Six Words Worth Six Hundred

by Jody Worsham
All rights reserved to buy paper and pencil

There is a contest currently running in the AARP magazine (aarp.org/sixwordmemoirs that asks you to write the biggest mistake in your life in six words or less. If your six words are selected, you win a t-shirt with your words on it and you are published in their newspaper. I guess the AARP magazine, writing primarily for senior citizens, figures that six words is about as long as our attention span is for reading. Or else, if they didn't limit the words, we have lived so long and made so many mistakes that "War and Peace" would look like a mini novel compared to what we could write.

At any rate, I gave it a shot.
My biggest mistakes in 6 words or less.


Met your mom.
Your wife?
Oops!

Friday’s funeral,
Thursday’s beans
Pardon me!

Graduation
Lost one shoe
Limping diploma

Dress size 6
Body size 16.

Then I got to thinking about some of my postings. What if I reduced them to six words?

"Back to the Future...and It's Scary! becomes:

Kindergarten substitute
Smart Board, Dumb Sub!

"I've got Stats" becomes
Stats? Rats!
No one there (sigh)

Nah, economy of words is over rated!!