Yesterday Little Old Lady Comedy published my short story “Investigating Dr. Teatree,” which you can read by clicking here. I haven’t worked with LOL before, and it was fun. They are more of a satire website, and what I wrote is less of a narrative and more of a report, which fits with their style. I guess it is the first long(ish) thing I’ve written in the first person, too.

So the story—it kicks off when a doctor reads a medical student’s essay. The applicant has accidentally written “rectum” instead of “retina,” and though this typo, which kicks off events, could seem like a far-fetched occurrence, it’s based on what really happened to my father. He was a high school biology teacher before retiring, and he saw that mistake on a test once and always thought it was funny. And I did too.

And yes, it is more plausible to believe the two words could get mixed up by a high schooler instead of a medical student, but in any case, implausibility is why it’s called “fiction,” right?

Now here’s another tidbit: “Investigating Dr. Teatree” was not the original title. For the longest time it was “Dr. Teatree’s Techniques,” which, while having nice alliteration, truly isn’t as strong. Honestly, after two years of dedicated short story writing and publishing, I have yet to get a bad suggestions from an editor. I’m sure bad suggestions are out there, but my experience is that editors know their stuff! So here’s to being amendable to change, and I hope the story makes you laugh!

–Jeff and Leah