Tag: general silliness

‘Oy, Rodney’ Gets Mushy

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I am tempted to pass over Chapters CXX and CXXI of Violet Crepuscular’s epic romance, Oy, Rodney because they are intolerably mushy. Ms. Crepuscular acknowledges that. “You may find these next two chapters intolerably mushy,” she warns.

Lady Margo Cargo, the richest widow in Scurveyshire, is prepared to marry Lord Jeremy Coldsore and the American adventurer, Willis Twombley, who thinks he is Sargon of Akkad. Twombley has convinced her that he and Lord Jeremy are one and the same person.  But the wedding was disrupted and has not yet been rescheduled: Lady Margo thinks she might have a touch of leprosy.

“It’s only wind, you silly old bat,” says her crusty old butler, Crusty.

Then the mush creeps in as Lord Jeremy renews his wooing, this time in person.

“Madam, as soon as the vicar gets over his conniptions, we must be wed,” says Jeremy. They are having rock-hard biscuits baked by Lady Margo’s lunatic aunt. In the opulent comfort of Lady Margo’s parlor, her pet crayfish, Oswin, sulks in his aquarium.

“I love you so much, I could plotz,” says Jeremy. “Your ears are like prize cabbages.”

“Eh?” Those ears do not always function as they should.

“Your hair–” a wig, actually–“is as soft as yogurt,” Jeremy continues. This goes on for the whole two chapters.

Meanwhile, the whole village is startled out of sleep one midnight by horrible groans and shrieks issuing from under the wading pool in the vicar’s back yard. A crowd of peasants armed with scythes and torches descends upon the scene, but then goes home because no one dares lift up the pool and look under it. Constable Chumley reassures them: “‘Tis only yair fickling rawstie,” he explains. This gives them something to think about for the rest of the night.

The Fat-Head’s Tool Kit: Stupid Stats

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In mustering false facts to wow your audience and make them think you’re smart, don’t neglect statistics. Who isn’t impressed by statistics? It’s best you make them up yourself, because that way people can’t check up on what you say; but you do have to make them sound convincing. Stand tall, look ’em in the eye, and lie like a rug.

Here are some examples to get you started.

*98.3% of persons who practice astral projection believe in Man-Made Climate Change.

*43.4% of American Protestants got rather bad marks in college.

*At least 12.5% of women who have had abortions have gone on to become television news reporters and elected officials.

*Scientists at the Greenland Institute of Higher Education have found a one-to-one correlation between homeschooling and social dysfunction.

*Throughout ancient history, persons living in matriarchal societies enjoyed a Happiness Index 36 points higher than those living in other kinds of societies.

*The average atheist is 2.75 centimeters taller than the average Christian.

Yes, there will be silly people who attempt to argue with you. But all you have to do is smile tolerantly, shrug your shoulders, and say “Figures don’t lie.”

There’s no limit to how far you can go with this. I wish I had a statistic for how many future U.S. senators are reading this.

 

Win a Date with Joe Collidge!

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Yes, hours of pure astonishment can now be yours! All you have to do is win a contest, and you get the company of our contributing doofus, Joe Collidge, all to yourself for an entire evening. Or less, if you can’t take that much of it.

The object of this contest is to invent a contest for which a date with Joe would be a suitable first prize. The object of this post is to somehow attract readership on a really slow day so far, but that’s a side issue.

So, if you want to know what it’s like to have Joe’s moth antenners waving in your face, put on your thinking cap and start thinking!

‘Oy, Rodney’ Gets Rather Odd

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Violet Crepuscular leads off Chapter CXVI of Oy, Rodney with the admission that she has borrowed much of the story from a not-quite rational neighbor. Then she remembers that she has left Queen Victoria waiting in the church for the wedding that hasn’t come off, and quickly returns her to Buckingham Palace.

Meanwhile, Lady Margo Cargo’s crusty old butler, Crusty, tries to convince her that she can’t marry Willis Twombley, who she thinks is also Lord Jeremy Coldsore of Coldsore Hall, because she is already married to another man–the mysterious stranger who stood up to object to the latest wedding but was interrupted by events beyond his control.

“Really, Crusty, I am sure I’ve never seen that man before,” she says, as he reattaches her wooden leg.

“He married you by proxy, Ma’am. He was in India at the time, so he sent a proxy.”

“I thought that man’s name was Mr. Proxy. And no one ever told me it was a wedding. I thought it was a game of blind man’s buff, without the blindfold.”

The scene shifts to Scurveyshire’s favorite pub, the Lying Tart, where Lord Jeremy  and Twombley are concealing the body of Lord Jeremy’s chief creditor, Mr. Softy, shot by Twombley as he tried to take possession of Coldsore Hall. They are breaking into the pub because everyone else has run off to take part in the strange events around the vicar’s backyard wading pool.

