Once upon a time...

...there was another blog. Its name was "A Liebenswert Girl's Stories" (or something like that.) It was a funny blog, much like this one. It wasn't as widely read because that girl didn't try to get any more readers than her parents. It contained many similar stories to this blog that ran the gamut from crazy cat lady tales to annoyances at work.

But that blog was not meant to last. Nope. One day, that girl had a really bad day at work. Well, face it, she had a string of really bad days at work. Upon expressing her frustration at her boyfriend, he encouraged her, "Why don't you write about it in your blog? You don't have to be funny ALL the time."

"What a good idea," that girl thought, and she sat down and wrote. And wrote and wrote and wrote. She wrote about how she used to love her job. She wrote about how she no longer loved her job. She went on and on about how she didn't even want to be in her chosen profession any longer. After that blog? She felt much better. "So this is catharsis," she thought.

Days past, and the girl was in a meeting at work. Her boss summoned her to her office for a conference call. Only on that conference call, another boss was called. They wanted to talk about her blog. Her WHAT? She panicked. Apparently, a competitor of her law firm had a "word alert" search set up that took them to her blog, which had mentioned the type of work she did. No client's name was mentioned and no employer's were mentioned, but that girl's name was on that blog. You know, that blog, where she had griped about how much she hated her job, how she was miserable in life, how she wanted to leave the very profession she was in? The dots were connected, and the powers that be (aka that girl's bosses) figured out exactly who was so incredibly miserable at her job. Yep. That liebenswert girl. True story. They told her it would be best for her to delete that posting. Furthermore, they told her that if she was so miserable, perhaps she should quit. Perhaps that lay-off they had done earlier in the year should have been her.

So she went home that evening and deleted that post, crying the entire time. A few hours later (and more than a few sips of the sweet nectar known as vodka), she deleted the whole thing. No blog means no problem, right?

But that girl was sad for many days. Days turned into weeks and then weeks into months, as they usually do. A couple of months later, that liebenswert girl started a new blog. "Eff them," she said. "I wanna write. And I miss my blog. I just won't get personal." She named the blog Like a Birdie. Why? Well, she felt free for starting the new blog and that she wasn't letting the "man" get her down. A few weeks later, she was called for an interview. New job! Exciting! After another interview, she was offered a new job. She started that job, and then decided that she was happier so no more "I'm so free, I'm a bird" statements. She was gonna be fabulous. But the one problem was that she was innately awkward.

There you have it, everyone. How this blog came to be.

And kids, THAT is why you always leave a note. I mean, THAT is why you never complain about your work on a blog with your name attached. (If I had a one-armed man, you would REALLY learn this lesson.)