Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Scribbles and Scrambles - Oh Fabio-ulous

Sometimes situations get out of hand. Simple little oops and comments get blown into gigantic proportions and then they are committed to memories of those who like to remind you of the time…

A simple typo can turn a professional sounding typed minutes into… well…inappropriately amusing. Such as was just pointed out to me – the keeper and typer of the minutes -- after I dispensed the copies to the proper parties.

This underscores the importance of proofreading and editing because spell check doesn’t have issues with those of us who add another “s” to as.

One Christmas during our Christmas celebration at church a young lady read an engaging story. She did a great job until she misread shiny axes. Oh yes. Every Christmas since, some twisted individual has to mention shiny a - - es.

Another such situation arrived on my doorstep last Wednesday.

A couple of years ago I wanted to cheer someone up. So I wrote a little story.

The story required a bronzed and muscled hero to come to the aid of a diminished damsel. What does one call a hero in a humorized version of a white knight tale? Why, Fabio, of course. I suppose this name is copyrighted but at the time this little ha-ha moment wasn’t for mass consumption, just for a friend who needed chocolate and had already gone through all she had in the house. E-mail was her only hope of sanity. I had to work fast.

Since then, said friend asks for a Fabio installment whenever disaster strikes. She’s a writer. Can you imagine how often she faces serious rejection? Yeah. Our story is ten plus chapters and gets pretty complex at times. We’ve covered conferences, jealousy, Raoul the agent, rejection, rejection and rejection.

Said friend came to visit Wednesday. We heard a knock on the door and went to answer it. There, on the porch, a life-size, shirtless, smiled a sweaty cardboard Fabio in all his glory. A chorus of giggles came from the side of the house.

What would you do with a life-size sweaty Fabio?

He’s been on a few field trips this week.

Though not sturdy enough to hold clothes he does come in handy while beading necklaces and bracelets. We’ve christened a new family member Fabio Jr or Mini-Fabio. Twice he has startled a few half-asleep visitors. But now he just stands guard.

We do have a softball game tomorrow night. He’d probably make a great umpire.