Everyday I wake up and notice the air I breathe. Will smiles. Of course we notice the air - should we be relieved that we're not underwater? The point of the laughter here is how automatically we can lapse into the trite and the repetitious. Seems that gathering the details for my 1st 2nd base finds Will doing just a tad of phoning in this story. Seventh grade - Dolores Raddick - what else do we need to know? Then Will remembers "Maggot and the Chrome Peignoir" - he wrote it after coming up with the title first, so here it is - 1st 2nd base. The difference is that's more of a big picture title conceived in haste and certain to elicit yawns. So Will pulls the paper out of his Remington sitting on the dresser where he stands in front of in his boxers and types the words we so love here (ED. NOTE: plagiarized from Hemingway & Gelhorn and untrue). He rolls in a new page and begins:

Harold was a falsie made of foam rubber and lived in the top drawer of Martha's dresser. Harold never knew if he'd be spending the whole day in the drawer or if it would be one of the days when Martha put him inside her B cup bra and went out on a date with Freddie. It was fun for Harold to get out in the world but eventually Freddie would squeeze Harold unknowingly as he and Martha made out. Then it was back into the drawer for who knows how long. Harold would dream often of becoming something more than a falsie and one day it happened. Martha and Freddie were finishing a Chinese meal and Freddie read his fortune right out of his cookie. "What is now false will become true love" and in a flash, Harold was a teenage boy standing on the stairs with a girl named Margaret whose pale yellow blouse was becoming more and more wrinkled thanks to Harold's recently discovered hands which were holding her arms but veering ever so slightly in the direction of her ample bosom. BOOM! Love ensues. Teenage love which is lust wrapped in faux promises. So what? Harold personifies and lives happily ever after. Falsie no more - Cue the wedding bells.

Will winces, shakes his head and logs off. A writer's task is never an easy one . . . . . . .unless you're just foolin' around.