One of the most reliable gambits for the cartoonists preparing our postcards in days of old was marital discord. And among the prime choices of causes for marital discord was one that just about any postcard buyer could sympathize with was financing said marriage. Long before a genius noted that “Romance without finance ain’t got no chance”, we were arguing about whether “Two can live as cheaply as one.”
By the way, both of these phrases have resided in the realm of cliché so long that the Interwebs are of no use in tracking their origin. Each has been used for so many different songs that I was overwhelmed with videos and lyric sheets, and once I got past those I was in a wilderness of blogs about personal finance.
I have not even bothered to check on the origin of the gag about women going through their mate’s pockets while he sleeps. You do know that fine old joke, don’t yu. “My wife is always demanding money. Monday it was two bucks, Tuesday she wanted ten, and then yesterday she wanted five.” “What does she do with it all?” “I don’t know. I never give her any.”
Of course, the question of how much money a man should give the woman who managed the household expenses was a reliable gambit for personal finance articles and comedians for decades as well. “I was cleaning out George’s pockets and found a piece of paper with the name Lola and a phone number. You can bet I interrogated him about that.” “What did you get out of him?” “A new coat and forty more dollars a week spending money.”
Another solid comedy ploy was the money either spouse tried to hide from the other. I comedy, at least, it is always assumed that each is saving up to buy some expensive item for themselves. (In dramas, each is saving up to buy something for the other, but one spouse finds the money and assumes the worst, and the whole story nearly reaches divorce court before it is resolved.) But women traditionally also had a stash they called Mad Money: something tolive on if they got so mad at their husband they just walked out. (When you’re writing your dissertation on comedy and the status of women in society, please cite this blog. My academic credentials need the boost.)
If you have never seen boxes like those being carried by the delivery boy in front, you have never cleaned out a really good attic: people NEVER threw away hat boxes. Women’s hats come up over and over in the history of matrimonial cartoons, either because hats were so expensive, or because hat boxes were easily recognizable and made the joke that much easier on the audience.
This popular gag is also useful in historical research. I have seen versions at $15 a week, $16 a week, $25 a week…yes, you can write THAT dissertation, too. Remember to spell my name right in the footnote.
You have seen this artist before in this article: the whole series runs to at least ten different observations on the reasons people get married, and the reality they face later on. I do like it that the puppy gets to put in two cents worth on the quality of the food.
As miserable as that situation is, however, the postcard cartoonist could think of one worse fate. (Unless this is just wishful thinking. I’ve seen a few documents on what postcard artists got paid. I don’t suppose THOSE pockets showed much at night beyond pennies and scraps of paper with punchlines scribbled on them.)
At a great distance from the ravine, four eyes were able to watch the screaming woman drop, not only as a figure on a screen but as a blip on a graph. A third screen blinked on to allow them to witness the impact.
“We will not make that mistake in the future.”
His Imperial Worship leaned back, setting Imperial shoulders on the light blue cushions of his chair, and checked instruments to his left and right. “We see the problem. In removing all forms of loyalty and faith, so she could betray the pirate, we no doubt removed knowledge of proper use o the prayerstone. He was paying attention, wasn’t he?”
Nubry rose to tiptoe, chin forward so she could study the figure in the chair. Anything she might learn could be a help. But she was not near enough to see much of the instruments he looked over.
The librarian stood between halves on an immense eggshell, wrists and ankles held by icy blue manacles which were attached to nothing. Small squares of the same blue material hovered here and there around here. They seemed to work on the same principle as the traveling squares, and were used to change her position inside the machine.
For the eggshell was a large copy machine of a kind Nubry had not seen or experienced before. It had the capability to produce a functioning replica of anything held within its field. Or, depending on adjustments His Imperial Worship could make from where he sat, slightly altered copies.
Also before the Emperor were all manner of screens showing parts of the audience, the bets being made, and the progress of prisoners through the maze. Nubry could see from her position how Bott and the three women he’d met made it into the next chamber, just before a dark flood would have washed them into the chasm. She nodded.
She could also see the screens which showed what he allowed the betting multitude to know, altering the computer’s reports just enough to manipulate the betting. Somehow, this was the most shocking thing she’d seen so far. The ability to torment prisoners, the power of life and death at the press of a little tab: these were not enough. His Imperial Worship had to make a profit on it. For a mighty force of evil destruction, this seemed mighty petty. But the Emperor had turned out to be a mighty petty mighty force of evil destruction. She had never imagined a destructive power doing so much giggling.
“We’ll give them a full day before we start damaging their arms. Or, truly, before you do.”
An Imperial finger came down on a little yellow square. A manacle she had not hitherto noticed, in her hair, brought her head forward. Her wrists came up behind her back. It was apparently an Imperial duty to make her as uncomfortable as possible between copies.
He didn’t even look back to see if this hurt. “I am sure you dislike the manacles, my sweetness, but they are essential. During the tests, Poor Sherrif Tino of Shenshark twisted so much that he broke his neck. And then the copies were useless, of course. Fun for a little while, but not good for anything else.”
Nubry tried to ignore the sweat trickling down the sides of her neck and the front of her throat: there was no way to wipe it away. She willed her muscles to stop trying to find a comfortable position. There were no comfortable positions.
She supposed she ought to be planning an escape, but these manacles were entirely new to her. She knew as well that she should be collecting information. On the cuffs, of course, and on this monstrous copier, but there must also be a clue to the maze somewhere on those screens.
Her eyes, though, kept turning to the screen where Bott Garton was walking with the three multicolored women. They had come to a cave; crawling through this, they had moved into a room filled with yellow choking mist. Crawling faster, they were headed toward a red door, a blue door, and a yellow door. Bott was in the lead; she wished she could hear what was being said.
He brought her book out of his satchel again. What could he want with “Bunny Bunk and the Purple Pillow”? He couldn’t read it. She had intended to teach him to read, in return for him teaching her how to pronounce all those words she knew from books but had never heard said out loud.