“I’m not so sure we ought to be doing this, Sargon, old boy,” says Lord Jeremy: Twombley still thinks he is Sargon of Akkad.

“Well, Germy, you don’t want to git hanged, do you? Let’s put him somewhere down the cellar. No one’ll look there.”

Lord Jeremy is upset. “Are you mad?” he cries. “They keep all the pub’s supplies down there! Of course they’ll find the body.”

“Not if we stick it behind some barrels. Trust me, ol’ hoss. I’ve done this several times before.”

This task accomplished, Lord Jeremy is suddenly stunned and shocked by a message scrawled in the dust on the floor.

It is a single word. Rodney.,

How to Talk Smart: False Facts

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If it’s really very important to you to have other people think you’re smart, but you simply don’t have it in you, well, you can still talk smart!

What makes people think you’re smart? Knowing something they don’t know!

That’s where Acme False Facts come in. Armed with these, and confidence–you do have to project confidence, so practice in front of a mirror–you can wow your neighbors and your co-workers with your vast store of esoteric knowledge.

Here are a few samples to get you started.

*In 24 hours, a healthy human body naturally manufactures enough palumbitol to fill a football helmet. (If anyone asks you what “palumbitol” is, respond with a pitying look and a slow shake of the head.)

*James Madison was educated in a Muslim school in Algeria.

*In Ancient Britain before the Roman conquest, same-sex marriage was the rule rather than the exception, and it produced a society completely free of inequality.

*Prior to 1938, there were no “Psalms” in the Bible. (You have to deliver that line with a great deal of confidence. Practice! If you can put this one over, there’s no limit to how far you can go–maybe even to a successful career in politics.) The Psalms were only added afterward, by a committee.

*Hillary Clinton’s IQ has been officially measured at 202, but she has always been very modest about it, purposely imitating a nincompoop so as not to intimidate the public.

*The first motion picture, The Graduate starring Dustin Hoffman, was made in 1970.

 

Win a Free Collidge Eddication!

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Washme Hall, Fimbo State College

College tuition got you down? Don’t you wish you could get a college education without the dreadful cost?

Well, now you can!

In partnership with Fimbo Krunchy Cereals, and located within mere blocks of beautiful downtown Detroit, Fimbo State College is offering tuition-free five-year degree programs to the first hundred students to collect and submit one thousand (1,000) boxtops of either Fimbo Frostee Insects or Fimbo Squishy Flakes–and what’s more, each qualified student is guaranteed to graduate!

Best of all, there’s hardly any work involved! All students will automatically major in Social Justice Studies, and will enjoy free room and board in whichever dorm happens not to have a flooded basement at the time. There are no exams, no term papers, and free Fimbo Krunchy Cereals served for every meal–plus no restrictions at all, when it comes to foraging. If you can catch it or pull it out of the ground, you’re free to eat it–and strike a blow against white supremacy every time you chow down on a handful of nutritious leaves!

Plus, all our professors have served time in other institutions, and there’s nothing like experience.

But hurry! They’re only giving out one hundred of these Fimbo Skolarships! Be the first on your block to have a college degree without the student debt!

Happy Krunching, everyone!

An Exciting Chapter of ‘Oy, Rodney’

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Moving right along to Chapter CXII of Oy, Rodney, Violet Crepuscular’s epic romance, we find the Queen sitting alone in St. Pablum’s Church. The vicar has been carted off with conniptions, and everyone else has followed Jasper the Village Idiot out to the vicar’s back yard, where Constable Chumley has disappeared under the wading pool. Lady Margo Cargo, who was to have been married that day to Lord Jeremy Coldsore and the American adventurer Willis Twombley, has been taken back home because her wooden leg fell off again.

As the Queen grumbles, the Japanese ambassador makes an unexpected entrance. He has an urgent message for her, but has forgotten it. Something about jumbo shrimp. He apologizes humbly and departs.

Lagging well behind the others, and trying to find some way to save the wedding, Lord Jeremy and Twombley are met by Jeremy’s chief creditor, Mr. Softy. “I am here to take ownership of Coldsore Hall,” he says, twirling his mustache. Twombley shoots him.

“I say!” cries Lord Jeremy. “You really can’t do that, don’t you know!”

“Well, I jist did,” says Twombley. “Help me hide the body somewheres.”

Meanwhile, Jasper urges the crowd to greater speed. “It may not be too late to save the constable, if only we hurry!” he declares. “Oh, make haste, my friends, make haste!”

But when they arrive at the pool, they find Constable Chumley standing a safe twenty yards away from it, idly bobbling his nightstick. He wants to know what all the fuss is about.

The mayor frowns. “Jasper, you idiot!” he says. “Sorry!” mutters Jasper. “But wait! It may be that this individual is not Constable Chumley, but an insidious double who has appropriated his uniform. I prithee, examine him!”

“Prithee?”

