I once knew an old man who, after being confronted with an inexplicably ebullient young store clerk, used to say, “That dame needs some sad pills.”

Last Monday a member of my household was in an obnoxiously better mood than me, and I heard myself grumbling to myself as I went up the stairs, “What crawled up your ass and lived?”

“When they’re not ‘touching base,’ they’re ‘checking in.’ Or they’re ‘circling back,’ which brings turkey vultures to my mind. This is Communication by Cringing Around, and I’m running out of time for it. How about you?”

My rapier-like wit perhaps dulled by the trauma of COVID—or more like it, my glibness made less sufferable by the heaviness of this year—I haven’t published anything under the “Quotable Murr” category in many months.

And then, the other day, I watched myself type an email to my colleagues, asking them to weigh in on a piece of prose before concluding: “Speak now, or forever hold your tweaks!”

And I thought by God, I’ve still got it.