“You are not attending.” Another Imperial finger hit another tab.
Nubry threw her head back against the manacle in her hair as the blue mist rose around her; she felt her right shoulder joint separate. Why was she trying not to scream? Anything this painful had to have been designed to make people scream. So the Emperor could giggle. It was so unfair, like the Imperial guards. They dressed to be as frightening as they could, armed themselves so as to be as frightening as they could, and learned to talk so they sounded as frightening as they could. Then they laughed at you for being scared.
So she ground her teeth and concentrated on that blue dot on that certain screen. The dot blurred as her eyes watered, but it was still there, the Dragonshelf’s position in the maze. The books were still all right. She pulled uselessly at the manacles, and forced her brain around that thought. The books were still all right. Bott would get the books. And then he would come for her.
“You must tell me how you like it, so I can record the data.” Hs Imperial shifted his chair just a little, and pressed another lighted square. “I’m told it combines the pangs of giving birth with the pains of being born. Inanimate objects simply fade away after fifty or so copies are made, but sentient beings promise such pretty things every time a little more life is torn from them.”
It was in Nubry’s mind to ask him why doing things like this made him giggle. But now it felt as if an overinflated remfball was being forced up her throat by a splintered remfball bat.
Then she was staring at a kneeling copy of herself panting on a light blue traveling square. “Oh!” she gasped, no less startled by this vision than she had been the first time.
Then the copy was gone, as the traveling square shifted and the third Nubry dropped into darkness.
“So she won’t meet you and be traumatized, poor puppet.” His Imperial Worship turned to consider the pinioned librarian. He was going to giggle again; Nubry just knew it.
“Perhaps I should make four copies at once. I understand the pain increases exponentially.” The Imperial thumb came down, and Nubry’s ankles rose toward her wrists.
When I received THIS wordy postcard, I checked, as I usually do, to find out how many other examples were for sale on eBay. Hoo boy, as they say in Paris. There were at that moment 1183 postcards featuring the Legend of Spanish Moss, at prices ranging from low to exorbitant. There was a vast variety of pictures, so I persevered in hopes that MY picture happened to be a rare variant worth its weight in lottery tickets.
The postcards were far from uniform in telling this particular tale. Allowing for abridged versions available on postcards with bigger pictures, coffee cups, and trading cards, I find three different traditions, equally represented on postcards issued in Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana, explaining the attractive and/or spooky moss which was frequently used for bedding or insulation, and was reputedly the preferred stuffing for the earliest bayou voodoo dolls.
One set of postcards is part of a general “star-crossed lover” tradition which has rots extending to Greek Myth and can be found in every part of the planet. In this version, rather than two lovers divided by war or feud, we have an engaged couple “a thousand years ago” (sometimes named Hasse and Laughing Eyes) whose wedding never happens because Hasse is killed in an attack by a rival group. In one telling, they are killed together while in others, Laughing Eyes dies of sorrow. In either case, the lovers are buried together, Spanish moss appearing on the oak which grows from the grave, presumably the muscular hero being the tree hung with the hair of his beloved, which goes gray with the passing of years.
This is pretty standard stuff, so let us turn to the two traditions of Gorez Goz, a name I refuse to believe in. The tale of this Spanish sea captain, whether he is an outright villain or unfortunate schlub, comes from two poems, one credited to P.M.L., and the other by T.S.Y. (The latter poem is sometimes known as “The Meanest Man Who Ever Lived”, though I have not seen this title on a postcard.) The chief difference between the two appears to be the motivation of the fleeing Indian princess. In the version seen at the top, she is afraid of the bearded captain and sets off into the swamps, whereas in the other version (here shown in abbreviated form), she is offended by the fact that the braid of thread Gorez offers for her is tarnished, and runs off because her pride is injured. In both, the captain’s beard defeats him, catches in the trees, and becomes Spanish moss.
I have hunted without success for where in the world the name of the captain comes from (in the second poem, his ship is the good ship Glee, easy to rhyme but just as unlikely as its captain’s moniker.) There IS an account online which traces the story to the 1764 wedding of a French sea captain with an Indian princess who died not long after the wedding and became the subject of a religious argument, the captain wanting his wife buried while the lady’s family demanded she be exposed on a platform according to their tradition. The captain compromised by burying his wife but exposing locks of her hair in trees. THAT then became Spanish moss. The captain and his ship and his bride are named in this version, but as I found this in only one source, which goes on to note that the princess was the daughter of the Choctaw spirit Father of a Thousand Leaves, I will set it aside. Anyway, it’s not on a postcard.
The only reliable chat about the whole legend tells how, to tease each other, Spanish explorers in the region referred to Spanish moss as “French hair” while the French explorers called it “Spanish beard”. I have failed so far to trace either of the poets known by their initials, so unless someone out their can prove to me that the L in P.M.L. stands for Laughingeyes, I am going to take it for granted that the name came first, and the ancient legends came later, about the same time postcards needed to be sold to romantic tourists. (This WOULD make it even younger than the joke I’ve decided not to make, about something like this being afoot in most legends.)
It has been a while since we have discussed the postcard which is all, or nearly all, words. Our ancestors were great fans of an art form which some prefer to call poetry, though sometimes the same sentiments were written in a paragraph that didn’t pretend to be anything but prose. I don’t know if today’s generation would understand a sentiment written out not to be part of a huge essay but just to exist on its own as…what? A text? A tweet? A meme? Okay, you’re going to relate to these postcards more than I thought.
Anyhow, I recently acquired a large collection of postcards described as “romance and marriage, which included a half dozen of these wordy cards. Be warned that they do deal with the fantasy and reality of both. Oh, and as seen by the one at the top of this column, some of them are examples of just Too Many Words. This leaves the sender nothing to say (which may have been the point.)
This is a little more flowery (so to speak), and really a little easier to read because of that. This is the only postcard in this article which was actually messaged: a man wrote a two-line message endorsing the front of the card, and handed it to his wife (whom he addresses in the message as “Wife”.)
