Looking for my readers

Oh, where did my readers go?

I look at my WordPress statistics for the first half of the year and some of the numbers have declined. I say to myself in my best Cat in the Hat voice, minus Dr. Seuss’ poetic rhythm, rhyming, and alliteration, of course, because I’m horrible at figuring out what rhymes and what doesn’t: “Oh, this can’t be. This can’t happen, this is downright treason, there has to be a reason.”

I storm off to find out what has happened. I search high and I search low, but I can’t figure out what happened to my readers. Did they run to the hills? Did they run to the valleys? Did they cry “wee, wee, wee” all the way home?

I figured I’d go to the source, so I ask other bloggers. One blogger friend says he’s seen a decrease in his hits ever since WordPress put in a new spam filter. Another pointed to the Dog Days of summer. Still another blogger friend called it the simple state of things: you win some, you lose some.

Shhhh, be vewy, vewy quiet, I’m hunting wabbits!

I cancel my plans for the day and decide to go hunting for my readers. They have to be out there somewhere in the great, big, beyond. I take a cue from the Warner Brothers Looney Tunes cartoon franchise and give my best Elmer Fudd hunting rabbits impression, being sure to approach carefully and avoid stepping on any leaves or branches.

“I’m hunting for wascawwy wabbits. Where are they?” I whisper to myself. When I look up, I find a fast-talking, wise-cracking bunny rabbit who likes to start every conversation with “What’s up, Doc?”; a speedy road runner and a creative coyote, who has wonderful inventions, but always seems to miss his prey; and a duck, who, well comes across as a bit daffy, but no readers.

I head back home dejected. I shout to whomever will listen: “Oh, readers, where are you?” Once I reach my destination, I sit down and try to think where my readers have gone. Did they give up on me? Did I bore them to tears? How rude to up and vanish without a note. I get an idea. I head back outside, thinking maybe I’ll find a few of them playing hide and seek or tag. Yes, that’s it. I’m “it” and I need to find everybody. I yell out, “Olly, olly, oxen free, come out, come out where ever you are.” My neighbor’s 6-year-old daughter runs across my backyard giggling, but nary a reader to be found.

Sweet talking my readers

The next morning, I decide a 2024 problem deserves an Old School Fix. I call up my local newspaper and tell the receptionist that I want to place a classified ad. He seems especially excited to talk with me. I swear I hear someone in the background yelling out, “Wake up everybody, we’ve got a live one on line 3.”

I’m delicate in how I phrase my advertisement: “Interested, detailed-focus blogger who likes piña coladas and getting caught in the rain looking for readers, who may or may not be into yoga and have half a brain. I may be the love that you’re looking for, willing to do a short term reading fling or a long term commitment, write to me to escape.”

The ad runs for five days and guess what: it’s crickets. I play Rupert Holmes song Escape (The Pina Colada song) nonstop, but I get not one stinking response. I look at myself in the mirror and check my right armpit, I check the other, I even check my breath — I swear I’ve bathed and showered. Where is everybody?

Up and gone

I get serious now. I set up an appointment with a Private Detective. When I visit his office, I expect Thomas Magnum from Magnum PI, you know what I mean, a blue Hawaiian short and blue jeans, but instead my guy looks like an accountant. He’s dressed in an oxford short and has a tie with a stain on it and has his head in a Excel spreadsheet. The large telephoto camera set off to the side on a table is the only thing that gives away his job.

I ask to see his red Ferrari. Instead he changes the conversation saying that yes, yes, he can find me some readers, but when he tells me his rate, I balk. I know now how Magnum moved from Hawaii to work his way onto the New York City Police Department.

Missing persons report

My wife tries to set me straight that I’m mixing up my TV shows, but I don’t care, I want to know where all the readers went. I figure it’s time to get the authorities involved. I walk into the local police department to file a missing person case. I expect to find a modern crime fighting office, but instead, I get Lieutenant Columbo, the homicide detective with the Los Angeles Police Department mixed with a smidge of Brooklyn Nine-Nine minus the laughs.

The detective on call tells me that if I was funnier and more entertaining, and if I wrote shorter and used correct grammar, then I would get my readers back. He kicks me out before I can protest.

Pity the fool

I go to sleep wondering where all the readers have gone. Just as sleep finally comes, Mr. T in his best Clubber Lang get-up from Rocky III and Kevin McCallister’s mom from the Christmas classic, Home Alone, startle me. (Yes, tell me the last post you read that had Dr. Seuss, Clubber Lang, and the Home Alone mom in the same darn story.) Any way, Mr. T hovers over me and demands to know why I write, to get my thoughts down on paper or to collect a bunch of hits and views.

“Wake up fool, what’s your answer?”

Catherine O’Hara gives me her hand and helps me get up out of bed and keeps asking me if I know where her son Kevin is. When I tell her “no”, she tells me that, if I want my readers back, I should listen to Mr. T’s advice. She says I should think about why I write or wind up just like her, in the back of a box truck with John Candy, aka Gus Polinski, and the Kenosha Kickers, singing bad Polka songs.

Content or hits?

Before I can respond, Mr. T is back in my face, inches away from me now. “You’re a fool little man, you’re a fool, fool, fool” he says to me. “Pity the fool chasing readers over content. It’s a loser’s game, pity the stupid fool.”

He then reaches back and punches me on the jaw and I drop to the floor. I’m out like a light. I’m not sure how many minutes I’m unconscious, but when I wake, my jaw is throbbing and I keep repeating Mr. T’s advice: “Pity the fool chasing readers over content.”

Yes, yes, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.