The rats have fled, now it's MY turn.........

It was only a matter of time. I returned from vacation to the offices of "Dances with Leaves" to be greeted by my dimwitted staff, stupid grins on their faces, an air of smug satisfaction hanging like some pungent odor I couldn't quite identify.

"Ok, guys, spill it. What's this thing you seem to be just dying to tell me?" I glanced at Me who glanced at myself who pulled the object from behind his back and set it on the desk in front of me. "We did it, boss, we finally won an award!"

I'm staring at this....this....THING, which resembles a clear plastic question mark (it was obvious as hell it wasn't made out of rare lead crystal) glued badly to a cheap wood base. "Award? Award for WHAT? That looks like something I don't think I want to win, not by a long shot."

Me grabs the "award" and peers closely at the base where some sliver of paper was glued to the front of the base and reads it to me. "For outstanding Mediocrity in Blogging", he read aloud, a puzzled look on his face. "Mediocrity......that's a good thing, right? I mean, it says "outstanding", so it's gotta be good, huh?"

I'm staring at my writing staff and suddenly realizing that the sum could actually be superior to the parts, who individually didn't seem to be operating on a full tank. Proof of that was this blow to my ego that these clowns were assuming was some form of praise from our peers. It was anything but.

Myself had a pained look on his face which seemed to indicate that he was perhaps the more observant of the three. I was simply non-committal, waiting to see how the boss was going to take the news, which by now he appeared to understand wasn't going to be in a good way.

"Well, guys", I said, the resignation in my voice quite thick, "I guess I only have myself to blame, me to take the fall, and I to cry in my beer. You are all three the worst staff I have ever had the misfortune to hire. Thanks to you, this blog has gone from an average 8 responses to two if I'm lucky. According to blogshares, we owe THEM money. Clear out your space and get the hell out of my head! You're FIRED!"

And with that, they were gone. I was alone with my thoughts, which were lonely thoughts indeed. All the grand plans I had for this blog were sitting in the corner gathering dust, and I truly had no back-up plan to fall back on. So, what do I do now? Already it seemed like half of my peers were taking extended vacations or outright quitting blogging altogether, shrinking the universe I had become accustomed to dramatically. It was like some sort of black hole of indifference was sucking the life out of everything I held dear.

That's when the neon sign which spelled EPIPHANY went on over my head. I was never happy with simple light-bulbs. Neon expressed ideas MUCH better. I reached over and grabbed the phone and hit the speed dial number to the guru who gave advice to the television networks.....NBC, CBS, ABC, eyi eyi oh.

"Freakin' Genius here! What can I do for ya, my man?" "Hey numbnuts, how's it going?", I replied. "Look, I'm stuck in a rut over here at "Dances" and I was wondering if you could lay some quality advice on me? How do the networks stay on the air year after year despite short seasons, constant reruns, and copy-cat writing?"

"Well, there you have it, you answered your own question, bub!" And he hung up. I stare at the phone in amazement and the neon sign shatters into a hundred pieces of imaginary glass over my head. "Well I'll be damned, he's right! It's obvious as HELL! All I have to do is take a nice long posting vacation and simply fill in the space with RERUNS! THAT'S IT! "THE BEST OF THE MICHAEL"!" Hell, half my audience hasn't bothered to scroll back into the archives, so it will seem to be perfectly new material to them, so who's to even know? Those guys really ARE friggin' geniuses!

And so, with a renewed sense of purpose, I quickly typed up something to occupy the few remaining souls who visited my blog and budgeted some time to go back and review some of the old material to reuse, recycle, regurgitate, whatever it took to not have to actually try and come up with something entertaining OR informative. I mean, my life had gotten so stale, so uninteresting, it could only be considered an act of kindness to spare my audience any more of it, for awhile at least.

Boy, imagine their overwhelming excitement when I eventually get around to writing an ALL NEW EPISODE! He he. And to think I used to hate that term with a passion...........