Es Lebe Das Word Reich!

 Okay, so my ears are hot. No, really, like red hot. If you cracked an egg and let it ooze into my ear, you would get a nice, waxy omelette. I may have mentioned, or you may have gleaned that I'm a writer (imagine that!) As such, I have been blessed be-knighted with an awesome job doing what I love to do...  writing.

 "What a fortuitous turn of events!" you might say; and you'd be right.
 "What an unholy pain in the ass!" you might say; and you'd also be right.

 Every professional scribe has to do one thing that is the bane of professional scribes:
submit their work for approval.

 Hey! Where are you going!? I know it's scary, but come back here! I didn't say you had to submit your work for approval! Relax, I know how frightening that phrase can be.

 So I do this. This whole "submission" thing (and I might add that it's an apt word for the action), and for the first time ever, a fistful of assignments comes back. I was floored. I know, I know, "first world problems" but hear me out. I wasn't floored because the assignments came back, I (as any wordsmith should) accept this as an occasional inevitability. I found myself prostrate and cooling my countenance on the oak slats in my living room because the "edits" and "changes" and "suggestions" were what I can only describe as rife with typographical, grammatical, and mechanical errors. There was a sea of what in earlier days would have been red ink. A cruel, wild, untamed sea full of retarded dolphins and three-legged sharks. It was awful. I fell apart like a leper with epilepsy.

 After a fair bit of stomping, swearing, and pulling my hair out, not to mention a shot of Jack Daniels walk around the block, I calmed down, and began examining the "changes" that the other "writer" recommended. Through tears, and bloodshot eyes, I accepted them, or at least their spirit. I know edits and changes will, on occasion, be necessary. It just comes with the territory. What I will not abide, is someone submitting changes that require me to put my name on a piece that appears to have been written by a four year old, or worse, that new cancer-causing agent, Newt Gingrich (I know he's irrelevant, but I can't pass up a cheap shot at someone who so concretely epitomizes failure and hypocrisy).

 The moral, if there is one, is this:

 There will be times when you have to bend and compromise what you do, especially if you're doing it for approval by a third party, but never, ever compromise who you are. There's always something in between, and part of who I am is a card carrying member of the Word Reich.