I'm my in apartment, nothing to really do, and then George buzzes me from downstairs. I tell him to come on up. He does, and we get talking.
"Jerry," George told me, "you're not going to believe this opportunity that was presented to me!"
"What is it?" I asked him.
"A friend of mine has been put in a publisher's position for a county newspaper, and I get to write an article!"
"Can you even do that?"
"What do you mean," said George, getting a bit edgy, "of course I can do that."
"I'm just saying," I explained, "you haven't used your writing skills in a long time."
"Jerry, I can do this. Look here, I already have a rough draft in the works. Wanna read it?"
"Sure," I told him.
"Great," said George getting excited, "now I'm just going to go grab a bagel or something, I'll be right back."
He gave me a laptop with the story already loaded, so I sat down and started to look it over. The first line is all I could focus on. "Ya can't even buy a doughnut for under a dollar." I looked at the word "ya." Ya, I thought to myself, is that even a real word?
Somewhere during these thoughts Kramer abruptly opened the door.
"Hey Kramer, what's up?"
"Yo, Jerry," said Kramer, "I need two spoons, a fork, a watermelon, and a Frisbee. Oh yeah, and I'll need some sunglasses too."
I'm thinking, what for? It makes absolutely no sense. Sometimes I have to wonder, what is with this guy? I gave it a brief thought, but I came up with nothing you could do that involves two spoons, a fork, a watermelon, a Frisbee, and sunglasses. "Okay," I told him casually.
Kramer gathered his stuff and then left my apartment. Meanwhile, I refocused my attention on George's article. I started wondering if "ya" should actually be spelled with an apostrophe. Ya' that would give you.
As I pondered the meaning of this word someone knocked on the door. "Come on in," I shouted.
It was George, back with a bagel in hand. "Do you have any cream cheese?"
"In the fridge," I told him, still caught up with his use of the word he spelled "ya."
"So," said George, walking up to me and eating his cream cheese covered bagel, "what do you think of my article?"
"Actually," I told him, "I had a question here in the first sentence with this word." I pointed out the "ya."
"Yeah," George said with a mouthful of bagel, "that's ya."
"Shouldn't ya have an apostrophe?"
"No, no," George stated confidently, "it's just ya."
"Just ya?" I said, "well you know what, I don't think ya is a word."
"And ya with an apostrophe is?"
"That's right."
Suddenly, the buzzer sounded again. "Yeah?"
"Jerry, it's Elaine."
"Come on up," I said. "There," I told George, "we'll see what Elaine thinks about this."
"Oh," said George, passionately defending his work, "yes, we will! Anyway, enough with the grammar," he said on a lighter tone, "what did you think about the rest?"
"I didn't read it," I told him, he looked at me with surprise, so I continued, "I was so focused on the "ya" thing I never finished the rest of it."
"I don't believe this," said George, "I leave you alone with the article for 15 minutes, and all you read, is the first sentence!"
"You didn't leave me with just the article," I explained, "you left me, with ya!"
As if the timing was perfect, Elaine came walking in. "Ah," I said, "Elaine, how do you spell ya? Is it just y-a, or is it y-a followed by an apostrophe?"
Elaine took a moment to think about this, "Well it depends," she said.
"What do you mean it depends?" George demanded, "ya, is ya."
"I don't think so," Elaine countered, "it's different depending on how you use it."
"Okay," I said, "how?"
"Well, if you're asking, 'how are y-uh?' then there's no apostrophe. On the other hand, if it's like, 'what cha doing?' then you would have an apostrophe.
"Absurd!" George stated, "absolutely absurd!"
"Well, that's my opinion," said Elaine.
"I don't know," I wondered aloud, "how can it be both ways?"
"It's just one of those words," Elaine said.
As the argument became heated, I was almost glad, in a sense, that Kramer came abruptly charging in again. "Jerry," he asked, "do you have a tennis racket?"
"In the bedroom," I told him.
A few minutes later, Kramer walked out of my room with my tennis racket. "So, Kramer," Elaine asked him, "how you would spell ya?"
"What do ya mean?" Kramer responded. Answering a question with a question, these are when things get confusing.
"What's going on over there anyway?" I just had to ask.
"Baby shower," Kramer replied, "it's a for a friend of mine at Bingo Night."
"You go to Bingo Night?" George asked him.
"Yeah," said Kramer, "that's where the big bucks lie!" He winked at us and added, "Look, I gotta get back."
"Okay," I told him, "have fun."
"Well," Elaine said, "I should be heading out as well. I have a date."
"So," I asked her, "then why'd you come over?" I'm figuring, if you're going to stop by a friend's, why bother if you can only stay for a few minutes? There's nothing you can do in a few minutes. You can't play a card game in five minutes, you can't even in enjoy an apple in only five minutes. Well, you can, but then you have indigestion to worry about.
"I don't know," said Elaine, replying to my query, "I just wanted to see what was going on. Bye George."
"Good-bye Elaine," George said as she walked out.
I closed the door behind her. "So," I asked, "what was that all about?"
"What was what all about?" George asked.
"Oh you know," I told him with confidence, "the look."
"Look," said George, starting to sound legitimately confused, "what look?"
I pressed on further anyway, "The look that says there's a couple of friends that might be becoming a little more than just friends."
"You think there's something going on with me and Elaine?" George asked, convincing me for sure that I was wrong with the look.
"No," I told him, "I'm just saying there was a look."
"Jerry," said George, "there wasn't any look."
"Okay," I agreed, "then there wasn't any look."
We paused for a few moments, standing there in silence. "You still think there was a look, don't you?" George asked.
"Oh, George," I said, "could we just drop it? There was no look."
Another moment of awkward silence followed.
"So," I told him, "we never did resolve the "ya" issue."
"Never did," George confirmed.
After a few moments I said, "Well, there is a way to resolve this you know."
"Really," asked George, "what?"
"You can just change the "ya" to you."
"Jerry," said George, "I can't do that."
"Why not?" I asked.
"Because," George said, "you can't change a writers words."
"But George," I tried to explain, "it would mean the same thing."
"No, sorry," George protested, "can't be done." He let himself think about it for a while, then he told me, "But there is still a way to resolve the problem."
"What's that?" I asked.
"I could just scrap the whole article – start a new one, fresh."
"And why," I said, baffled by George's sense of logic, "would you do that?"
"To resolve the 'ya' problem," said George.
"You'd trash the whole thing, just for 'ya?' I don't know, George."
"Well, Jerry," said George, "I have to do something about it."
"But destroy the whole work," I protested, "it was a good article!"
"You," said George in an accusing tone, "didn't even read it!"
"Fine," I said, being fair, "then let me read it now."
"Well," George told me plainly, "there's no point now, I'm going to delete the article."
"There's no good reason," I argued.
"Jerry," George told me, "it's my article, I can delete it if I want."
"Okay George," I gave in, "if you want to delete the article, then you do that. Was it even any good?"
George shrugged his shoulders, "It was all right."
"Not your best work?" I asked.
"Not my best work," George told me.
"Look," I said, staring at my watch, "it's only 8, do you wanna grab a burger?"
"A burger sounds good," said George.
So, we walked off and had a burger. I think George did write another article, but he hasn't asked me to edit it yet, I don't know why. As I recall, the burger wasn't too bad, but the service… Have you ever noticed how cheap diners and bad service go hand in hand? I mean…