Naturally, I like making the short list. I used to be a full six-foot two-inches in height, but as I've aged, my body has settled like a cake and I can barely stretch myself to this stature today. When I go in for my yearly physical, I do manage to crack a few vertebrae and stretch up to this height. The nurse always tells me, "Great job." She smiles at me, as if I am an old man who has achieved something spectacular just from being alive. She pats me on the back and says, "Follow me into the examination room down the hall." She takes my blood pressure and is astounded to discover that I have the sitting heart rate of a poodle. When the doctor comes into the room, he always looks as me and says, "Oh, it's you again."
Short lists are wonderful because it means that some of my work might see print before my death (which will likely be from rickets or scurvy). I can also inform my wife that my life has not been in vain, and that, someday soon, an editor might affirm that my existence was productive and might even slap a biographical profile in the back of the magazine. My photo might also be included, giving me the opportunity to use a snapshot that is twenty years old.
I'm hoping that more editors will call me this week before vacation and tell me that they are putting me on their "short list."
"Better hurry," I'll tell them. "My cholesterol could go haywire at any time and I might not be here in a few weeks. If you want me to do any revisions, these should be accomplished before I have a stroke."
Editors never take my advice, however. They just keep shortening their lists, and usually I get short-changed off the list entirely.
By then, I'm long gone.
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