I fear I have painted myself into a corner. Friday has come and gone, as it so often does, leaving in its wake the apprehension that comes from knowing how these things play out. Saturday followed, then Sunday, and here it's Monday already and all I can think about is Friday. The thing is, you can't have more than seven umpteenths in a month, which leaves me in a bit of a pickle when Friday rolls around. Not that I mind sitting in a corner waiting for the paint to dry; I have plenty of food, because if there's one thing I never get tired of, it's pickles. Sometimes I get tired of motorcycles, but that's Arlo's song, not mine.
When you think about it, you can't put an ump where a 20 used to be and call it a day. I didn't think about it, but I can tell you that I would have done things differently if I had. Friday the umpth is about as rational as ump divided by zero, and rationality is too important to be thrown into the compost with the roots of negative attention.
No matter how much paint I use, my calendar just gets more and more messed up. Duty in the face of dereliction is one thing, but there's a fine line between stubbornness and tenacity, an even finer line between truth and fiction, and a teensy weensy line on the refrigerator where my calendar used to be. I have plenty of turpentine, so I'm not worried about that.
I love this concept of the seven umpteenths in a month. Could we use "umpteenth" as a unit of time like "fortnight"? (By the way, "fortnight" has an etymologically invisible "teen" in the middle.) For example, "Where will I be vacationing? In Ft. Lauderdale, for the umpteenth time." That would mean beach combing from the 13th through the 19th.
ReplyDeleteI think it's time to run the idea up the flagpole. If no one salutes, it's because everyone is at the beach looking for their combs. Unkempt is no way to face the music, especially when it's coming from a flagpole.
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