I wrote that the shortest poem on record is “Fleas” and reads in its entirety: “Adam/Had ‘em.” G.A. points out that Ogden Nash wrote, “Further Reflections on Parsley,” which reads in its entirety: “Parsley/Is gharsley.” But why are these considered short poems?

I could write any number of shorter poems. “On Self-Loathing,” for instance: “I’m/Slime.”

Or “What I Was Told When Trying To Switch to An Aisle Seat”: “Screw/You.”

Or “Karol Wojtyla’s Lyrical Reply to Those Who Asked, ‘Are You By Chance a Cardinal?’”: “Nope/Pope.

And “Reader Reflections On My Short Verse”: “You/Blew.”

They say the shortest sentence in English is “I am” –  it is certainly the shortest Earth, Wind & Fire album title — and the longest sentence in English is “I do.” The shortest poem in English is called “Fleas” and it reads: “Adam/Had ‘em.” Hemingway wrote a six-word novel: “For sale: Baby shoes. Never worn.” The Gettysburg Address was 246 words. Twain once wrote, “I didn’t have time to write a short letter so I’m writing a long one instead.”

Asked to write a two-page short story on a two-day deadline, Twain is said to have telegrammed back: “NO CAN DO 2 PAGES 2 DAYS. CAN DO 30 PAGES 2 DAYS. NEED 30 DAYS TO DO 2 PAGES.” Or so reported the New York Times in a piece on the death of telegram-writing. And though that particular telegram sounds to me less like Mark Twain than Cookie Monster, the point remains: Writing short — while writing well — is difficult.

My wife is now on Twitter — here — sending 140-word dispatches from the road while broadcasting basketball games. The referee’s whistle was not the only thing tweeting during the SEC women’s championship game last night in Little Rock, Arkansas.

To read her dispatches, I had to get my own account, which is here. I thought writing 800-word columns was a ship-in-a-bottle challenge. Writing 140-character columns ups — or perhaps downs — the ante.

After reading that Bill Gates won’t let his children have iPods or iPhones, I thought of my own childhood Scotch problem. My father made his living selling Scotch brand recording tape. Other brands were forbidden in our house and the embargo was strictly enforced. If a friend recorded his Kool & the Gang album and gave me a copy, I prayed that copy was not on a Maxell or TDK cassette. If it was on a competing brand, and my desire to hear “Too Hot” overcame my (prodigious) fear of reprisal, then I kept that tape hidden as if it were heroin. At age 12, I would have rather been caught with a case of actual Scotch than a cassette that was not Scotch.

Many of my friends had similar embargoes, depending on where their fathers worked: They could only shop at Red Owl or they couldn’t ride in a Ford or they were made to start drinking Grain Belt in middle school. Even now, my sister-in-law who works for Adidas will chastise me for wearing a competitor’s logo in my own house. My own children, meanwhile, are free to do as they please, with one exception: They’re not allowed to read anything that I haven’t written.