{"id":10107,"date":"2024-05-15T08:40:32","date_gmt":"2024-05-15T12:40:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/?p=10107"},"modified":"2024-05-15T10:39:24","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T14:39:24","slug":"i-hastened-to-smooth-things-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/i-hastened-to-smooth-things-over\/","title":{"rendered":"I Hastened To Smooth Things Over"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-24\" src=\"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/k-avatar-e1443983846496.png\" alt=\"by Kent\" width=\"81\" height=\"81\" \/>When I was in high school, the term was \u201cTriangle of Death\u201d<\/li>\n<li>also played the clarinet<\/li>\n<li>\u201cYou don\u2019t understand \u2013 I love Ursula.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Hadn\u2019t I told Arlo that?<\/li>\n<li>wonderfully weird Japanese game show<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Tune in next time part 902 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/tune-in-next-time\/\">Click Here for Earlier Installments<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I hastened to smooth things over. &#8220;What the Warlord-Apparent means to say is, you&#8217;ve really brought the very notion of a summit facility to new heights here.&#8221; The ambassador&#8217;s smile relaxed only a fraction.<\/p>\n<p>Next came my oh-shit moment as I realized where I actually stood. Not on the Colloquillian mountaintop, but at one corner of a diabolical shape. <em>When I was in high school, the term was &#8220;Triangle of Death&#8221;<\/em> although the official jargon in the syllabus was &#8220;Diplomatic Fulcrum,&#8221; not that I was ever, technically, in high school. At the Academy I took a few esoteric poli-sci classes, and I recognized what I was caught in. It was a classic construct involving two dignitaries and the hapless interpreter (me) stuck in the middle. Those esoteric classes might have given me the insights I would need in this scenario, but I had <em>also played the clarinet<\/em> in the school&#8217;s jazz band but could no longer remember how to even hold the instrument. So my prospects felt bleak.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, I&#8217;d been lost in reminiscence so long that I&#8217;d missed several beats as the conversation had progressed. The ambassador shook his head vehemently, saying, <em>&#8220;You don&#8217;t understand &#8212; I love Ursula.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Fleur glanced my way, and I tried to look confident. When in doubt, always act like you know who Ursula is. <em>Hadn&#8217;t I told Arlo that?<\/em> But wouldn&#8217;t any advice I&#8217;d given to him be of questionable merit? I hate that dick.<\/p>\n<p>They were both staring at me now, the other two points on the Triangle of Death. So I blurted the first Colloquialism that popped into my head.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Some days we all feel like we&#8217;re winning a <em>wonderfully weird Japanese game show<\/em>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Fleur and the ambassador&#8217;s icy stares went on for another five terrifying seconds. Then they both erupted in laughter.<\/p>\n<p>bonus points for using them in order<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Stichomancy Writing Prompts\" href=\"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/stichomancy-writing-prompts\/\">about stichomancy writing prompts<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/stichomancy-writing-prompt-generator\/\">try our stichomancy writing prompt generator!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I was in high school, the term was \u201cTriangle of Death\u201d also played the clarinet \u201cYou don\u2019t understand \u2013 I love Ursula.\u201d Hadn\u2019t I told Arlo that? wonderfully weird Japanese game show Tune in next time part 902 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Click Here for Earlier Installments I hastened to smooth things over. &#8220;What the Warlord-Apparent [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[319,4],"tags":[91,403],"class_list":["post-10107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stichomancy-prompts","category-writing-prompts","tag-bonus-points","tag-tune-in-next-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10107"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10112,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10107\/revisions\/10112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}