Jumping on the bar top in my platform shoes,

Jumping on the bar top in my platform shoes, I realized I was a different person than I thought I was.

Long auburn hair when i thought I had a buzz cut. Washboard abs when last I checked I had a beer belly. Even my voice was different- higher pitched and tremulous.

I looked out to see if anyone else had noticed the difference but everyone else seemed to be along with their day like nothing had changed. How had this happened to me?

It was a Kafka nightmare! Except I didnt wake up discovering I had become a cockroach, no it was much worse. I couldnt even say the words, literally, I could not say "the words"

I woke my grandmother and shouted "I cannot say...certain words." My grandmother asked "What are the words you can't say?" With her letter opener, I carved "the words" into my fore

fathers' desktop. It was harder than I thought it would be. Hours later I was still whittling away at "the words" and Grandma was outside honking the car horn. " Hurry! I can't mis

-s Monty Hall's funeral! I'm gonna take what's in box #3!" "But Grandma!" I yelled out the window, "I'm in the middle of writing!" Suddenly a cinderblock came through the window

with a note attached to it. "U suck - Love, Gramma" I smiled and sent a reply through messenger pigeon. It read "Can't talk. Folding stories. Love you too". I cracked my fingers

I told her and she looked confused. But she was almost 90 so I understood. Back in her youth nobody abbreviated things because everyone was well educated. My generation ate words.