I haven’t been posting much lately. Sorry about that. I had been writing so intensely for so long, I guess I suffered from a certain amount of burnout. I needed a change for a little while. I didn’t have writer’s block, mind you, the creative juices still flow. I just needed to give them another outlet for bit. Add to it, I hate this new wordpress writing interface. It’s desperately inefficient, and it doesn’t make writing any more fun. I’ll try to get used to it.
Enough of that. On with the story!
Jace and Palmer stood at a place where heated water had broken through Europa’s icy crust. Earth’s colony to Jupiter’s moon was making a tremendous discovery.
“I’ve found intelligent life!” cheered Jace.
“No way,” said Palmer.
“It’s true, and we can communicate. Watch!”
Jace held out his cell phone. A silvery tentacle reached out of the water and began typing. It wrote. “You back.”
“Incredible!” said Palmer.
The tentacle typed more and wrote, “I hated you back.”
“But it hates us already,” groaned Palmer.
“But why?” Jace asked the creature.
The tentacle typed again, frantically. “Hoped, I mean. Damned spellcheck!”
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Written for the Friday Fictioneers: https://rochellewisoff.com/2021/08/04/6-august-2021/
EagleAye
Momus News 
You got me smiling, great
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Happy to hear it. Thanks Michael!
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Glad to see you back. And I agree with your comments on the new editor. Be careful with spell check especially with “Wi-Fi” and Wife. Be trouble!!!!
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Haha! No doubt. Thanks Danny!
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LOL! Even alien life has to deal with spellcheck. Great tale!
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Apparently, spellcheck is a universal curse. 😉 Thanks for stopping in!
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We could debate the idea of intelligent life for years. Spellcheck and predictable text are as you illustrate a bane of communication.
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Looks like the alien life forms are just about as (un-)intelligent as we are, spellcheck-wise. Great fun and welcome back.
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I hoped you back, too! You still got it, Ecka 😁
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did a good job of describing your frustration. You’d think WP would hear our cries of anguish, wouldn’t you. I’ve been out a week or so with my computer in the shop. Still, there are issues with the keyboard. It’s still in warranty, so I may send it back yet again. Not even going to touch on how I feel about this new WP format… let’s just say, I’m looking for an alternative.
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Haha! glad we all have spellcheck issues! Nice one.
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Your story made me smile. Spell check might ruin even first contact. 😄
You can switch back to the old WP interface whenever you want. And I often do, both on computer and mobile.
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EA that’s really funny. I like the genuine communication between interplanetary species. Glad you are back after doing what you needed to do.
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There are work-arounds for the new editor — I use them to subvert the system and get to the old classic editor. I stopped posting til I figured it out (other folks offered suggestions, too). My spell-check/auto-correct has a naughty mind; it tends to substitute words for body (or should I say bawdy) parts.
Hope your other writing project(s) went well. And, welcome back — your post made me smile, as usual!
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Dear Eric,
So good to see you back! I know what you mean about the new Word Press dashboard. I’m not fond of it either. I’m trying to make peace with it.
And your story…love it. Glad I’d set my coffee aside before I got to the last line. 😀
Shalom,
Rochelle
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It would be a shame if autocorrect caused an intergalactic “incident”…
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LOL, damned spellcheck gets us all!
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