The "Oh Crap" button

As soon as I hit the "send" button when I submit a story I get this immediate feeling in my gut that I have just done something horrible, that there is a section in the middle that is totally incomprehensible, nothing more than the deranged ramblings of a maniac. I first dread the phone calls from the editor: "uh, Erik, what is this relentless gibberish in the twelfth through fifteenth grafs all about?"

When the phone remains silent, I almost go into a complete panic: the dread silent treatment. This one was so bad that they are not even going to bother to call for clarification. In fact when I run into my editor downtown, she is going to avert her eyes, pretending to have animated conversations with whoever seems to be near.

What usually happens is a call for a minor clarification, and the incomprehensible gibberish seems to not be there when it appears in the newspaper, although I am not always convinced that it is because they edited it all out in charity. But when I look at the original and compare it, usually it is pretty free of totally incomprehensible gibberish, but there is always that brief panic when I hit "send."

Anyway, send has been sund and all is well. St. Gerome, pray for me, a miserable sender? Sounds fair. Stop me now, before I send again?

Weekend is here! Weekend is here! Any more writing I do in the next two days is for you, dear readers of the blog, and will be strictly for fun and not profit, so until then, go out and do something with your Saturday!