How Many Missions?

There are times I feel like Yossarian in Joseph Heller's Catch 22. Not that I imagine millions of people are trying to kill me and no one will listen. In my case that would be paranoia. Although as Yossarian was in the middle of a war it's likely he was speaking more than some truth there.

No, I'm talking about his missions.

Yossarian simply wants to go home, but his command continue to increase the number of missions he has to fly in order to do so. This is usually done when he's only one or two missions shy of the target number. And so, of course, he can never get there.

Earlier this year, I submitted a story to Analog magazine at a time when they had reported response times of around 70 days. While that may seem high, it's actually much lower than the 180ish days they were reporting a year or two ago. And so I waited.

Around the 70 day mark, I checked the response times, only to find they had increased to around 90 days. A few more weeks wait then.

Three weeks later, when I was on 90 days, they had increased out to around 110 days. Two weeks after that it was around 135 days.

I'm currently sitting at 119 days and there has not been a reported response for two weeks. Is that because no one has recorded a response, or because the editors have given up reading slush and all gone home?

Either way I'm sure the response time will have increased.

In the end Yossarian had to make a deal in order to go home. He had to pretend to be friends with his commanders.

I'm willing to do that. Analog Editors, would you like to come over for drinks some time?