jail. Meredith smiled. There was still time to avoid the inevitable.
She turned and climbed back down Every Mountain and headed to her Fortress, stopping for a bit in the barley field to sing a duet with Sting about the dangers of dicking with things that shouldn’t be dicked with…
Previously published, lightly edited. I plucked this one out of the archives due to an interesting bit of happenstance earlier this evening: First, I was perusing a recent post at “Haoyan Do”, wherein the lovely empress of said blog emporium was reflecting on the fact that she’s a relative newcomer to the WordPress world, and therefore she only knows the Block Editor and not the Classic Editor. This triggered a click in my addled brain that I had a snarky post out there somewhere that whimsically (at least in my mind) dramatized the change from Classic to Block. Perhaps I should reshare? But I had no idea what I had named that post, so I might not be able to find it. I shoved the thought aside.
Mere minutes later, I received a notification that the delightful Ruth at “Silver Screenings” had just left a comment on one of my older “Crusty Pie” posts. I dutifully followed the link and, much to my amazement, said comment was on the very post I had briefly contemplated reposting but had considered the search for such to be too daunting. But now? It was clear that somebody, somewhere was sending me a sign. When the stars align, you have to respect the stars for their choreography.
Cheers.
Categories: Past Imperfect
Bonnywood Manor 
Love this one.
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Thanks, Sadje. I’m still struggling with that dang Block Editor and I have said some very bad words during the experience… 😉
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You’re welcome Brian. I was dreading it that I tried my best to avoid it for a year. But one day they took away all the options of using the classic editor. Now I blog using the “block” but I feel it isn’t that bad.
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This is scanxiety at its very worst. Poor Meredith had probably been dicked one too many times in places that didn’t need dicking ca at ting a long shadow on the halls of the Greek alphabet on fraternity row. What a drama princess. Perhaps if she’d not roofied herself and laid strewn across so many a frat house lawn, especially Pi Pi Pi or Crusty Pi for those non initiates she’d not be so concerned about a routine roto rooting.
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I take it you’re not a fan of Meredith, eh? Understood. But I must admit that I also did a number of things (okay, a LARGE number) that I shouldn’t have done on Fraternity Row. I was looking for validation in all the wrong places, completely unaware that what I considered important at the time would make me cringe in later years. It takes a while to figure out exactly how one should wear a wreath of flowers in their hair, so to speak… 😉
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LOL. “what I considered important at the time would make me cringe in later years”. That’s funny. Me too. And the memory keeps coming back despite the best effort to send it off.
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Yes, those memories do keep coming back. There are so many things I did in my youth that mystify the current me. I don’t know what I was thinking, assuming that I was even thinking at all… 😉
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Apparently the Gods were in your favour this time round. Also in Meredith’s way back when. Don’t you just wish they would back your team for the big events like Texas snow storms?
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Truth be told, I’ve grown rather weary of what the various gods may or may not do in my life, as they’ve proven to be rather erratically whimsical. I’d much prefer that they just leave me to my own devices, even if I don’t know how to use them…. 😉
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And that’s why I am an atheist!
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Loved this! Blast WP’s Block Editor. Grrrrrrrr!! However, I’m finding ways to manipulate around it.
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Thank you. And yes, I’ve learned a few manipulation tricks, although it annoys me that I have to do the tricking in the first place. WordPress should just do what I want it to do and stop turning everything into a relentless drama of hits and misses… 😉
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Meredith (aka Glenda the Very Very Very Good) looked down at her dusty gown. The fashion was so last century and those chain mail insets and sleeves had to go. They caused a lot of unseemly chafing. Meredith/Glenda knew none of this mattered. The world had ended and the sun had gone dark because the WordPress Volcano had begun to spew its latest and most vile yet lava. The stench woke up Zeus, who wasn’t pleased at all, as he’d been dreaming of nymphets running through a field of poppies and singing something about lollipop kids… ♪♫♪
Zeus spied the waffling Meredith/Glenda and sent a big thunderbolt which toppled the unsuspecting woman right into the volcano. The action of sacrificing an innocent woman who had really sketchy taste in clothes, but was a good person at heart reversed all the bad juju that WordPress was spewing, things went back to ‘how they used to be’ which caused a little bit of angst among the few young persons that even knew of WordPress, but a quick bout with Twitter and all was peaceful. And we followed, followed, followed the yellow brick road..
