He ain’t heavy

Brudditor For a Year

Sure as hell hope it’s not a leap year bro

I was Mudditor for a day.

Last I checked, a day is 24 hours. Silly me.

In the mixed up files of Ms. Susan Brearley, a day is 365 * 24 hours. A year?

A year!

Not a leap year. Praise the Lord!

Is it a leap year?

How. Did. This. Happen.

One. Word. Sentences. Ain’t. Helping.

I got worn down in a Mudditor meeting, ok? A war of attrition. Seeing Baskerville Old Face in a dress, playing a tuba, was so disturbing I didn’t know which end was up. Was it the dress? The tuba? Come on bro, don’t mess with my head!

Re not knowing up, I don’t mean the tuba. The fat part with the bell goes up.

Does the fat part with the bell go up?

Was it a tuba? PTSD amnesia.

There we were. Cap’n closing in for the kill. While Baskerville Old Face changes his dress, the rest, all women, start sharing feelings. Red alert! Danger, danger, feelings! I can feel the sweat trickle. They’re not only talking about their feelings. They’re listening and nodding and not trying to fix anything.

My God! Is there no decency left?

The Cap’n advances her queen. “So then Andrew, what are your feelings?”

She smirks at my deer-in-the-headlights panic. Cornered.

Emergency! Break glass! Sicilian defense!

“Hey, how ‘bout those Patriots? Anyone catch J.C. Jackson’s pick six yesterday? Hell of a run. Hell of a run!”

Checkmate.

Why a year? I ask since you lack healthy curiosity. Why not ∞?

∞ doesn’t give you a lot of leverage if you want to test the open market as a free agent.

My people are already talking to Christine Stevens’s people at The Haven. Not sure how she’s funded, but Susan Brearley pays me in dryer lint, so there’s wiggle room.

OK smart-ass. Christine has people. I don’t.

No one likes a pedant.

One thing I did get out of my hard-nosed negotiation? A title.

Brudditor.

That’s right. Brudditor. Not Mudditor. In your face dude! Also awarded retroactively to Baskerville Old Face.

My shingle now reads Andrew Rodwin, MD, PhD, DDS, JD, LLC, THC, LSD, Brudditor. Kicking ass and taking names.

Susan Brearley, you wanted more testosterone? Lash yourself to the mainmast Cap’n, because a monster wave of testosterone is coming like a tsunami.

Take two.

A monster wave of testosterone is approaching like a tsunami.

Me and Baskerville Old Face? See Baskerville Old Face won’t make me change that to “Baskerville Old Face and I” because we’re Brudditors. Gotta sound colloquial. Which is basically a euphemism for stupid or Republican and sorry for repeating myself.

That joke would have been stronger as a parenthetical aside to readers, but even Brudditors have limits.

We can only dream of parens. And we do. That and articulated dump trucks.

Me and Baskerville Old Face? We hunt and fish and edit. Then we trap cougar, kick out a kicker or two, lay down some rubber, pump iron, punch some losers in the face, saw lumber, then drop an asterisk blizzard on some baby-faced newbie writer who doesn’t know his ass from his colon.

Just cuz we can.

Sometimes we’ll pack the Hummer, pick up Terry Trueman from the Haven, and hit the wilderness for some bro editor bonding. Blazing fire, shots of Jack, do a drumming circle, howl at the moon!

Just one rule. No feelings. And if someone messes up and talks about feelings, don’t listen. Pick at a thumbnail or something. Go take a leak. Don’t embarrass them by listening for God’s sakes. Have some compassion.

Feelings ‘n stuff? Not the Brudditor way. Well yes on the stuff part. Feelings are for stuffing down. Just stuff that crap down like a plate of sliders. Stuff, cram, repeat. Eventually you run out of room and erupt like La Palma in the Canaries. You wreck furniture. Way more efficient.

Mostly, a Brudditor flies solo. John Wayne picking off desperadoes with a MacBook 30 ought 6.

Mornings, I’ll fill a few stray ellipses with buckshot before coffee. Maybe hack at invasive species like “nowadays” or “basically.” Yeah noob, ya basic.

On a cool autumn day, what could be better than grabbing your laptop and your Timberwolf CS-590 chainsaw and hiking into the woods for a little fresh air and editing? Nothing beats the Wolf for hacking out overgrown paragraphs.

Fine tuning though? The Wolf’s big picture. Sometimes when I’m done hacking away at someone’s piece, there’s only four words left. Hey, it was a first draft.

Dude! Learn how to rewrite.

Suck it up.

Ya basic.

Had to replace a couple of laptops which the Wolf chewed into silicon dust. Whatever. Being a Brudditor is tough on laptops. Good thing I’m flush with lint.

Cap’n has me out on special assignment. Recruit more testosterone. Baskerville Old Face can’t be spared. Tuning his tuba.

Yeah, he’s milking the tuba thing.

That’s an expression.

Is it really a tuba?

So I’m talking to Jason Momoa, Chris Hemsworth, The Rock. Actually pretty close on The Rock. He wants top billing. Not sure if the Cap’n will bite. She’d have to deal with Hogan Torah. Not my problem.

Or in Hogan’s case, not my fucking problem. Bruh.

I’m no idiot though. Well, I’m a slave to my testosterone, so by definition, I’m something of an idiot.

OK, shitcan the qualifier. I’m an idiot.

What I mean is, I get it. I know who runs the show. “Special assignment.” Isn’t that special.

During editor meetings, while the women, and by women I mean adults, are talking about feelings and listening to each other, ugh, and making decisions and running the business, Baskerville Old Face’s tuning his tuba and I’m playing Mobile Legends and pretending to listen.

We’re Brudditors. We have the attention span of gerbils. Would you get pissed at a gerbil for having the attention span of a gerbil? No, you’d toss him a beer nut.

Hey Cap’n. Any chance we could swap out dryer lint for beer nuts?

But we’re indispendable. We’ve got the testosterone and that’s part of MuddyUm. Gotta have the bad boy T juice! Tough shit, Belladonna.

To paraphrase Holly J See, a humor magazine editorial team without men is a humor magazine editorial team without salt.

Something got lost in translation there.

Whatever. My gerbil attention span is pinned on the next arrow in my quiver.

Andrew Rodwin, MD, PhD, DDS, JD, LLC, THC, LSD, Brudditor, NaCL.

Thanks to Susan Brearley and Baskerville Old Face for not reading this and wrecking furniture.

Also thanks to the rest of the Mudditors! Holly J See, Amy Sea, Sarah Paris, Anu Anniah, Carol Lennox, Sara Zadrima, nancy arvizu, Rachael Ann Sand, and Lucia Siochi.