Being More Useful Than The Editors At NRO

VVH Presents: Meghan Cox Gurdon (with creative omissions)

"If we didn't have this annual orgy... followed immediately by a surge of zeal, would any of us ever really reform or repent?... I think I hear someone banging outside... My husband and I danced about in agitation, wondering what to do...We banged on the little box beside the door. Eventually we...jammed...into the mechanism. This turned FTZZZZT! into …ftzzzzt…...Ever since, if one presseth the...button, it availeth not...It is wonderful how quickly we ourselves have adapted, though it is a shame how many...dinner guests have stood...tapping feebly...wondering if they got the time wrong.

"Meghan, you really must get...fixed," a helpful houseguest pointed out earlier this fall, as I was pelting...a...thudding...UPS man.

"Thank you," I called back breathlessly, "I know." But it was thoughtful of her to mention it.

I showed the...bell to an electrician who had come to interpret the mysteries of our...boxes. He shook his head...and sucked.

"Now that," he said, "That is the kind of thing that can run you, oh, five- six- seven-hundred dollars."

"Oh, dear," said I, wringing my hands. Then I remembered: "Wait, isn't everything...-coming? Couldn't we get a...bell?" I peered at him hopefully. It didn't occur to me straight away that a fellow who makes his living...might not greet the dawn...with unmixed pleasure.

"I don't know about that," he said stiffly. He looked back at the useless box and murmured, "Seven-eight-hundred dollars..."

So repairing the...bell goes on my...To-Do list. My latest idea is to install a brass...pull outside the front door, and rig up some elegant Edwardian system of ribbons and pulleys that would cause a little...tinkle at the top of the stairs when anyone stopped... You'd hear it throughout the house, and whatever the depredations of...power...it would always work...

Currently we only have one hand...which means if you're on...top...you don't have a prayer of hearing the ring, and if you're anywhere lower down you will hear something...leap up...At which point you hang around, tapping your...dial...until it breaks up into beeps, signaling that you now have a...caller, who himself was probably tapping his...pick...while muttering, "Honestly...that size, when will they join the 21st century?"

My friend Danielle's house will soon feature so many...systems...that she will be able to speak from her bath to the...man at the front door while simultaneously signaling to...the playroom that...pizza has arrived and pouring a gin-and-tonic in the kitchen. Rich in experience with...devices, she has graciously offered to set up a...system for us. It is a terrific opportunity, and I really must take her...but whenever I think, "Danielle's absolutely right, we have to get a...system," I remember that any system will come with...manual...Thus does the...urge die away slowly...

So much to do, so much to do....

Wait: ... why, we all have as long as we, well, get. What's the hurry?"

Clever how she hides such bodice-ripping stuff inside a normal column, huh? Truly, a cry for help. Or for something. Over to you, TBogg.