Briefly an Amazing Post, Subsequently a Post Ending With a Period

Imagine that just now, in this space, you read a post that was twenty-six words long, and contained words beginning with each letter of the alphabet, in order, from start to finish.

That is what I was going to do, but I couldn’t get beyond “frightening” (which, I realize now, is the word that is responsible for the tragic misspelling of “lightning” that pervades the Internet; no, I am mistaken: those people are typing “lightening” (as in, to make less heavy), and their spell-check isn’t catching an error because that’s totally a word) so instead I just started describing what I was doing.

That other post would have been really awesome, though. It was going to end with “Zod!” (as in “kneel before”) because that is how I was going to feel, had I managed to write that other post: like I had ripped the ceiling off the White House and challenged Superman to come and get some.

Words are funny. Not all words. “Tank” isn’t funny. And that’s kind of funny, because when a comedian is on stage and he’s not doing well, sometimes we say he’s “tanking”. What does that even mean? That he’s doing as badly at stand-up comedy as a tank would do at stand-up comedy? Okay, so there’s some imagery there that might be worth a metaphor, but Jesus! Why not say that he’s “flowerpotting” or “doorknobbing” or “plasma tv-ing”? All of those things are equally as bad at stand-up comedy as a tank. A tank is actually marginally better at stand-up than a doorknob, since at least a tank isn’t afraid to go blue if the situation requires it.

I have to go put the kids to bed now.