I had one of those great hour-long lunch breaks where I completed several errands. Normally I spend the hour at the gym, but every now and then the tasks pile up and I have to handle ’em all. One thing struck me funny. I went to the mall to get my watch battery replaced. I think that’s the only time I go to the mall, because there’s a kiosk that specializes in watch repairs. I turned in my watch and the woman working there said, “Come back in 10 minutes.” It occurred to me to ask her how I was supposed to know when that was, seeing as how she was now in temporary custody of my watch. Of course, my cell phone has a clock on it, but how was she to know that I had one?
Down to 3150 words on the short story. The goal is within sight. If I had one of those word-count meters for the week’s work, everything after Monday would be in the negative territory. That’s not a bad thing. Zero would be bad, but negative word counts represent real work, perhaps the hardest work in writing: Editing.
So, who’s that handsome devil, you might ask? The immediate thought that comes to mind is Columbo, Peter Falk’s iconic TV character. However, that image is of his character Lou Peckinpaugh from the satirical noir film The Cheap Detective. Peter Falk died today at the age of 83. I think I’ve seen every Columbo episode five times, at least, and I could watch them all again at the drop of a hat. Maybe now that we have the Sleuth channel again they will pop up in the near future. I read his autobiography several years ago and thought that he’d be a delightful person to have a long evening dinner with.