We have discussed hereintofore the habit of a generation or two around the turn of the last century for what I call “refrain” poems, where a sentiment is hammered in by putting it at the end of every stanza. (I’ll look into whether or not these were all inspired by the best-selling poem “Excelsior”, but that’s a whole nother blog.) Telling other people how to treat their spouses, however, has no specific age in history, and I am not sure this doesn’t do the job better than some 300-page how to books on the same subject. (On the other hand, the song “Little Things Mean a Lot” covers the same territory, and has a melody.)
This, however, tosses the whole question into the cold, harsh light of day, what some might call “real life”. I feared the worst on seeing the title, but steel your nerves, good reader. The moral of the story is also better done here than in many a trade paperback self-help volume.
It should be understood that there were plenty of postcards as well about how to treat your husband. This is a British contribution to the literature of interpersonal relations.
How this got into the collection I hesitate to ponder. But I like its attitude and I admire its courage, since it bears all the marks of a card published somewhere around 1912, when, I was always taught, Americans minded their language in public. (I have also read that we simply became more mealy-mouthed somewhere around 1929.) I started rewriting this text in my head, substituting other words. But the result would be merely derivative, larcenous, and unpublishable. Consider your own version…AFTER you decide why this was part of the matrimonial postcard collection.
Bott hit the big golden door first. The black knob turned a fingerwidth to the left, but no farther. The grumbles of the grobbles grew louder as more pushed up onto the bridge. The scent pf burning grobble was unattractive, but not as unattractive as the odor of approaching unburnt grobble.
A dimpled golden hand reached past him. “Slide these two bolts, Luv.”
Bottt twisted the knob again as the Klamathan hand held back the springbolts. Everyone sprang forward as one when the door swung open.
The door banged shut behind them and did not reopen, though all four of the fell back against it, beaten back by the heat in the light grey room. Hot dry wind ground sand into Bott’s nose. He narrowed his eyes to slits, studying the chamber to find out if this was the last one he’d see.
Most of the floor was occupied by a vast octagonal pool. This pool told Bott he was definitely still aboard the Drover. Bubbles rose to the surface, shimmering with a dozen shades of every color in the spectrum, and then bursting with new waves of light and heat. Above pool and bubbles rose a vast dome, constructed of metal bars curved in gracious, delicate arcs.
“I think we have to climb.” Bott reached a hand to the nearest Bar. It was hot, but not too hot to grip.
“Motivate them toes!” Called the green, picking out a bar and hauling herself up.
“Hang on tight!” Bott cautioned. Some of the curves in the design allowed for large gaps between bars. Whether the gaps were big enough to let the green Klamathan fall through, he wasn’t sure, but he was positive he wouldn’t be able to pull out any of the Klamathans who got wedged in the openings.
“Know what yez mean,” aid the blue, mounting up. “Not at me best when it’s hot. Can’t get traction.”
The wind, to no one’s surprise, did not relent as they rose above the pool. The gold’s hair flipped left and right, as did the coat of the blue Klamathan, allowing generous views of massive scarred thighs. The green reached up and gave her colleague a healthy pinch.
“Bluebottom, you air as much use as a acre o’ snakes,” she called. The blue kicked back at her head, missing wide.
Wiping grit from her face, the gold moved along bars which brought her closer to Bott. “”We may have time to introduce ourselves before new perils are launched. I, sir, am Chlorda Diona Pollar, late of Klamath.”
“I’m Bassada Del Dorma,” called the blue. “From KHLAmath.”
“Louba Bobari Bomar, of Rukhlamath,” the green reminded him, with a glare at the other two.
It was about as bad as Bott had feared. From their pronunciation of the same planet’s name, they marked themselves as members of assorted rebel groups which hated each other nearly as much as they did the Free Imperial State. He shrugged and climbed on; if he was lucky, they might all be Imperial spies just pretending to be Klamathan rebels.
“I’m Captain Bott Garton,” he replied. “How long have you been on board the Drover?”
“Oh, the start of the triumphal procession,” said the gold, now climbing hip to hip with Bott. “Leaders of rebel forces were to be honored by being sold at the first DroverSlave Auction.”
Bott froze, despite the heat of the room and his climbing partner. “You’re…all…rebel leaders?”
”Makes fer lotsa fun,” Bassada Del Dorma told him. “Gotta take turns leadin’. Goldguts ‘ere did get us outa them slave pens. Not ‘at it’s been doin’ us much good so far.”
“There was a lapse in security.” Chlorda told Bott. “Days ago. I naturally took the lead and we were well on our way out when this ridiculous command-sharing rotation came up, and we wound up in this maze.”
“Some commanda,” sneered Bassada. “Stans on her tiptoes an’ yodels when ya gooses her.”
“I do not!” snapped Chlorda. “Well, once.”
“A day,” grumbled her blue colleague, reaching for the cluster of bars at the peak of the dome.
“An’ you?” asked Louba, looking over her shoulder at Bott. “When’d you….” She paused her talking and her climbing at the same time.
Everyone did the same. The wind had stopped. Four pairs of eyes checked every direction, seeking what new threat this might signal. Bubbles continued to rise and pop, now far below them.
“Oo-ah!” Bassada swung at one thigh with her right hand. Her left slipped off a bar, and her face hit another. Before she could drop further, Louba slapped one hand on the blue backside and shoved another underneath. Bassada shrieked, but before Bott could see what, exactly, was being grabbed, he was slapping at his own body.
The whine of the swarm gave away its composition. No one had claimed credit for the electric moths, whether they were exotic organics or an invention of the Imperial labs. What was known on numerous planets for certain was the intensity of their voltage, and their preference for soft flesh over any other target.
Bott whistled and reached into a pocket. He didn’t suppose he’d be needing these souvenirs much longer.
“Thumbprinks, huh?” Louba watched as the moths followed one dropped digit down to the pool. “Member that….”
