Amos, I KNOW you could have come up with something truly heroic for the 43,000th post, something positively Homeric in its brilliance, its sagacity, and its verbal sophistication, not to mention its wit.

But you didn't. You were not there at the crucial moment. I am sure that I join many in mourning the fact that you missed that brief window of opportunity. I blame Shane. He ruined it by asking the inane question "Are we there yet?" I wasn't expecting him to do that, but he's an unruly young lad with no sense of timing and very few (if any) social graces. We cross posted. I was looking at photos of Winona Ryder in between waiting for the Mudcat page to reload on my balky computer, so when I posted my brief "thank you" to Mr Shatner, I was expecting that to be the 42,999th post, not the 43,000th post!

And it was my firm intention that you, sir, should have the honor of entering some incredible piece of poetry on the 43,000th post, following my thank you note to Mr Shatner for imparting his blessings on our thread.

It's tragic that it didn't work out that way. Disturbing. Discomforting. Upsetting. A less than ideal result.

But I can draw comfort from the fact that in about 1,000 posts from now you WILL be there to wow us all with an inconceivably clever and apt piece of writing for the 44,000th post of the MOABS.

Wait for it, folks!