Writer's Notebook

The three words to be used this week: ribbon, zeal, jolt

Dear Friends and Readers,

This is the first time I am exercising my creative abilities to write a piece here. Indeed, when my father asked me to write in his place, I spent ten minutes protesting.

"I can't write. I've never written anything creative in all my life. How can I even begin to do you justice?"

These and other excuses only provoked a wry smile from my father. But he waited patiently until I'd finished, before opening a draw to his desk and pulling out a wad of papers, I soon recognised. How on earth had Father come by them?

"These, young gentleman, are some of the most creative pieces of writing I've ever been witness to. But one thing you should remember. Parents who write excuse notes for the children, never look for such elaborate reasons. They stick with the plain and simple: 'Please excuse Ian's absence from class yesterday, as he was in bed all day with a temperature.' They are far more believable."

I reddened and as my excuses had run out, I acquiesced

As you have probably guessed by now, I am writing to excuse my father who is incapacitated and thus unable to fulfil his obligations towards you this week. I'm afraid he is unable to use the fingers of both his hands due to a sickness contracted whilst playing the piano, last night. It seems as if the dog we were looking after licked most of the keys on the piano during his stay and has since had to be put down after contracting a fearsome virus. Fortunately, such drastic measures will not be necessary for my Dad but he will be out of action for the next few days.

In addition, our home computer has been taken ill. It seems serious surgery is required on what in human body terms would be called the heart. Such surgery is a delicate matter and although we have been able to call upon one of the country's greatest blue-ribbon computer surgeons, it will take quite some time before Compy (that's our pet name for her) will be back to normal.

And finally, I should mention the pressure of seeing work build up as a concluding factor. Dad's desk has become such a mess as paper piles rise, fall and automatically create new piles which themselves follow a similar pattern. And I'm only talking about urgent items. Anything else finds it way into the paper bin without passing by his desk. You can imagine for yourselves how totally depressing this must be. As a result the jolt needed to get Dad going again is sorely lacking.

If you think this concourse of circumstances goes too far, then please accept my humblest apologies for the zeal I have shown in excusing my father. All you have to do is to delete one or more of the above arguments, as appropriate.

Sincerely,

S.(on)O.(f)P.(aul) CHARLATAN Esq.

P.S. I almost forgot to say that in case you are wondering how I have access to the broken down computer, that I am writing this post from a terminal in our public library.