“Why should these playpretties pay us a visit just now?” mused the Klamathan aristocrat, slapping at a few moths which preferred her cleavage to the severed thumbs of former security personnel. “I wonder…aha!”
The majestic gold head reared. Bott glanced the same direction. A golden panel showed in the ceiling, just above where the dome reached its peak. Had the gold not checked that direction, the contestants might have been harried by stinging moths to hurry down to whatever peril waited on the other side of the dome.
“At’s a piddo!” cried Bassada, now sitting on the bars. “Let greengams go first and haul us after. She kin lift anything at’s loose!”
“Like you, sposin?” Louba balanced herself on the bars and rose slowly to reach for the circular door. Bott braced feet and hands for a new trap, perhaps more and larger insects, but nothing came out at them. The green Klamathan got a grip, and disappeared into the ceiling. Then green arms reached out.
“All clear!” she shouted. “Le’s have a customer!”
“I’m game fer a ride,” said Bassada, sliding over under the hole.
“You will wait your turn,” said Chlorda, sidling up. “Your arms are long enough to give me a boost.” The boost was less than dignified, but served its purpose. Gold legs disappeared into the opening as Chlorda called back a term Bott had not heard before, but understood. He was less personal when it came to boosting Bassada up through the exit.
“Yer nextest, Cap’n.” Bott studied the green arms and then considered the descent along the dome of bars. Not sure which was more perilous, he raised his arms and allowed himself to be collected.
All three women helped him find his way up, each using both hands for the purpose. He knew this groping was a sign they were accepting him as a companion, but he was not positive he wanted to be found THIS acceptable.
“Close the door,” he panted, “Before any moths follow us.”. While they checked the threat below, he was able to pull free of their assistance. Louba kicked the door across the doorway.
The room they had entered was a narrow rectangle, walls light grey with intermittent patches of darker grey. Hot and damp, it might be no more than venting for the fumes from below. That was hopeful: if they weren’t meant to be here there might be an actual way out. A dull whine made Bott think of the moths again.
“Better go,” he said, rising to his feet.
Chlorda nodded to the lighter end of the chamber, starting forward with one hand extended ahead of her at shoulder level. “Of course, we’d be free by now if I’d been allowed to the lead the group straight on.”
“Yah yah,” Bassada responded, pushing up next to her. “I believe ‘at. But we got a cap’n here now, an’ he outranks yez. Maybe YOU gonna get spankin’s, ‘is trip.”
Bott winced, remembering how Klamathan commanders conducted discipline aboard ship. Miscreants were also sentenced to stand in a corner, not a light punishment if that corner was handy to a crew of imaginative Klamathans. He glanced at the broad expanse of cloth across the backside of Louba Bobari Bomar, and then at his hands.
“Aboard my ships,” he said, trying to keep desperation out of his voice, “We made do with confinement to quarters and deductions from that crew member’s loot.”
“Loot?” Bassada Del Dorma whirled, her coat swirling a half second behind her body. Bott felt himself surrounded by muscular arms. “Oh, a pirate cap’n! A pirate, yet!”
“Gonna get out and scrummel up some loot!” The big blue Klamathan slapped her palms together and then threw them wide for a hug that encompassed both Bott and Bassada. Not to be outdone, the impressed aristocrat threw her gold body into the mix, and joined the jovial mauling. The pile collapsed to the floor, with Bott at bottom. Distracted by weight and odor and exclamations, he recognized that whine at the same time: it was an off-key, pitched=-up version of “My Beautiful Lady”, a ballad from his home planet. So this was indeed another torture room, and their progress was being monitored.
He started to explain this, and gagged on the general atmosphere. Green Klamathans , barring cologne, always smelled to him of coffee and burnt sugar, blues of bread and honey, and golds of vanilla. He missed the librarian; Nubry smelled like a sweaty crew member.
“Well, now.” Bassada stood up and smoothed wrinkles from her only garment. “No quarters ta confine us to, an’ we gots no loot, so yez’ll hafta do it our way. Beggin’ the cap’n’s pardon, I’m sure.” She hitched up her hems. “Unless yez’d like ta teach me a good lesson right now fer talkin’ back.”
The gold reached out and slapped the exposed buttock hard enough to leave a purple handprint. “Wait right there! Who said anything about this man being OUR captain?”
Bott was on firmer ground here. He rose, checking his pockets: Klamathan affection frequently had practical applications. The cards were still there. “If none of you wants to step aside for the others, a neutral party’s your logical choice. Besides, I can contact someone who may help.”
He squeezed the sides of the communication card. “Ship, you never told me there were prisoners aboard.”
“You never asked,”
The Klamathans stood back, imnpressed. “Where’n honeypot almighty’d ya pick up a playpretty like ‘at?” demanded Louba, massive green fingers reaching in.
Bott pulled his hand away but did not retreat. “I took it when I hijacked the Drover.”
He braced himself for another embrace, but after three pairs of very large eyes studied him for a moment, the Klamathans turned away for a conference. “It’s a trick,” said Bassada. “Gotta be a spy.”
“I say we let him play captain for a bit, even if he is a spy,” whispered the aristocrat. “He might leave if we don’t.”
“Like ta see him try,” said Louba, glancing at the pirate.
Bassada pulled her back down into the huddle. “Yez always busts alla best parts.” “Do you know the Klamathan penalty for spying?” the Drover inquired. “It starts with a razor.” Bott shoved the card back into his pocket.
The Klamathan conference broke up, and they rejoined him, patting and poking. “Yer our cap’n,” Louba announced. “Leastways fer a coupla doors anyhew.”
Bott pulled free of the acclaim and pointed to the far end of the chamber. “There’s the first one, then.” He was rather proud of his ability to manage to think in this personal humidity AND the irritating background music. Apparently, the Drover didn’t know he had crew members who whistled farther off key than this.
