Photo by Alexander Shatov on Unsplash
Logging on for writing in my google docs, I also opened up a discord channel. Most of the writing group had day jobs, so there isn’t much chatter. I keep it on for the white noise that the coffee shop used to provide before I got long COVID and can’t leave the house. Doctors say my immune system should start rebuilding any day now. There is one advantage over the coffee shop, being in a “room” full of writers.
Unmuting, I shout out on the channel, “Hey, anyone got a word for butter that isn’t butter.”
“Lubricant,” comes the immediate reply.
“Oh god, that’s not what I meant. Wrong genre, so much. I mean like what you would put on popcorn, only as an English-as-a-second-language mistake. Something an alien would say.”
Chris, who works night shift, and does more worldbuilding than writing, suggests, “How ‘bout beaten cow cream.”
“Gross, but yeah, that could work. Thanks.”
(words 155; first published 6/29/2025)