I Know You Are Out There

Maybe I'm new to this old blogging thang. Well, it's been more than a year and I just kicked in the Google analytics tool three days ago. In those three days I have tracked 35 whopping Absolute Unique Visitors! I think I can identify about 34 of you, but who is the mysterious 35th visitor? Come on, out with it.

I know it is you, Shuffles. I can just see you hunched over a dusty laptop with stained keyboard, sipping a cup of Chamomile tea purchased in the Stop 'n' Shop bargains aisle. A withered cat is twining around your unshaved ankles, and the smell of burnt broccoli is in the air. The bills are piling up in the broken-down oven, and I believe those are old love letters crowding the dishrack. You might want to check your porch, too. There's a package there containing a creepy owl-eyed doll that you got for a steal on eBay. (I would recommend returning said doll, because there is a curse attached. Don't say I didn't warn you, Shuffles.)

Also housed on your laptop is the unfinished novel, all 46 pages of it, about love, love, love. Love that you made. Love that you spurned. About your love of an old collie dog named Shep, who died peacefully one night by the fire in your childhood home. And your rather unconventional love of socks, and your never-ending quest to find the perfect sock that doesn't sag and bunch around your unshaved ankles. I think you have ankles that are quite fine, Shuffles, and they should never be encased in socks. Never! Some women have frightful ankles, but yours are nothing of which to be ashamed. I too have decent ankles, even during pregnancy. In that we are kin.

Shuffles, come clean. I know that you are reading my blog. You are Unique Visitor # 35. Please give me some comment love, Shuffles. I won't turn it aside, like that poltroon Tommy McBiggers did back in high school. I won't toss the processed tater tots at you like the rotten Heathers did in the lunchroom on that long-ago day when you were a mere Freshman with pie-crust teeth just begging for braces to tame them. Nolan Krinick, the evil dentist, fixed all that, didn't he? And then you entered your "roller coaster of slutdom" phase. Oh, but we won't discuss that further. Unless the comments are not forthcoming. Yes, I can be cruel.

When I drag my garbage to the street tonight, I will think of you. Maybe you will be watching from your porch, wondering if I ever used all of the Saffron. I did not. I have extra. I have enough for the whole durned block! Watch me make a cous-cous that will knock your socks off, revealing your unshaved (but well-defined) ankles.

Oh Shuffles, when the snow falls, will you still be there watching, even though we have departed? Just one comment and I will know that Unique Visitor # 35 is not but a hiccup in the Google Analytics architecture.