Essay - Unpublished

           I'm sure we have all heard the saying about being "hoisted on one's own petard." Aside from being damned uncomfortable, it is demeaning to be the vehicle for your own "comeuppance", as it were, with no one to blame but yourself.
          This "hoisting" frequently happens to me when I get just a little too proud of something I consider to be an admirable trait or a good habit, and I often run into myself coming from someplace while I am busy trying to go somewhere else.
          This is extremely counterproductive, and I give you the following notes I made for myself four or five years ago, notes I intended to use in a computer game guide to make playing easier...mostly for myself, but for others who might appreciate them.

          Here are those notes exactly as I wrote them:

          "Four Short Cuts:
          Green Fairy-1 blue spiders 2 flies 3 cemetery
          Cemetery-1 green fairy 2 blue spiders 3 flies
           Blue spiders-1 flies 2 cemetery 3 green fairy
          Flies-1 cemetery 2 green fairy 3 Blue spiders

          Now you have: Blue Ring, Bracelet, Wood Boomerang, Blue Candle, 8 Bombs, Good Shield, and the Good Sword. You are ready to get Whistle which will open number 3."
          You can see they are very specific and explicit. You will deal with green fairies, blue spiders, flies, and cemeteries. As you do so, you will acquire certain objects no doubt necessary and vital to continuing what is obviously a role-playing fantasy game.
          Oh, I truly do write good, clear instructions, don't I? However, in the note-taking of which I am/was so proud, I totally failed to make mention of the game...what game was it? For the life of me, I can remember NO game with these particular qualifications. No, not one, although the old tried and faithful friend "Zelda" does involve exactly these items, such a "short cut" simply does not exist...at least not in my recollection! Or does it?
          What could I have been doing or thinking that made it significant enough to make these clear, concise notes? Did I actually make a great "discovery?"
          And why, oh why, didn't I mention the name of the game? See, once again Hoist On My Own Petard! Now I've got to go and play my way through two separate nine-level games of the old Zelda in order to find out what I was talking about!
          Moral: Destroy old scraps of paper without reading them!