An American Nightmare

I had a dream.

It was a dream firmly rooted in the twin American nightmares of being called to testify before a Congressional Hearing and being subjected to the power of suggestion by the media elites (I've been spooked for days by this Onion blurb about Microsoft putting a blue squiggly line underneath every word that might be too difficult for the average reader to comprehend understand get). In the McCarthyesque dream the ten most literate bloggers were subpoenaed to appear before a Senate Select Commerce Committee Hearing looking into the perceived pedantism problem on the Internet. I was the sixth blogger to testify. Here is my recollection of a good portion of my testimony (subject to correction once the Congressional Dream Record is published):


Senator A: Why do you blog. sir?

Me: You look at things that are, and say, "Why?" I look at things that are completely random and say, "Why not?"

Senator A: Why did you name your blog spitoutyourgum?

Me: Because, much to my chagrin, expectorateyourgum had already been trademarked by Major League Baseball.

Senator B: What do you make from your writings?

Me: Make, sir?

Senator B: Get, what do you get from your writing efforts?

Me: Same as any writer, I guess. Headaches, paranoia, guilt, a profound yen to chuck it all and move to Zaire. And viruses, a lot of them.

Senator A: Do you know the definition of the word "arcane"?

Me (chuckling): Yeah, the family has a lot of "buffers."

Senator A: I'm sorry, I didn't catch that.

Me: My point, exactly.

Senator B: Moving along, sir. Is it not true that at your place of employment, your so-called "day job," you have unlimited access to dictionaries of obscure and obsolete words?

Me: Not anymore, sir. See my previous post.

Senator A (gavel gavel): We'll have none of your shameless plugs here, sir. Have you no sense of decency?

Me: I'm a blogger, Senator. Nothing shameless about me. I have oodles of shame.

Senator B: What is the aim of your blog?

Me: Somewhere between the middle brow and the slapped knee, sir. On a good day, I'm 50-50.

Senator A (looking through a stack of papers): Am I correct that you once took an entire blog post--and the resultant precious cyber-bodily bandwidth it takes to archive it--to expound on the word desuetude?

Me: That's pronounced des-wi-tood, Senator. Sue's not involved in that word at all, and she resents the insinuation. Anyway, yes, but I don't use that word anymore; in my lexicon it's fallen into desue-- ah, I no longer employ that word. Budget cutbacks and all.

Senator B: What in the hell are you talking about?

Me: Oh, I'm sorry, Senator. Aren't you familiar with that term, "budget cutbacks"? Would you like me to define it for you?

Senator B: Who do you think you are?

Me: Pertaining to that specific question, the counsel in my head advises me that I should respectfully invoke my Constitutional right to take the fifth.

Here the dream suddenly shifted to a liquor store setting where I was buying a bottle of Absolut from a bikini-clad Sigourney Weaver and discussing the word putsch with the ghost of Charlie Weaver. I'll keep the rest of the details to myself. I guess I should stop eating a box of Girl Scout cookies before my mid-morning naps.