His stern talking-to had me shaking all the way down to to bottom of my brand new patent leather Oxford shoes. My button down shirt was soaked all the way down to the tip of my tie with my tears by the time the judge had finished with me. I resolved to do better and to speak proper English if it killed me. I even went so far as to plan to use my hard earned comic book money to buy a dictionary.

Unfortunately, my youthful inexperience, greed, and a limited budget lured me into yet another serious mistake. I spotted an old unabridged dictionary in a yard sale. Right next to it was a first edition comic in practically mint condition. Its owner obviously had no idea of its true worth. Even someone as impoverished as I was, could afford to purchase both that antiquated dictionary and the comic. I figured that I could sell the comic for enough to afford a brand new modern dictionary and then never open the old one.

My plan worked perfectly. I even managed to afford a matched set of a dictionary and thesaurus. Then curiosity raised its ugly head. I began to wonder what strange and wondrous words were in the unabridged version.

My English teacher was aghast when she heard me use the phrase: “Everything is copacetic.” in response to a fellow student’s inquiry as to how I was doing. She was absolutely certain that I was doomed to a life of crime. She warned me of the terrible life I was doomed to live if I became a writer; the long hours, the constant rejections, the irregular cash flow.

She did her best to prevent it by constantly correcting my pronunciation, and grilling me endlessly on the proper use of pronouns and adverbs. She even went so far as to mark up every single misuse of language or punctuation in red ink, on every one of the assignments that I turned into her.

None the less, I was determined to become a writer. I started churning out stories in my spare time, begging stamps and envelopes from my friends and family. The rejections started flooding in. My friends abandoned me when they saw the depths of depravity that I was reaching; begging someone, anyone, to read my stories. I was even beaten when someone found out that one of the characters in a story that I had written bore a remarkable similarity to my best friend.

My family refused to abandon me; telling anyone who would listen that I was merely ill, and would soon recover, holding down a steady job and bringing in a regular paycheck. I did indeed manage to land a steady job, but soon lost it; missing work by being drunk on the throes of creation.

And now here I am, sinking further and further into the depths of depravity. Anyone care to read a nice book of poetry that I have just written?