I had a great idea for a post about exclamation points and how I have offended at least one person this week due to my refusal to use exclamation points in email.

This is the sort of thing that happens to me a lot (both having ideas for writing and offending people, but let's stay with the writing). Usually, I take the good idea to the keyboard and write until I decide I'm on the right track and keep going or decide there's nothing to it and give it up.

Sometimes a great idea feels really familiar. I was writing about exclamation points, telling how my typewriter (yeah, I own typewriters) doesn't have an exclamation point key. Great story, I thought but I also felt like I'd written it before. I kept going but began thinking that I hadn't just written it but had also posted it to this blog. I kept writing until I got to Gil Thorp.

My friend used to read the Gil Thorp newspaper comic and laugh at how nearly every word bubble ended in an exclamation point. We read out loud, exclaiming every line and laughing ourselves silly. Remembering that as I wrote started me smiling, but the sense of deja vu was overpowering. I opened a new tab and searched for Gil Thorp exclamation points. The second result was a piece I posted last April, the exact damn piece I was writing tonight. Damn. That's the sort of thing that almost calls for an exclamation point. But I'm no Gil Thorp.

Hey, want to hear about how my typewriter doesn't have an exclamation point key? Or have I told you that one already?