This Is Not What I Intended to Write

I attempted to write two or three different blog posts yesterday and didn't get more than a few sentences into any of them before deleting.  I was thinking of just posting "I got nothin' for ya" and being done with it, when I remembered this little piece.

I wrote it in high school -- in 1983, folks -- where it was published in our school literary magazine. Its title:

THIS IS NOT WHAT I INTENDED TO WRITE

"I think I have to go write now," I said, excusing myself with the best -- oh the very bestest -- of intentions.

Clever notions spilled out of my favorite pen and danced across the page -- but no Swan Lake, this -- more like the Disco Duck with a sore foot.  My bright idea went jump, jump, jump down the paper giggling, "Here I am! Here I am!"

"Come back here, you little rascal!" I growled, one hand swooping like a bird of prey. But it wriggled away, clambering up the bookshelves, the little son-of-a --

My initiative squealed, making a break across the desk, and belly-flopped over the edge.  My pen pursued my patience, but it was running along the arm of the turntable, and when it fell, the speed of the record spun it off against the wall. It made an interesting drip on the wallpaper, and my good-will went down for the third time in my orange juice with a piteous gurgle.

Dejected, beaten, a tad perturbed, I drooped my head toward the desk.  There -- lo and behold -- I discovered my opening line sitting splat at the head of the paper, sticking its tongue out at me.  I lunged for the vile little creature, and my pen flipped backwards over my fingers and into the air.

It couldn't have come down yet, because I haven't found it.