Thursday, August 26, 2021

The trials of a young newspaper copy writer

 


I was a young Clark Kent, working for the Daily Planet, and I found myself butting heads with the Editor-in-Chief, played by my mom. Ok, I wasn't Clark Kent. I was me. And it wasn't the fictional newspaper in the Superman series; it was some local rag. But the part about butting heads with my mom-boss editor is accurate. 

I was writing little stories and articles for the newspaper, and my mom and Greg were my direct supervisors. I kept turning in copy with objectionable content, but I never found out what, exactly, was so objectionable about it. I just kept getting the red-faced, steam coming out of the ears type of response whenever I'd leave a story on their desk for review.

After one such incident, I decided I'd had enough and decided to walk out, but not before telling my mom what I thought of her editorial tyranny. Her already explosive reaction to my work doubled in intensity, and she began screaming at me as I walked out of her office.

She followed me out of the building and down the street, haranguing me the whole way:

"You're an impetuous brat! Listen to me! Come back here, I'm not through abusing you! You don't care who you hurt, do you, with your little stories? Greg and I are the ones who have to cover for you, and it's not easy, let me tell you..." and on and on she went, her frustration with me not diminishing.

She crumpled up a piece of newspaper containing my story and a couple of random advertisements and threw it on the ground angrily. I picked up the paper and tossed it in a wastepaper basket. 

"I may be a lot of things, but at least I'm no litterbug," I told her snarkily.

"LITTERBUG?!!" she seethed indignantly. "I'll show you litterbug," and she stomped off to report my latest transgression to Greg.

Greg was manning the desk back at the newspaper office, dealing with walk-ins, phones and other busy editor-related duties when my mom stormed in. 

"What are we going to do about THIS?" she demanded, throwing down a piece of the newspaper containing my tiny article. Greg looked it over, then at my mom, then finally at me.

"I think we all need to cool down a bit," was his even-handed reply.

They continued their discussion about my foibles as a maverick reporter, and I took my leave. I went to a local research library, a building with many floors and varying levels of security for each department. I was looking for the microfiche machines and the archived newspaper files that might contain older stories I had written. I was going to build a case for my innocence.

Getting past the guards on the floor seemed impossible, so I entered through the children's section on the floor below. The guards on this floor were on break, and I slipped past the turnstile unnoticed. Once inside, I headed straight for the emergency exit in the back and took the stairs up to the next floor.

At that point I got lost, and the hallways and staircases all seemed to turn back on themselves. I never made it to the microfiche department. I ran into random people who would point me in its direction, but their instructions never seemed to pan out, and I kept finding myself in a long narrow hallway with industrially polished linoleum and walls painted a dingy government beige.

----

I woke up bald. Yep. New day, freshly shaved pate. I got tired of sporting the chicken-pecked Q-tip look and decided to return to the more familiar turtle-on-chemo motif. 

Maybe it had to do with the comment in one personal ad response, in which a previously sympathetic respondent turned on a dime upon seeing a picture of my bearded mug. "You are simply too hairy," she said, not mincing any words. 

Or maybe it was the "Old Man" serenade by that kid in San Diego, followed by the chili cheese fries drive-by incident, which has never left my consciousness even months later.

Who knows. Who cares. My cats will still love me.

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I've changed my comments settings to allow for anyone to comment. All comments are welcome, even spineless potshots from anonymous posters. Please, by all means, give me the tongue lashing I so richly deserve. I promise not to hunt you down and melt your keyboard with my plasma cannon. I won't, however, promise not to pout and make that face you can't stand.