There I was, minding my own business, being a good boy, and then this had to happen. 

I’d assembled all the sacred accoutrements: a legal pad, some number-two pencils sharpened to bodkin acuity, a mugful of steaming black coffee, just strong enough that if you stuck a spoon into it, it would stand there like the improvised flagpole that set the stars and stripes waving over Mt. Suribachi. 

I was all set to launch into editing -- admittedly not my favorite part of the process -- and suddenly, as if they belonged to someone else, my fingers began to cha-cha over the keys in unfamiliar ways. Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap… 

I read it as I typed it. 

Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap… 

"Hey, wait a fucking minute, I said, "this doesn’t have anything to with the story we’re supposed to be working on.” 

Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap… “Fuck you,” my fingers seem to say, giggling like a gang of precociously devious toddlers as they had their way with me. 

In the words of jolly old St. Mick, “You can’t always get…”

-30-