A serious case of ’swell foot’

I’ve all of a sudden been appointed by my editor and coworkers as the secondary editor at my paper – meaning I copy edit all of the day’s stories before passing it onto Mr. Lewis. It’s great to be busy with more work to do, and I appreciate that Mr. Lewis has enough confidence in me to take on this heft assignment… but wow. Obviously journalism (and writing, in general) is nothing to write home about here in Salone, so it’s been frustrating at times trying to manuver my way through what Mr. Lewis calls “a minefield.” In my first couple of days editing stories, I had an interesting exchange with Mr. Lewis:

“Yu, do you know what ‘swell foot’ is?” he asked me.

“Swell food?” I asked as I continued to edit stories while sitting in his office.

“No, swell foot,” he said.

“Umm, I don’t think so.”

“When you try to take someone else’s job, you get ‘swell foot’ and you get stuck in that person’s chair for the rest of the day,” he said, smiling.

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