Flying off the handle

Bags fly free: My wife and I were just watching a Southwest Airlines ad on TV that said that bags fly free. There are several ways to look at that, and at least two are bad. When I was a kid, older women were often called old bags, although rarely before their faces. That gives bags fly free a new meaning. My other thought was that, if bags are flying free, they ought to tie them down.

I realize that's nitpicking, but people have nitpicked my headlines to death. I once wrote a headline about John Cook being tied for the lead in the Buick Open golf tournament. The headline was "Cook, three others tied in Buick." Naturally, someone visualized four guys tied up and gagged in the back of a blue Buick. I had a hard time living that one down.

At the same newspaper, I once opened up the paper to a two-page ad. There were six words in the ad, and it was meant to be read left-to-right. I noticed immediately, though, that if you read just the left page, it was a sexual suggestion. We called the ad people -- we were putting out the live newspaper -- and the chief ad salesman laughed it off. The company advertising with us had signed off on the ad, and there wasn't anything we could do. It had been printed days in advance.

Thought for today: Doesn't "expecting the unexpected" make the unexpected expected?

Contact: I can be reached at tgilli52@gmail.com or nc3022@yahoo.com. Also, my Twitter handle is EDITORatWORK.

More EDITOR@WORK blog entries

• You really DO need an editor

• Reminders for would-be novelists

• What I do when I'm editing

• What I charge (it's a deal) and what I edit

• Slogging through the Internet

• J-school: More eyes on your stories

• J-school: Go out and learn

• Rookie mistakes for magazine writers

Entries from The Dog Blog

• Katie cried

• Growl and pull

• 13-plus years with my dog Lady

• ... said the spider to ...

• The Dog Diary (2014)

• YIP! YIP! The stereo-sound huskies

• What Lady and Michael Jackson had in common

Blog entries from The Auto Racing Journal

• Angel in Black: Remembering Dale Earnhardt Sr.

(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)

• Then Junior Said to Jeff...

(the book of great NASCAR stories)

• My best day as a sports writer

• Jeff Gordon's milk toast to Dale Earnhardt

• Wayne Auton: A life in racing

More blog entries by Tom Gillispie

• Resume for a writer and editor

• An editor's views on powerful writing

• Advice for be and would-be novelists

• Links to TG's stories online

• Favorite quotes

• What I do when I'm editing

Anecdotes by Tom Gillispie

• Wipeout at Death Valley

• Days with rainbows

• A desperate writer working in the dark

• Yer outta there!