Taunted Children Form Revenge Club -- The Colonel Carries On

by Davida Brooks and Zaphodda Beeble-Brooks

Epigraph: “O people, remember always that you are but rearranged eelpoop.” --Master of the Jumble

You can take your electronic car keys to Walmart’s jewelry department, and they will replace the battery for no cost above the price of the new battery.

They don’t sell the little jeweler’s screwdrivers that open and close the key.

Do you strike up conversations with strangers? If so, why?

The end of coeducation at Wesleyan by the expulsion of men (you read about it here first) seems to have emptied the campus.

These Macquis were more anti-German than is the DOTUS.

If you get something to stick in or on your ear, you can walk around all day everywhere talking out loud to yourself without anyone thinking you’re a few beads short of a rosary.

Antarctica is bigger than Australia, big whoop, but did you know that it’s also bigger than Europe? Did you know that its average elevation (6,500 feet) is more than twice that of Asia, home of the Himalayas?

Did you know that much of the mass of Antarctica is ice? You may think the bartender put too much ice in your gin and tonic, but that’s nothing compared to Antarctica.

When all the ice on Antarctica finishes melting, no one will have to agonize over whether to vacation in the mountains or at the shore. It’ll be the same place.

The American revolutionaries were not motivated mainly by anti-monarchism. Most of them would have been content with an English king if that English king had respected their rights as Englishmen. In that sense, the revolution was simultaneously a restoration.

There was a period of centuries when the advanced, civilized Muslim world, had it been united, could have conquered all of comparatively backward Europe, including the British Isles, with relative ease.

The Muslims didn’t because they were divided, because they were more concerned with important places like Baghdad, and because they thought, who in his right mind would want to rule a dismal place like Europe?

So Europe survived and by and by the shoe was on the other foot.

Would you believe that the stirrup was one of the world’s most important inventions?

Most people have a memory hole and cannot fill in this blank: “March roars in like a lion but __________ out like a lamb.” Hint: the verb is not caper, cavort, disport, frisk, frolic, gambol, lark, romp, or sport.

Some similes are old-fashioned: “as chilling as a cry of ‘cheat’ in a card room.”

Speaking of lambs and old-fashioned similes, an obsolete definition of “sheep” is “a biddable, kindly woman -- often opposed to shrew.”

Other fine definitions of “sheep” are “mankind or a group of people under the shepherding care of God or Christ”; “a defenseless innocent creature readily preyed upon or shorn”; and “a stupid docile person; a silly bashful fellow.”

And speaking of gamboling, why must it be intransitive? Why can’t I, say, gambol away my life’s savings?

Polling questions: (1) How important to you is it that our beloved nation have a strong, masterful leader? (a) vital; (b) merely extremely important; (c) eh, I’d rather win the lottery bigly.

(2) What should happen to those who obstruct the measures out for which the suffering masses cry? (a) something really bad; (b) they should be ignored as the insects they are; (c) something very extra really, really bad, like what will happen to the media if they don’t shape up.

(3) How quickly do you get tired of winning? (a) Are you kidding? Never! (b) Sad to say, pretty quickly. Look! A squirrel!

(4) How afraid are you of drowning in a tsunami of jobs rushing back to the Rust Belt states? (a) my momma didn’t raise no fraidy cats; (b) very afraid, same as of everything.

(5) Why does the porridge bird lay its eggs in the air? (This is not a multiple choice but a short answer question) The porridge bird lays its eggs in the air because __________________________________.

(6) “Brothers and sisters I have none, but that man’s father is my father’s son.” Who is “that man”? That man is _____________________. (Hint: the answer is not “Cesar Chavez,” “Rudy Vallee,” or “John Q. Public.”)

(7) In the song “Hanky Panky” by Tommy James and the Shondells, the “hanky panky” that his baby does consists of which of the following: (a) innocent bookkeeping errors that could happen to anyone; (b) massive fraud and malfeasance that could shake the world financial system to its foundations; (c) country matters.

(8) Legalizing and taxing the recreational use of marijuana is: (a) nothing more than exactly that; (b) a “gateway” idea to even better ideas; (c) the worst idea since Helena Handbasket; (d) blood money; (e) a necessary step to full funding of retired state employees’ pensions and health care.

(9) Through the open window, Charlie’s wife hands Charlie a sandwich as what happens? (a) the citizens of Boston vote for George O’Brien; (b) the conductor says “One more nickel”; (c) the train comes rumblin’ through.

(10) How should Governor Malloy close the billion-dollar hole in the budget? (a) divide it into three parts and deal with each one separately; (b) raise the sales tax a little and the income tax a lot; (c) raise the income tax a little and the sales tax a lot; (d) build a big, beautiful, semipermeable wall that lets Fairfield County tax dollars flow to Hartford but keeps any of those tax dollars from  going back to Fairfield County as state spending.

Consider the following photograph and choose the correct statement:

(a) The smiling man to her right is a figment of her imagination; (b) The smiling man to her right is a figment of your imagination; (c) she is a figment of the imagination of the smiling man to her right; (d) the smiling man formerly to her right slipped out the back door, thinking you were with ICE; (e) the smile is as frozen on her face as she is frozen in place; (f) the picture is poorly centered or inexpertly cropped by a photographer determined to enjoy recreational marijuana before it is heavily taxed.

Zen hypograph: “Just as you throw out your meat wrappings daily to avoid stinking up the place, you should throw out your ‘me trappings’ daily, and for the same reason.”