They reached a square door without a handle, but with two lighted buttons in the center. Bott reached ut experimentally and just brushed the top button. Both buttons went out and the door shot straight up into the wall. He wondered what might have happened if he’d hit the lower button, but this was no time for pondering. He stepped through the square into the darkness, waving the hand that was not in the grenade satchel to warn the others back in case this was the wrong place to be.
He knew the Drover must still be in orbit around Lodeon VII, but this really looked as if they had made it outside. The rolling landscape must have been built in a factory, and the vast starlit sky projected from some hidden source.
Nearest the door were two high hills, with a broad road running between them, and narrower trails to the right and left. Louba stepped up next to Bott, scratching her left elbow. “Lemme see here. We better…yackit!”
She glanced back at Chlorda Diona Pollar, who had pinched her. The gold nodded toward Bott. “Ah!” said Louba, understanding.
Knowing the decision would now be left to him as captain, Bott studied the landscape. There could be no second guesses: the roads diverged too far for them to see the other two from whichever they took. “Ask yer pal in yer card,” suggested Bassada.
Nott knew how little good that would do. But he had to come up with a firm decision, and something to back it up. He doubted there was any chance of blowing part of a hill away, but reached into his grenade satchel. His hand came out without a grenade.
“Well, paint a stripe down me nose and set me to plowin’,” cried Louba Bobari Bomar, as he leafed through Nubry’s book. “A pirate what reads!”
Better not to claim too much. “No,” he said, “This looks like a book, but it’s a special coded map.” He riffled through the pages. “If the, um, bunnybunk is looking up in the picture, we have to turn left, and right if it’s looking down. Anything else, and we go straight ahead.”
“I have heard of such things,” said the gold aristocrat, nodding to her colleagues.
“Where did I leave off?” Bott turned the pages deliberately. “Here!”
There was nothing to recommend this page particularly beyond that it was light enough to be seen in the night atmosphere of this room. The animal was looking up into an orange bush, at a red slipper with a silver buckle. Bott wondered what it was all about.
”Kay.” The green Klamathan swung her massive hips to the left. “Let’s mobilate.”
Bott strode forward, exuding faith in his “map”. And for several yards, the book seemed to have picked a useful path. The ravine that was revealed around the other side of the hill was a momentary disappointment, but he saw the Drover had kindly provided a means of crossing the chasm. One end of a rope was tied to a spiky plant, and the other to a platform for passengers. Bott took hold of this.
“Tink yez puts yer feet over here, Cap’n, Luv,” said Bassada, “At’s a handle up on….”
“Be just like them to make the rope that much too short.” Bott glanced at the Klamathans and the ledge at the far side of the deep, dark ditch. “Better try it two at a time. If we make it, one can swing back for someone else. If not, we both swing back.”
“Or we could just turn back.” The gold sniffed. “It would also be just like them to give us a rope which will break during the swing.”
Klamathans, even under Klamathan captains, seldom proceeded on orders alone. “I’d’a gone right,” said Bassada. Louba said nothing, extending one leg and scratching at the mark left on her knee by a moth.
The other paths were probably no worse than this one, nor any better. But aside from this, to change direction would cast doubt on his book, and his guidance as captain. “No time to go back.” He glanced up. “There’ll be something happening soon. Look.”
Three heads tipped up. Stars were disappearing from the sky. “Better do sumpm,” said Louba, stepping toward the rope.
“I think you should try it.”
Bott had a grenade in his hand; the three Klamathans were crouched for a leap. Nubry was offended by none of this. She brushed dirt from her hair and dark stains from the front of her uniform. “That was a lot of work.” She nodded around the group. “Who’re your friends?”
Bott realized his hands had left the grenade satchel and were holding hers. He let them drop.
“We’ll leave introductions for the other side,” he said, assuming his most captainic tone. “Now we….”
Thunder shook the hill and the path. Looking up, Bott found all the stars were gone. “Come on. If your prayerstone can help us, we can use the boost.”
She shrugged. “I don’t think you’ll need my help, but you can have it.” She raised the stone to her lips and then tucked it into the neck of her tunic. “Who goes first?”
“The lightest ones.” He took her hand and wrapped its arm around her waist. “I’ll bring the rope back.”
“The little snirp…” grumbled Chlorda.
“Quiet,” ordered Bassada. “Can’tcha see it’s his sweetie?”
The rope made stretching sounds but did nothing drastic. Bott took hold of one of the hands at his waist.
“Bott?”
Clutching the wrist, he peeled it back. He shook it, and then let go.
“Bott!”
She screamed all the way down. Bott wondered whether the real Nubry would have gone on so long.
The skeleton swung its gladius and slashed a dozen pictures pinned to Debbi’s kitty bulletin board. She pulled to the left, jamming a thumb down on the console. Armor clanked and Dirk struck out with his claymore, slicing the creature in half (and severing the bottom two feet of the Hello Kitty curtains.)
“Now, demon, never shall you….”
“Fall for that move again,” said the skeleton as its bones leapt from the ground into their previous arrangement. The gladius came down: Dirk and his weapon clattered to the floor. He did not seem to have the monster’s power: his pieces stayed where they were.
That made three dead bodies on Debbi’s Grumpy Cat rug. If these characters didn’t pull back into the game console at the end, she’d have some explaining to do. They had also kicked up plenty of dust from the dry, baked earth that had taken the place of her bed and bedside table. Debbi peered into the little screen, looking for another hero.
A grating cackle came from the skull. “Now, REAL human.”
Debbi gave up on finding another champion, and tried instead to scroll to the command to shut everything down.
“That will profit you nothing,” the skeleton cackled, striding forward. Debbi had played plenty of games. Her reflexes were sufficient to get her out of reach of the gladius. She could tell the blade would have missed her anyhow. If the bony clown was playing with her, he’d learn a severe lesson.
As soon as she figured out how to teach him. She cast her mind to other strategies as the skeleton came forward, turning more of her floor into cracked alien soil.
