ASSIGNMENT
Write a 12- to 16-line introduction and 12 months of traditional verse about beautifully photographed cats that aren’t doing anything.
Your promotion depends on it.
There have always been Hallmark writers who craft flawless, natural-sounding, perfectly metered verse. I was never one of them.
So knowing my promotion from Writer I to Writer II depended on this calendar stressed me out more than any assignment I’d tackled yet. Imagine me sitting in my booth with a thesaurus, rhyming dictionary, and Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats for inspo, tapping my fingers on the desk to check my meter.
The weekend before my deadline, I fled the office in search of a distraction. I found it at ComedySportz.
I came back to work, finished the calendar, and got the promotion.
TRISH BERRONG 