1. I’ve been busy at work. I know everyone always says that, but my job is really challenging. Performing brain surgery while rescuing kittens from burning buildings is harder than it sounds.
2. I was abducted by aliens. Really boring aliens. I kept waiting for them to do something interesting enough for me to write about, but they just kept droning on and on about glorfball, which apparently is a very popular sport on their planet.
3. I sold a short story to a magazine and got hit with a case of rebound writer’s block.
4. My intern quit and it took me two months to figure out how to work the keyboard.
5. The intern who quit had secretly outsourced his job to a group of monkeys living in my basement and banging randomly on typewriter keys. It took me a while to find new homes for them.
6. When I first went down to the basement to check on the monkeys, I slipped on a banana peel. I managed to catch myself before I fell, but then I realized we were almost out of bananas, so I went to the local banana emporium. On my way home, I was in a car accident. It was just a fender-bender, but the bananas were crushed, so I had to bake some emergency banana bread. While reaching to get my banana bread cookbook from the top shelf, I lost my balance and fell. I landed on my head and got the kind of amnesia where you remember everything else but forget that you have a blog.
7. With the intern and monkeys gone, I decided to try Blog-O-Matic Content Generator 2.0. Big mistake. It kept crashing my system and would only generate shopping lists.
8. I called the Blog-O-Matic customer support line six weeks ago. I’m still on hold. After the first hour, I started counting how many times their on-hold music repeated itself. When I got to 50,000, I hung up and reinstalled my operating system.
Oh, and if you think hanging up means I’m no longer on hold, you’ve probably never listened to the same on-hold music loop 50,000 times in a row. It changes you. I’ll be on hold, hearing that music in my head and half-expecting a Blog-O-Matic customer support representative to appear at any moment, for the rest of my life.
9. When I reinstalled my operating system, I lost all my saved passwords.
10. My dog ate it.
To celebrate my return to blogging, I’m holding a contest. The first three thousand people to comment on this post will each receive a free pre-owned typewriter! Each one comes with its own unique collection of stains and odors.
Unlikely Explanations 
Emergency banana bread is the best excuse ever.
Also, the dry cleaner called and your brain surgeon firefighter cape is ready for pick up.
Thanks! I don’t know why they insist on making those capes out of fabric that’s impervious to fire and bodily fluids but that can’t stand up to water and laundry detergent.
Your new gravatar is fabtastic.
I kinda want number six to really happen to me. Well, mostly the part about forgetting I have a blog.
Are you sure you want the amnesia? Wouldn’t you rather have some nice banana bread instead?
You’re slipping. I didn’t start laughing out loud (literally) until #8.
(I can really use that pre-owned typewriter. Do I have a choice of stains and odors?)
Don’t look a gift typewriter in the mouth, Gail. Wait — do typewriters have mouths? I think I may have accidentally sent you a monkey instead.
Oooh! Rosie, we’re getting a monkey! Wait, do monkeys like rawhide bones and squeak toys? Shall we bury ours before the monkey gets here?
(BTW, Laura, what’s the tracking number?)
May I have a manual typewriter? The keys on the electric are too sensitive.
I can’t believe how picky people are being about these typewriters.
Aliens, monkeys, dogs, and never ending warbles of “hold” music softening the brain. Must need chocolate badly now?
Yes! Please send some.
Good to see you — and all I can say is “bad monkeys!”
It’s not the monkeys’ fault. The craigslist ad they responded to was very misleading.
I see you changed your gravatar, so that must have taken a while, too. (and I was just getting used to you being a cat)
I hope I made it into the first 3000 comments. I don’t really have any use for a typewriter, but I’d really like some banana bread – unless your dog ate it, too.
Sorry, the monkeys ate the banana bread. Could I interest you in a Blog-O-Matic coffee mug?
Does that mean I have to spend 1000 hours on hold to get it?
I hope you’ll start posting soon, because every time you comment on someone else’s post, I crack up! We need your voice in the blogosphere!
Aww, that’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me all day.
I have been working a lot too. And by working I mean I have been setting up a festival and am an typing this from a hotel room where my husband was trying to dry out my shoes with the hair dryer because it has been raining for a week and this festival happens to you know, be outside.
So I feel ya, is what I am saying.
Wet shoes are the worst, sorry. I hope the rain stops soon.
It did. On the very last day I was there. Three hours before we left. It was like the weather was mocking us all.
I can’t believe you didn’t offer me a monkey.
Are you looking for a pet or a free live-in babysitter?
A babysitter monkey…that occasionally (like on days off) would ride the dog around and wear a cowboy hat.
Great, now I have a craving for banana bread… Or zucchini bread! Ooooh! Now I have a craving for zucchini bread! Moondance Diner, here I come!
I’ve never understood zucchini bread. Why is there zucchini bread and not, say, kale bread or butternut squash bread?
agreed. the aliens around here really need to get a new schtick. welcome back, my ribs hurt from laughing :)
Thanks! Sorry about the ribs.
Never apologize! It’s the best kind of hurt :)
HAHAAHHA…All very good excuses. I can’t wait for my used typewriter.
Thanks! I’ll even throw in a couple reels of pre-chewed typewriter ribbon.
Where did you get 3,000 typewriters?
My intern got them. He said they fell off a truck.
They are the most creative excuses I’ve ever heard. Except #10 which is silly because the monkeys would have scared the dog away.
Did I say my dog ate it? I meant I was busy organizing a search party for my lost dog.
They say if you slip on a banana peel in space you won’t make a noise in the forest.
Er, wait… that’s not quite right.
As you can see the produce accidents I’ve been involved in haven’t been nearly as kind to me (no memory and no Jason Bourne ‘skills’, either… what a rip-off).
:)
In space, no one can hear you peel a banana.
It must be going around. Would you believe the very same thing happened to me except that instead of monkeys they were sloths?
for me it has been work and family (and I feel guilt about not blogging) but monkeys and banana bread sound much more fun.. thanks for a humorous post a few weeks after it was written – it’s still FUNNY!
I’d like a pink manual typewriter. I had one years ago, but caved into my husband’s urge to purge and sold it. So sad. And say hi to the monkeys. I miss working with them.
You’re in luck! I have a pink one right here. Not pink, exactly, but rust-colored. Well, technically it’s just rusty. But it’s on it’s way!
Yes, rust is the new pink, just as my years of age are the new 40. It’s true!
Is there any chance that you have a typewrite with a stain in the shape of Zac Efron?
Oh, sorry — I just mailed that one out to someone else yesterday.