Short Subjects II: Growing Up On the Lower East Side of Manhattan

My oldest son is 13. We rode the local bus from our apartment building to his school the other day, and when we got off, he stopped for a moment to read a graffito adorning the scabrous front of a bodega near the bus stop. Someone had left there, written in black magic marker, the bitter missive: "4 AM, no beer. F*** you."

Zach impassively regarded this scribbled outburst for a moment, and then remarked, "Of course, probably the last thing whoever wrote that needed is more beer."

Short Subject. . .

It occurred to me, while taking a morning walk, that if you name a Microsoft Word document "Whats_Up" the resulting filename will be "Whats_Up.Doc."

All the wasted years.