A Case of Infuriation

KS: I'm sure some of you have already read KCS's hilarious fic, "A Case of Annoyance." It was based upon some of us fanfic authors' difficulties in getting the divider lines to appear in our fanfics—poor KCS could not get them to come up at all. This was not the case with me. The terrible document bug took my fics in a death grip of…smashing my words together. Instead of "Come, Watson, let us be off!" it might have been, "Come, Watson, letus beoff!"

If you are a stickler for good English like I am, it's infuriating. Hence, the title. I reviewed KCS's fic jokingly saying that my little problem should be her next ficlet—but she dared me to do it. So here it is. Hers was in Watson's POV, so mine shall be in Holmes's. Mine is, as you will see, directly based off of hers.

I would have already put this up, but UNFORTUNATELY...the system did NOT want me to load any documents from last night until just a few minutes ago. xD

Enjoy.

I jumped as a magazine slapped noisily against the floor, disturbing a pile of papers I had been careful to place there just this morning.

"What on Earth, Watson…?" I asked, taking the pipe from my lips and sitting up from my extremely comfortable position on the settee to see what was the matter.

"It's those blasted Strand typesetters again!!" he replied, flushed in the face with indignation.

"Oh, is that all…" I muttered, lying back down.

"No! I shall not let this pass!"

"Well, what is it?" I asked, not sitting up but leaning over to see his face. "Are they still leaving the lines out of your stories?"

"No, they've corrected that. They do occasionally still leave them out, and the reprints of my last stories are still without them, but… now there's an entirely new problem!" he replied, lifting the magazine from the floor and flipping through the now bent pages.

"And what would that be?"

"They are not spacing the words properly! I have even looked in the other printed stories—they are not having this problem!"

"But a few of the others were having the line problems as well."

"Yes, but none have this word-smashing plague! They're making me seem like a completely unlearnt fool…!"

"Let me see?"

Watson tossed over the periodical and I turned to where I knew Watson's accounts of my case would be. This is how it read…

"OFALL the problems which have been submitted tomy friend, Mr. SherlockHolmes, forsolution during the years ofour intimacy, there were only twowhich I was the means of introducing to his notice–that of Mr. Hatherley's thumb, and that of Colonel Warburton'smadness. Of these the latter mayhave afforded a finer field for an acute and original observer, but the other was so strange in itsinception and so dramatic inits details that it may be the moreworthy of being placedupon record, even if it gave my friend fewer openings forthose deductive methods ofreasoning by whichhe achieved such remarkable results."

"Perhaps it is just their way of showing that they weren't happy with your letters of protest." I suggested, tossing the magazine back.

My friend sent a rather annoyed look at me, to which I responded by calmly taking another draught off of my pipe.

"I sincerely hope not. That shows a want of professionalism." my dear Watson replied.

"Well, what do you propose to do about it?"

Watson sighed heavily.

"Write to them again, I suppose. I don't know what I can do."

"You could always—"

"Don't even say it, Holmes…"

"—stop writing your stories."

I ducked as a crumpled magazine was sent only half-jokingly at my head.

KS: And there you have it. My fury at having words pressed together annoyingly…in ficlet form. And, as if you couldn't tell, that excerpt was not my own—it was from ENGI. Review!