Dear Autocorrect by Stephanie L. Harper

Thank you for your patience & support in my kite

Letter from the Editor

Any of you get migraines? I had a doozy last week with the auras, nausea, and everything, so I apologize we’re a bit off schedule. We’re also deep in Issue 6 production mode at Five South. It’s our crazy times. So don’t write your senator just yet! We’re hard at work reading and selecting pieces that will put a smile on your face. We hope. Remember, comedy is subjective; don’t be too hard on yourself if you don’t laugh.

We all know the real-life struggle of auto-correct and that follow-up, “No! Dear God, no! I meant pens!” text to your boss. Unless you meant penis and typed pens. Let’s keep it PG-13 here, huh? This week’s offering goes down the auto-correct trail and takes us on a delightful journey that doesn’t say what the author means but means what it says. We hope you like it as much as we do. Hat tip to our poetry editor, K.D. Harryman, for spotting this gem in our general submissions.

One for the Road is open for your humorous stories. We’ll take the listicles if you got em, but seriously, we like narrative-driven humor—bonus points for writing in the voice of the Ghost of P.G. Wodehouse. And if you’re not a paying subscriber, we feel bad you’re missing all the good stuff. Think of it like this: Five South is totally independent. We’re not part of the non-profit machine, and we’re not in this for the money, but we still need money to buy private jets for all our editors. Come on. They work hard. Actually, all donations and subscription fees go right back into Five South - all of it. Every shiny nickel. Subscribing here for $5.00 a month gives you great weekly humor and allows us to keep on truckin’, as a wise old bumper sticker once said.

Thanks, everyone, and enjoy this week’s offering by Stephanie L. Harper.

Sincerely,

Kristen Simental
Founder/Publisher, Five South
www.fivesouth.net

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Why did the tomato turn red?

Because it saw the salad dressing!

Dear Autocorrect by Stephanie L. Harper

Thank you for your patience

& support in my kite. I rely on

your spelling sand predictive

text features many things easy day.

If I couldn’t trust you to witch

my typing, I would be more honest

about the tunes when I’m in

the bathroom. I bean, really,

the pastime I need is for people

to judge me because of where

I might be fitting if all I’m frying

to do is confirm the tune of our

nest nerding… A few fats ado,

my husband texted me from

the hardest store to ask if I could

use any more bridges for fainting

in the bedroom. Nob makes almond

anything come acrylic as romantic,

so things started jesting up a bit.

Lettuce nut say, it was with all

your extra kelp, that I was doom

scrolling his pencil, so he had to

duck behind a dorkloft parked by

the election law tools. It was the mist

excrement wither of us remembered

having since I went shipping last

Christmas for a new wonton hacker…

Anyway, I thought I’d pet you now

how much your rusty cervix beans

to me. Your fiend, Symphony.

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Stephanie L. Harper grew up in Northern California, earned a BA in English and German from Grinnell College in Iowa, an MA in German from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and an MFA from Butler University in Indianapolis. She is the proud mom of two extraordinary humans whom she raised to adulthood in Oregon, and she now lives in Indiana with the world’s most adorable husband and cat. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Red Wheelbarrow Magazine, North Dakota Quarterly, Vox Populi, The Night Heron Barks, The Dodge, Crab Creek Review, Laurel Review, The Big Windows Review, Resurrection Magazine, and elsewhere.

Art by MJ+KS