I don’t really know if I’m popular. I’d like to think so.
But now I feel obligated to let everyone who reads my stuff know how stupid I am!
For over four years running, my article The ‘P’ Word has been drawing in readers from across the globe.
Sometimes when I publish a truly dazzling bit of satire like Putin’s War on America’s Christmas, the hyperbolic U.S. Blames Northern Lights on Russia, Imposes Sanctions, the ridiculous Exploding Hockey Pucks Intercepted at Canadian Border, the surreal Deep-State Doppelgängers, the jeering Trump Makes Russian the Official Language of the U.S. or even the weird, controversial Dachau World — a real solid performer in its own right — The ‘P’ Word gets bumped from the top spot. But in terms of rock-steady service over the long haul, there’s no contest. This bit of writing delivers a steady stream of adoring fans.
Or so I thought.
Just looking superficially at the numbers would suggest that.
I have an analytic tool installed here on my website. It tells me a lot of things: How many visitors I get, how many are returning, how many are new, what part of the world they hail from, and so on. Here is a typical daily readout on the most popular of my articles.
Being the ego-inflated person I am, I just assumed that it was the sheer brilliance of my writing, especially apparent in The ‘P’ Word — written back in 2013 when my brain was still functioning optimally — which accounted for the popularity of the article and the resulting spectacular increase in my fan base across all continents.
Then one day recently I made a shocking discovery. Hope you’re sitting down for this.
I found out that the phrase ‘the P word’ is a euphemism for ‘pussy’. In other words, the strict rules of contemporary journalism — which as we all know as a profession holds itself to the highest standards of respect for readers, accuracy in reporting, integrity in offering the best the human mind is capable of — based on some arcane but nevertheless ironclad internal protocols, require this substitution.
Yes, the officially sanctioned way to refer to ‘pussy’ is to substitute the phrase ‘the P word’.
I was devastated!
And do I feel stupid!
All this time, I thought it was the poetic wisdom, the graceful prose, the wit, the profundity and humor, the finely-crafted language, which drew so many flocking to my site to read The ‘P’ Word.
But no! These people are just cat lovers!