Her loser dad complained all the time about the hours (and money) she spent on her games. He had tried putting a parental time control in the games he helped develop. That had been Debbi’s first big sale online, sharing how to bypass that. Since then, she had helped pay for her game work by stealing his, and leaking it online. He STILL had no idea who Honeygamer
the Hawful was, and he never would, so long as he kept telling her what he and his company were going to use next to trap the hacker.
The skeleton cackled and swung again, but tripped on the cord of her Cinderella lamp. Debbi glanced at where her bedroom door had been, but a twisted cactus sat there now.
Dad had been working way late on the VGR, or Virtual Game Replicator, which meant babysitting by Aunt Alice who busied herself with match-three games on her phone and let Debbi play what games she wanted. Dad would come home exhausted with this weird console and tell Debbi he didn’t feel it was quite ready for trial. “The monsters are a little overpowered,” he confided, with a serious sigh.
If Clack, a level one skeleton, was any indication, he was right. Dark Breakout was certainly going to be a challenging game. But if trial and error meant dying, and she had to do it for real….
The 3-D game was no mere photographic illusion. Debbi, easing to the right and searching the screen for help, stepped on Dirk’s swordhand and tumbled into Clack just as he lunged. The crash sent them both into another crash. Her stack of game discs mingled with his scattering bones.
“Ha!” Debbi pulled back against her desk. There HAD to be a way to shut this thing off. Clack growled as he tried to reassemble, his ribs and fingers stuck through assorted shining discs.
This was pathetic. She refused to be killed by a level one. She’d spent hours in other games, customizing heroes, any one of which would crunch Clack into…. She looked down at Clack, about three-fourths reassembled, and yanked the disc out of the VGR console.
“Shutting off the game will not stop me, loopy human!”
“Not the plan.” She grabbed up a disc from the floor. “Immortal Renegade”? Excellent choice! She jammed this into the console. Her thumbs went to the controls, her brain humming “Be compatible…Be compatible.”
She felt a tremble. Of course. Dad would never use a new system. Loser.
Clack rose and took up the short sword. Hearing music, he glared at the ceiling. “What’s….”
Stone flagging appeared on part of the baked earth as Immortal Renegades came out through the eye of the VGR. Debbi tapped a line of type on the screen.
Chaodius the Malwart stood forth from the stones on taloned feet. He raised his enchanted sword and smiled. Clack screamed and turned to run, but hit the wall hung with boy band calendars. He had no time for anything else.
When even the dusty skull had been ground to powder, Debbi heaved a sigh of relief. “You have done good work, Chaodius.”
“Thank you, Mistress.” Chaodius knelt before her, and Debbi gave him a regal nod. She then gave a shriek as the orc jumped up and snatched the console.
She felt the heat of the light from the eye of the console as he turned it full on her. Stone floor and stone walls replaced what was left of her bedroom.
“Now!” Chaodius’s voice took on a different note. “You’re the one who thought I’d look cool with purple eyeshadow on green skin, not? With glow-in-the-dark tattoos? And put me in this orange kilt?”
“Wait!” Debbi grabbed at the VGR console. SHE was playing this game.
Chaodius shoved an elbow down, knocking her onto her backside. A big green thumb slid across the VGR screen as she staggered to her feet. “Flippers for hands. No more button-mashing for you! Hair color…. you’d look better bald. And you need real armor.”
Clutching futilely at her clothes, her curls tumbling around her feet, Debbi wished she hadn’t automatically shut off the parental game timer.
Well, we’re sneaking up on spring, or vice versa, and I’m sure you’ll remember that fine old line: “In spring, a young man’s fancy turns lightly to what the young ladies have been thinking about all winter.”
Postcards were never shy about romance, and the artists responsible for the images on postcards knew a great deal about how the course of true love ran never smooth. One of the great obstacles to romance, according to the postcards of old, was not winter, but the difficulty of finding the time, the place, and the opportunity. Even in an age when people did NOT carry a camera around in their pockets, the possibility of a private place for a quiet cuddle was slender, and excuses had to be found. Here, for example, we have a couple of couples who have ventured WAY too far from the roadway, and have become so lost in the depths of the dark forest that their only choice is to huddle together for warmth, and wait for a glimmer of light to break through the surrounding gloom. (That car hasn’t even pulled off onto a shoulder…but it’s the only one.)
There were so many jokes, around the turn of the last century, about what happened on the train when it went through a tunnel (completely unlighted in those days) that it makes on yearn for the good old days.
And we have noted hereintofore about the romantic uses of the umbrella, both on and off the beach.
There was also a blog abut how indispensable an accessory to romance the park bench was, but at that point, I hadn’t seen THIS chap, who apparently waited until he found a place t sit down before telling the woman he loves her.
There are not nearly so many postcards discussing what happens when two people manage to slip off to the kitchen to heat something up, but they do exist, this cowboy cuisine version being one of the most recent examples. (I admit to some curiosity about what they’ll be enjoying later, but the way they’re cooking, it won’t be what’s in that pot.)
There’s a fine old joke about this kind of excuse, about the couple at the train station who bid each other such a passionate farewell that the train pulled off without them, the passengers watching until the locomotive chugged away into the distance. The stationmaster watched them do this again for the noon train, the train at half past, and when they pulled the same performance for the one o’clock passenger special, we ambled over and said, “Why don’t you folks run over to the bus station. They leave every ten minutes there.”
A hammock is always a good excuse, once you master the art of defying gravity. We also did a blog on how these provided an excuse for sitting close, since they sag toward the middle, pushing two occupants together. And the best ones had enough cloth in them so that anyone who decided to lie down in one caused gravity to bring the sides up, hiding the occupant(s).
Any excuse will do, of course. THIS chap with his hearing problem, mistakes “Oh you men!” for “Kiss me again”. Personally, I don’t think he has a hearing problem so much as a listening problem.
Then there’s THIS excuse. I’m sure np one really…yes, Groucho used a version of it, but…yes, I HAVE heard about five country songs based on the same idea, though…well, yeah, I guess I HAVE kept a straight face while people told me about explaining this to a sweetheart. Well, let’s just admit it’s spring, and the excuses are blooming.
