Ruse You Can Bruise for 2003 August 13

"Brendan Brendan Brendan! Wake up!"

"Bah! I was having a dream about having a dream! What do you want?"

It was Bob, Leonard's idea man. It had been exactly one year since the last time he made an appearance at Crummy, and he was bound to have some wacky new scheme boiling over in his head.

"Are you ready? Are you ready? Okay, you may want to pop some St. John's Wort or something first, calm your nerves. Here it goes. You should write a short story about 'Jake Berendes West Covina!'"

"So... a metastory, basically."

"Exactly!"

I couldn't help but sigh. "Bob, meta is so done. Meta is so last Saturday. Meta is played. No, meta is metaplayed."

I could tell by the injured silence from my cell phone's earpiece that I'd hurt his feelings. I silently reprimanded myself. I knew better than that; marketing people have to be let down gently, like kittens.

"Well... look, Bob, don't you have anything else? Maybe a collectible card game of Guess the Verb? Or The Eater of Meaning, this time with a non-gluten eating option?"

"The metastory was my first idea this month," Bob sniffed. "But it was so captivating I didn't bother to come up with any more... well, except one."

"What's that?"

"Oh, I just thought maybe you could post that graphic novel adaptation of '... West Covina' you're always talking about. You know, just whatever you've got so far."

"Will the first five pages assuage your wounded heart?"

"I guess I can at least make some banner ads out of it."

"Consider it done, Bob. Consider it done."