What the Author Meant (Saturday Writing Essential and Friday Writing Essential - LFOC)

SatWE Challenge: Rewrite some famous piece of literature, poetry, opera, or song. Not the whole thing, obviously, just a sampling of a few paragraphs, stanzas, or verses. Make it your work. (Include the original text so readers can compare them.)

FWE Prompt: Post something contemporary you've written.

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Okay, you know me -- I never follow the rules completely. Andrea’s FWE prompt was to write something contemporary. Well, I just wrote it today so I guess that counts. My SatWE challenge was to rewrite some “famous” piece of literature and I’m going to do something just a bit different. Here’s my original piece of “famous” literature. (Changed somewhat to avoid copyright violations.)

©2012 by xxxxx. We reserve the right to limit quantities on all items. Regular retail prices quoted may vary in some stores and discounts apply to item(s) of equal or lesser value. Alcoholic beverages available in only licensed stores where state laws regulate pricing. All beverage items are sold at “+CRV” where required by law. Selection, availability, and pricing may vary by store and does not include applicable local, county, state or federal taxes. If legal in your state, all manufacturers’ rebate offers are limited to one per family unless otherwise stated. We reserve the right to correct typographical or printing errors.

Here is my rewrite of that “famous” piece of literature.

©2012 by xxxxx. Even though we said you can buy up to ten of something, we reserve the right to cut that down when you get to the checkstand. All our stores set their own prices and they may or may not match what we have in this advertisement. If there is any mention of a discount, it applies only to items of equal or lesser value and we’ll decide which is which. We sell booze in all our stores and if we can find anything in the state or federal regulations to justify it, we’ll jack up the price. We add a CRV to nearly everything; if you don’t look at your receipt, it’s your problem that you just paid a CRV for buying underwear. We may or may not have what you want; it depends on where you are because, most likely, whatever you want is in a store that is a thousand miles away. Because this is a sale, we’re not going to bring in things from that far away without a lot of transportation costs just to satisfy your whims. None of the prices in this advertisement includes any federal, state, county, city, local, membership, or store taxes for which you are wholly responsible. If you’re hoping to get some rebate from one of our manufacturers, you’re on your own. As far as we’re concerned, you get one such rebate per family, but you’re the one that has to deal with the manufacturer. No matter what you read in here, it’s probably a mistake made by the printer. Don’t even try to hold us to any of the prices, taxes, quantities, or anything else because, before we get to trial, we’ll have the printer put up a retraction. Thanks for shopping with us.

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SatWE Logo  (If you want to use it) courtesy of  our friend Ruthi.