“Hey, grumblin’ grobbles! Getcher big baggy shoulders outa my way! How many we got?”
Bott looked the newcomer over. A low gray oval with deep black eyes and long grey teeth was toddling through the forest, paying no attention to the glittering trees. Tufts of red hair over the sunken eyes waggled as it spotted the Klamathans.
The grumbling grobbles were frontline Imperial cannon fodder. Bred by the thousands, they were of little practical use, but they were low to the ground and easy to replace. When they did reach a target, they liked to bite things.
The grobble paused. “Grobble grobble grobble,” it grumbled. Bott knew it hadn’t stopped because it was outnumbered. Grobbles didn’t know when they were outnumbered because they could count no higher than two. Bott understood, and reached into his satchel for a grenade.
The chief weakness of a grobble, outside of a tendency to twiddle its toes at the height of massed battles, was a cleft at the back of its skull. Bott put the grenade away. Even at the cleft, the skull was hard enough to set off the grenade (if the grenade could be set off that way) and bounce it back. He put a hand on his harmonica, squinted, and let the instrument fly just as the grobble started forward again.
The harmonica struck with a clong and bounced back. Putting out a hand, Bott snared the instrument as he jumped over the startled grobble.
“Well, as I hopes ta lay square eggs!” cried the green Klamathan.
“A man!” exclaimed the blue. “A man wit’ a harmonica!”
“Careful,” commanded the gold, sucking in her lips. “He may be Imperial.”
“I’d take a Imperial,” the green replied. “While he lasted.” She stuck out a hand as Bott bounded toward her. “Howdy! I’m Louba Bobari Bomar!”
“You’re not!” snapped the gold, with a stamp of one foot.
The big green head turned to consider her. “I am, y’know.”
The gold-sandaled foot stamped again. “You are nobody until your betters have been introduced!”
Klamathans had one of the most conservative, most stratified social systems in the known universe, though casual observers might not notice. Even as the gold scolded, she was smoothing her robe and approaching Bott on tiptoe. The blue casually flipped back one side of her coat, the better to show she was wearing nothing underneath. The green twisted her torso, bringing her buttocks into sharper prominence in the silhouette of her overalls.
Bott could feel the glow radiating toward him from among dimples and pillowy cheeks. Or perhaps it was just the body temperature of four very large women: even the gold was taller than he was.
Safest to keep cool, he thought, by sticking to business. “Where can we go?” he demanded. “That grobble’s probably the scout for a whole company.”
Dimples flattened a bit; the Kalamthans regarded each other. There was an edge to the gold’s voice as she replied, “I fear our only choice is to double around and use the other exit from our dining room.”
“Laughin’ boy’s dining room, At’s a great idea, I don’t tink.” She reached out and dealt the nearer denim-covered buttock a resounding thwack. “Better jus’ tell Broadbeam Baby hear ta lie down over alla them blowholes. She’d get a trill outa it.”
The green, apparently not resenting the thwack, set her fists on her hips. “It’s MY day fer queenin’ it an’ I says….”
“burblebobblebibblebubblebeeblebobbleboo!”
A long red slot cracked open in the floor of the forest. Dozens of short, square combat grobbles grumbled forth, teeth shining bright in long red mouths. These teeth were neither terribly long nor remarkably plentiful: they were grinding teeth. As usual, the troops were armed with long black forks and knives.
“They’re coming,” said Bott, more to brace himself for the assault than because he thought the Klamathans hadn’t noticed. “We…..”
“Barbecued bugballs!” The big green smacked one fist into the palm of her other hand. Bending her legs, she launched herself into the mass of grobbles.
“Wait for baby!” The blue dove into the air to land atop another column of grobbles. Her technique, once she had landed, seemed to consist mainly of grabbing the nearest grobble and biting it on the forehead. This strategy was, Bott noticed, singularly successful. The grobbles paused in confusion: weren’t THEY supposed to be doing the biting? The pause made it all the easier for the green to pick them up and punt them back into the crevice from which they’d emerged.
“They can’t take all of them that way.” Bott reached for a grenade. “Too many grobbles.”
The gold was standing next to him now, rubbing her left hip against his side in an absent-minded manner. “I know,” she sighed. “They simply will not learn to coordinate their efforts for proper impact. Excuse me.”
A venturesome grobble had approached far too near. Taking it by the nose, the aristocrat hauled it up and yanked it forward against her own collarbone, stunning it either with the impact or by covering its breathing apparatus in the bosom it found itself mixed up with. As it struggled, she got a grip on its chest hairs and then tossed it over her shoulder into the golden river. The grobble sizzled and went under, not to return.
The combat prowess of the three women was no great shock to Bott. One did not make the mistake, twice anyhow, of assuming any Klamathan was slow, stupid, or quiescent simply because she was big. Still, as he had mentioned, there were quite a few grobbles: too many for three Klamathans and one pirate, particularly if any of the enemy remembered those weapons.
Further, someone had apparently given the horde instructions. The grobbles were spreading to the left, blocking any approach to the door through which they had all come. Soon, the only escape would be across a bridge which obviously did not crave to be crossed.
He bounced the grenade in one hand. That white powder, whatever it was, might be too fine to clog the fiery blowholes in the bridge. But it would make for a diversion, and anything which distracted the enemy from its goal (and meal) would be welcome.
“The loonies are that way, Luv,” said the gold, as Bott pulled the pin and threw the grenade behind himself.
“Watch this,” he replied.
With an explosion like the bursting of a large bubble, the grenade dissolved into an expanding ball of blue goo. This splintered and fell across the bridge in a thick blue rain. The blowholes spouted flame under the first impact, but there were too few blowholes and too much goo. A smell of cooking oprianas filled the air: really old oprianas, the ones with red spots.
Of course, Bott realized, watching with wide eyes, a grenade salesman would naturally pack an assortment in a sample bag for customers, each with its own bang. Best to pretend he had expected this.