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Perfect! Wait, I’m not so comfortable with the human-sacrifice angle. I’m sure that such activity was fashionable back in the day, what with virgins (as if!) being hurled to their deaths, hither and yon, but it does give me pause. After all, I could easily be Meredith/Glenda. (I have an assortment of chain-mail insets in my closet as we speak.) So I’m not sure that I’m all that appreciative of a violent perishing even if it DID mean that all my blogging friends could eventually find some solace. I’ll have to get back to you on that.
In the interim, I’ll keep following (X3) the yellow brick road and clicking my heels (X3) in the hopes that we all, some day, find our version of Oz…
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Oh, Classic good old days. I, like Suemariestlee, have fought the chameleon mind melding beast that is Block – aptly named, if nothing else. There ain’t no beating it but through desperation born out tears of frustration i find you can wring it, twist it, mangle it to your near broken will at times. Once in a blue moon, every time Halleys comet revisits us, should the stars cosmically, if not colonically align. I had heard, at its highly touted and trumpeted presentation that it was ‘intuitive.’ I’d counter THAT.
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I heard that trumpeting during the extended rollout as well, but there is NOTHING intuitive about the Crock Editor. It was designed by people who have never blogged a single thing in their entire lives. I’m all about change, but only for the better. This never-ending Crock mess is a perfect example of corporate executives having no clue about their (at least in my case) paying constituents. WordPress should be a vacated wasteland at this point but, luckily for those executives, too many of the content providers on WordPress are not willing to give up the network of good friends and good stories that we have developed over the years.
Do I sound bitter? Good. And I would insert a scathing meme at this point in my commentary, but I still haven’t figured out how the hell to do that… 😉
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LOL. “It was designed by people who have never blogged a single thing in their entire lives.” That is so true. And a lot of things are this way. The ones who make decisions are the ones who have no experience of the things they make decisions on.
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And those people making the decisions? They’re usually 12-years-old, still wet from college, and already making more money than I ever dreamed of making…
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that is quite the coincidence; I still have not switched to the Block Editor…
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You still haven’t? Good on you. I willfully avoided it for the longest time, but then one day I woke and the world had changed, with not option to go back, and it hasn’t been as satisfying since… 😉
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I know that will happen some day, but until then, I’ll keep hanging on…
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Serendipitous aligning of stars is always a reason to Happy Dance!💃🏼
I have discovered a silver lining to the dark cloud of horrible memory… I can’t remember the class editor.😆
When I realized that WP was going to launch Blocky McBlockster no matter what, I made the switch. 🤷🏼♀️
I do everything from my android phone anyway, so I’m already having to figure things out on my own. And I don’t use the app, cuz I like to see the pretty stuff on people’s actual sites.
🤐🤐🤐done rambling now😉💕
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Yes, I was dancing rather exuberantly when those stars aligned for this post. Sometimes you get a sign, most of the time you don’t.
And no worries about the rambling. Never fear, your words are always welcome here.
Now, this bit about you using your phone to compose on WordPress? I am in awe. I’ve tried doing that a few times (mostly when I’ve been in Spain, during situations wherein I couldn’t get a wi-fi signal but the phone signal was chirping away). And it made me crazy. Apparently I’m not happy unless I have a full keyboard to bang on and 27 screens open on my laptop so I can manipulate and create my zany stories. I bow down to thee and thy extraordinary phone-manipulation skills… 😉
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I googled “zany” and it really exist. What a wonderful word. LOL. Love your zany stories even though not knowing most of the referenced backgrounds.
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It IS a wonderful word. And it would also make a great first name for a character in one of my stories. It just has a nice ring to it… 😉
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Thank you for the shout out for my blog. LOL. And it is such a doomed image of Meredith. What movie is that? Is she going to be the sacrificial virgin being pushed over the edge of a volcano? In ancient Rome–judging from the style of her garment?
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I was more than happy to mention your blog, as I greatly enjoy what you are doing with your writing. (Even though I don’t comment very often; it’s not disinterest, it’s a lack of time.) The actress in the photo is Carole Lombard, and the movie is the original version of “To Be or Not to Be”. (Mel Brooks made a version in the 80s, though I haven’t seen that one.) I don’t remember why she is wearing that outfit in this scene, but I do remember that I enjoyed the film…
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