Saturday, June 25, 2016

You Can't Hide Your Lyin' Eggs



Chickens lay eggs, people lie down.

I remember learning this, but then what about, “Now I lay me down to sleep…?”

Because I'm trying to get through a scene in this story I'm writing and I just need someone to be in a bed to rest, but what about chickens and eggs. And people needing to lie down. 

Wait! Never mind, I just looked something up, "In the case of  'Every afternoon we lay down and rest for an hour,' it is acceptable to use 'lay' as in 'laying' because it’s in the past.

But that would make us chickens. And I'm pretty sure that that no one wants my half-century-old eggs lain anywhere.

Stop thinking so much and get the scene down! Hold on hold on hold on, I think I found something: "The past participle of the verb to lie is lain. The eggs were lain."

But I remember this egg farmer that delivered eggs to my grandmother and he would say that his chickens just laid eggs.

Shuttup, brain! Memorize this now: Lie, lay, lain, is an intransitive verb that does not need an object.

Do you have any water? I feel like I need to be lain in some water. Or lay down in water. Whatever, I am light-headed and I just want to write a story about lying in bed and I need to say I laid down, or I lay down. And to show the action of  'lay down.' I mean, lie down. I mean, someone lay me down.

Ok, it's almost Saturday night already, we got to fix this, get this story at least in first draft. Repeat after me: lie is generally used to refer to things, but may be used to refer to a group or class of people.

Can we open a window, y’all? I seriously need to lay-lie my head down in a fresh breeze.

We're not done yet. People lie, but you don’t lie people, but you can lay people. Or you can lay people, I can't, I'm in a closed relationship. 

For a number of reasons, could you repeat that? Because first of all, are we 'not done' or 'not finished,' we're not bread. And second of all, sorry, but I didn’t hear you, I was on the phone with my therapist who just told me to lay down.

All you have to remember, is lie, lay, lain, lay, laid, laid. Let's get this chapter started.

I will, but someone needs to call my high school English teacher. After I apologize to her for not being more in awe of what she so readily knew, I need her at my side, because I am done-finished for the day and she's the only one who knows how to properly ask someone to place my body in a reclining position.

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