Upside-Down (and Nowhere Near Happyland) Drabble:

All I wanted was to be upside-down in the water. To be looking up at my mother’s face from underneath the shimmering ripples in the pool. I dove under and started doing a somersault. At once, the water that seemed so buoyant and clear when looking down on it became a mirror that reflected only myself back at me. Disoriented and panicking, I pushed against the bottom of the pool. “Let me out!” Let me out!” I wanted to scream. Lungs nearly bursting, I remembered that I was holding my mother’s ankle. I pulled myself up, back into the sun.

Ooh, that's the stuff of nightmares, SailAweigh.

I think I used up my best "upside down" in the last drabble. I'll see if I can come up with something different.

Tell me about it. I never felt safe in the water after that. Seriously.

It never kept me out of the water, though. Even took a diving class in high school, besides the mandatory swimming.

Upside Down

I was alone in the hospital waiting room except for the receptionist. I sat on the too-tall vinyl couch, my legs stuck straight out, working through a pile of Highlights for Children. I found the 10 squirrels hidden in the tree. I worked the puzzles, which had the answers printed upside down on the bottom of the page. Since my sister was born, I'd learned to shake my parents awake when she had a seizure, to run for a spoon to hold her tongue down, to listen for the ambulance. I had also learned to read the answers upside down.

I like that, Ginger. Reading upside down is a valuable skill. In fact, my manager used that skill on me today, by reading my annual evaluation to me while it was facing me and he was across the table. He did quite well at it, too.

Reading upside down is a valuable skill.

It was pretty useful to me as a reporter, too. Nothing on a desk was safe. Eventually I also learned to read backwards, to proof hot lead.

There's a ps and qs and ds and bs joke in there somewhere.

Mind your P's and Q's did come from printing, because they're hard to tell apart, particularly when you're setting type by hand.

I always heard it was from "mind your pints and quarts" for tavern patrons so they knew what their tab was at the end of the night.

I just meant that I had as much trouble with db as with qp.