“I’m not sure that does what you think it does…”

That’s the last thing I said to Christine before she pushed the big red button in her time machine and vanished, leaving yours truly to explain what happened on the gargleblaster grid this week.  I think she was trying to make some extra time to work on the summer series…

Holy smokes did the grid fill up fast this week, including 5 virgins and 2 hitchhikers!  I guess you guys weren’t turned off by that skeezy guy in the corner pushing mysterious blue drinks in your direction, because before I got to eat my lunch on Monday 42 of you had posted everything from literal interpretations to that song that’s now stuck in my head.  Sounds (see what I did there) like you love this little grid as much as we do.

This spaceship seats 42

It’s great to see the grid fill up early every week; it’s even greater that so many of you love us enough to hitchhike in the comments.  But like any spaceship, we have limited fuel and seating, so here’s the rule:

If you’ve got two ideas?  Pick one and mix it hard, squeeze the lemons and crush the ice and make it the best gargleblaster you can, cause we can’t give you two seats.  That means no hitchhiking with a second gargleblaster, no linking two posts together to try to get them both in, and no two-gargleblasters-cause-I-couldn’t-write-just-one posts (that’s 84 words in one post, so don’t even try it – the Galactic Police are watching you).

If that second idea is just too good to let go, why not save it for the moonshine grid this weekend?

Crowd favorite

Meg from Pigspittle, Ohio, takes this week’s crowd favorite prize with her starkly poetic piece Hunger:

Editor’s pick

On a grid filled with challenges, skeezeballs, angry words and fear, Nate’s secret signal in Avocado was a welcome blast of teamwork and in-jokes.  But it’s the little details that make this our pick for the week: the exact number of push-ups, the racist host, the couch.  It’s hard to tell a story in 42 words, but even harder to build the story that happens around the 42, and Nate does that very well here.

Nate, pick up your editor’s pick badge on the sidebar before you leave the party.

Top row seven*

In addition to Meg, the top row seven includes: Cynthia at that cynking feeling for long haired freaky people need not apply; Arden at Writing While Wineing for Clink; Dawn at words.thoughts.feelings for Rock Bottom;  Nate at The Relative Cartographer for Avocado; Christi at EditMoi for Synchronicity; and GennaClaire at writeamuck for Ignoring Infidelity. Congratulations, all! Not a lemon in the bunch — unless you count the lemons wrapped around a gold brick that are a key ingredient in a true pangalactic gargleblaster.  My bartender prefers to zest the lemons first. Go grab your badges!

The gargleblaster grid is now sorted in order of votes from most to fewest. It’s always a tight race and a wonderful opportunity to learn from your fellow grid-mates. In the case of a tie, InLinkz gives precedence to the post with the highest number of clicks.

* I realize that your browser may not display the grid in neat rows of seven, but Christine’s does, and mine does if I move the window around a lot and maybe zoom some. Therefore, the Top Row 7.

Hitchhiker’s prize!

With such a tight grid full of great gargleblasters, it’s no surprise that not everyone made it onto the spaceship this week.  Tnkerr just missed the launch, but we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to colonize new worlds with What’s your sign: Gargleblaster #167.  It’s the little, seemingly irrelevant, details that build the layered universe in this gargleblaster:

Congratulations! Squeeze in and grab that spiffy little badge waiting for you in the sidebar!

Looking for more?

Hard as it is to believe, there are other challenges out there at yeah write! Go ahead — take a few minutes to check out this week’s challenge grid (for personal essays and traditional blog anecdotes) and the speakeasy (for fiction). Read, comment, get to know the community. And if the mood strikes you, submit your own post: the challenge grid and speakeasy are open until 10:00 PM Eastern on Wednesday. We know you won’t all make the grid every week, but don’t panic! The moonshine grid opens on Friday and we’d love to see you there.

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