{"id":6368,"date":"2025-02-06T21:55:09","date_gmt":"2025-02-07T04:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/entropy2.com\/blogs\/100words\/?p=6368"},"modified":"2025-02-08T21:58:13","modified_gmt":"2025-02-09T04:58:13","slug":"the-present","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/entropy2.com\/blogs\/100words\/2025\/02\/06\/the-present\/","title":{"rendered":"The Present"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>\u201cAre you okay, Ed?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To relieve the pressure, Ed tugged on his undershirt collar. He and Mel were at the counter of AL&#8217;S DINER.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy Aunt&#8230;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His words came haltingly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAunt Edna&#8230;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Each holiday, she gave the constricting presents. <\/p>\n<p>Before Ed, they went to Uncle Fred. The poor man suffered from the waist down. After the holidays, he always had trouble with his privates.<\/p>\n<p>Always Edna&#8217;s too-tight underwear. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cYour throat, Ed? Can you swallow the oatmeal?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His jugulars stood out.<\/p>\n<p>He twisted awkwardly on the swivel seat.<\/p>\n<p>His throat? <\/p>\n<p>His undershirt?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt&#8217;s not the throat I&#8217;m worried about, Mel.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>From Guest Contributor David Sydney<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cAre you okay, Ed?\u201d To relieve the pressure, Ed tugged on his undershirt collar. He and Mel were at the counter of AL&#8217;S DINER. \u201cMy Aunt&#8230;\u201d \u201cWhat?\u201d His words came haltingly. \u201cAunt Edna&#8230;\u201d Each holiday, she gave the constricting presents. Before Ed, they went to Uncle Fred. The poor man suffered from the waist down. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4324,3243,5328,11783,2436,41,3798,13183,215,13182,4351,6878,13181,13184,3582,6618,13180,10414,6715,37],"class_list":["post-6368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-100words","tag-aunt","tag-collar","tag-counter","tag-david-sydney","tag-diner","tag-guest-contributor","tag-holiday","tag-jugulars","tag-man","tag-oatmeal","tag-presents","tag-pressure","tag-privates","tag-swivel-seat","tag-throat","tag-uncle","tag-undershirt","tag-underwear","tag-waist","tag-words"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/entropy2.com\/blogs\/100words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/entropy2.com\/blogs\/100words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/entropy2.com\/blogs\/100words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/entropy2.com\/blogs\/100words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/entropy2.com\/blogs\/100words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6368"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/entropy2.com\/blogs\/100words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6369,"href":"http:\/\/entropy2.com\/blogs\/100words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6368\/revisions\/6369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/entropy2.com\/blogs\/100words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/entropy2.com\/blogs\/100words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/entropy2.com\/blogs\/100words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}