“‘Tis a forn misstal we be corkin’, Mayor,” says the constable. The crowd decides to examine Jasper instead, and hustles him off to the local house of pain.

Here the narrative is interrupted by Ms. Crepuscular offering to sell the book’s movie rights to any studio that’s interested.

 

‘Oy, Rodney’: The Wedding (Well, Almost)

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In Chapter CX of Violet Crepuscular’s epic romance, Oy, Rodney, the author takes a break from storytelling to wax petulant to her readers, denouncing “certain brusque persons who keep demanding to know when the title character, Rodney, is going to appear in the story. Clearly these are persons who know nothing of the craft of the novelist. One must work up to these things gradually!” Well, gee, she’s already spent some 400 pages working up to it, and still no Rodney.

Chapter CXI finds us in St. Pablum’s Church for the wedding of Lady Margo Cargo and Lord Jeremy Coldsore, whom she thinks is the American adventurer, Willis Twombley, who thinks he is Sargon of Akkad. Twombley, in fact, is serving as best man. He has assured Lady Margo that he and Lord Jeremy are one and the same man, made to appear as two different individuals simultaneously by his secret Akkadian power of illusion. In fact, Lady Margo has fallen asleep on her feet and is swaying gently back and forth. Lord Jeremy is worried. If this wedding doesn’t come off, the creditors grab Coldsore Hall. And there is Queen Victoria herself sitting in the front pew and whispering harshly to the vicar, “Get on with it, man!”

The vicar grins and says, “If there is anyone here who knows of any reason why these two should not be wed, let him speak now or forever hold his peace.”

Up from a middle pew rises a tall man with doom in his face. He has been eating something not so good for him.

But before he can speak, in through the door bursts the village idiot, Jasper. The prose does not leave us with any certainty that the door was open at the time.

“Stop! Stop!” he cries. All eyes turn to him. “It is I, Jasper, the village idiot!” Everybody knows that already. “Oh, lamentable tragedy! Come, come, quickly–it may not be too late to save him!”

“Oh, now what?” mutters Queen Victoria.

“I notice that no one here has said, ‘Save who?'” continues Jasper. “Indeed, it is none other than our esteemed public servant, Constable Chumley. With my own eyes I saw him dragged under the vicar’s backyard wading pool, leaving nothing behind but his helmet–ah, that was a sight to daunt the soul! I implore you, good people–”

But he gets no farther, because at this point the vicar relapses into the most awful conniptions, and it is quite a spectacle. The Queen is not amused, and lets out a loud, impatient sigh.

The chapter ends with some brief reminisces of Violet’s days as a Girl Guide in Greenland.

‘Oy, Rodney’ Nominated for Major Award

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Oy, Rodney, the epic romance by Violet Crepuscular, has been nominated for a Dumpster Fire Award for Really Stinky Literature.

The notice was slipped under my door this evening by two men in black who made sure I didn’t see their faces. I’m a little nervous about this, because a Dumpster Fire Award generally comes with a good thrashing. I mean, why should I be blamed for this?

I don’t have Ms. Crepuscular’s forwarding address, and her publisher seems to have gone out of business.

Bonus ‘Oy, Rodney’ Episode

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In Chapter CVI of Violet Crepuscular’s epic romance, Oy, Rodney, Lord Jeremy Coldsore requests an audience with the Queen so he can invite her to stay the night at Coldsore Hall. Currently the Queen and her entourage have taken rooms at Scurveyshire’s most popular inn, The Lying Tart.

The most Lord Jeremy can get from the Queen is a bored “We’ll see,” and he is too nervous to invite Her Majesty to his wedding, and his friend Willis Twombley’s, to Lady Margo Cargo. On his way out of the inn, the discouraged young baron, or whatever he is, is buttonholed by the vicar.

“Lord Jeremy! A word, sir, a word!” He looks like he is about to relapse into conniptions, so Jeremy must hear him out.

“That woman, sir–that, my lord, is not the Queen of England! She is an imposter!”

“Not Queen Victoria?” Jeremy wonders. He looked it up yesterday: Victoria is presently Queen of England. Not Suzie, as he’d thought. “Go to, Reverend! She is the spitting image of the Queen. Why would you say different?”

Distraught, the vicar lapses into dialect. “Why, firmy man, yen jingly fleem be all ye throcken simbly–!” Lord Jeremy has to slap him. The vicar responds with a kick to the shin. In between agonized hops on one foot while holding his shin, Jeremy demands the vicar explain his allegation.

“Sir, I know the Queen like she were my own sister! We are lifelong friends–why, it was I who introduced her to Prince Albert, and got him to come out of the can!” Lord Jeremy stares. “I guess I ought to know her when I see her, sir–and that woman is not the Queen of England! There is devilry afoot, sir–devilry and danger, no doubt to the entire realm!”

The remaining paragraphs of the chapter are devoted to a description of Ms. Crepuscular’s hamster, Nestor.