“This won’t hold forever,” he said, “Better call the others.”
“Oh, why?” The gold put an arm around his waist and a hand behind his belt. “With my brains and your weapons, we could leave this place more quickly…and more amusingly, too, without a lot of….”
“Looka dat! She’s takin’ off with alla goodies!” Leaping onto the head of a grobble, the blue skipped along a row of them toward the bridge.
“Calls ‘at piggy,” noted the green, kicking her feet up and flinging a couple of grobbles wth each kick. “Piggy an’ unpolite and downright downheartening.”
Bott wondered for just one second whether it might not be safer to try swimming downstream in the burning river. Then one blowhole popped free of the goo with an opriana-scented squeal.
“Let’s go!” he shouted, charging out onto the bridge. The goo was not slippery, but it was hardening, blackening. He heard the surface crack under the feet f the following Klamathans,and the blue called “At’s one corn I won’t hafta burn off meself.”
But all four reached the far end to look back. The footprints left by the Klamathans were glowing in the hard black crust. Just as the grobbles realized their assignment included pursuing the foe, these footprints broke open in a wild calliope symphony, accompanied by a smoke of burnt vegetation.
“Grobble grobble grobble,” grumbled the leaders of the pack, seeing their path blocked.
“Ya done it!” The blue nearly sent Bott into the river with a congratulatory swat on the back. “Yer gonna be useful, what wit’ allada grenades!”
“Knew he’d be useful afore I saw any grenades,” countered the green, licking her lips.
Danger followed danger in this maze. “The door,” Bott said, pointing. “Before the grobbles try the bridge. Some would be bound to make it across the bodies of the others.”
“Masterful, too,” said the gold, leaning down to pat the back of his pants. “That’s so cute in a man.”
The knock on the door of the unlikely little shop was thunderous.
“Good afternoon, sir. How may I….”
“Remember me?”
“Certainly, sir. You are Galliga of Coyne, who set off to defeat the Dragon of Mount….”
“You sold me the magic tablecloth of Queen Clothilde.”
“True, sir. An excellent way to make sure you have enough provisions to cross the Fiery Wastes of….”
“I want my money back.”
“Well, technically, sir, it ceased to be your money when you took possession of the….”
“The magic tablecloth is supposed to provide a massive feast when I spread it out and say ‘Feed Me, Genie’: roast meats, sparkling wine, fresh bread, and everything I could desire. But it doesn’t work!”
“Well, sir, you understand the old legends….”
“You told me the old legends were true! But all I see when I perform the spell if a bowl of boiled beets!”
“You must understand, sir, that the legends always leave out the boring parts. Queen Clothilde’s seventh son, Frackward, rode out and battled the Goblins of the Green Pit, but his legend never mentions it took him nearly a year to ride that far to the south. The queen’s ninth daughter tricked the wizard Horripilis by climbing his castle wall, but nowhere does HER legend discuss the fingernails and toenails she cracked in the process. It’s a part of storytelling that balances events against the attention span of an audience.”
“My attention span is not extensive. Tell me at once what you’re talking about.”
“The legend of the magic tablecloth leaves out a great deal of biography. Queen Clothilde was the mother of thirty-seven heroic offspring, who went out and performed mighty deeds which freed people from suffering and extended the Queen’s realm. She raised them with as much care as she ruled her kingdom and formed her magic spells, and a little of her personality is included in each of her artifacts.”
“Meaning?”
“You WILL get your roasts and baguettes and delicate baked meringue desserts, sir. But you don’t get one mouthful of those things until you finish every bit of your beets.”
I hang out with a number of Luddite intellectuals: that is, these are people who still read books and watch television, and wonder about some of the things they learn in these places. But since they do not believe in allowing the Interwebs into their homes, they then tell these things to me, knowing I have access to a world of answers.
The trouble with getting your answers on the Interwebs is not so much that you find ten times as many false answers as true, as that there is no answer, right or wrong, which cannot be made much longer if you keep looking.
For example, one of these ladies asked me, “Why do people cry ‘uncle’ when they give up? Why not cry for mommy? Is it related to ‘Who’s your daddy’?”
Now, there IS a short answer to that question. That answer is “Well, nobody knows, exactly.” But if you work on it, you will find that researchers have found possible answers, all possible, all as likely to have been provided after the fact, just to answer the question. There’s the ancient Roman game where kids would punch each other until one called the winner “my best of uncles”, or the ancient Irish version, related to the word “anacol”, meaning refuge. And you can always take on the fine old joke about the man who strangled his parrot because it wouldn’t say “Uncle”, tossed the supposedly dead body out the window, and next morning found all his chickens had been killed by an angry parrot that kept screaming, “Say ‘Uncle’, you filthy beggar!” Up to you.
Another day, the inquiry was “Do we call ‘em oyster crackers because people ate them in oyster stew, or because when they’re floating in the soup, they look like oysters?”
The short answer to that is that “No one knows”. A longer answer is that either of her suggestions may well be true. (Or not.) If you want a deeper die into oyster waters, you find that they are especially connected with a city in Pennsylvania or another one in New Jersey, and are sometimes called “water crackers.”
Before you ask, the “soda cracker” was called that shortly after the invention of baking soda made their manufacture simpler. And there are roughly half a hundred different derivations for “cracker” as an ethnic label, from the use of “crack” to mean “brag” and the use of cracked corn in the diet, though I kind of like the one that traces it to the loafers who hung around the cracker barrel in the general store.
Another of the crew amazed themselves when I noted that a strange product name at least made you look at them, by exclaiming, “Made you look, you dirty crook: stole your mamma’s pocket book. Turned it in, turned it out, turned it into sauerkraut.” What startled them was how rhymes can be handed down for decades on the playground, but I wondered where the (what’s the opposite of a nursery rhyme?) came from.
Well, the short answer is “Um, nobody knows”. But MY, the playground has evolved since I was there being dared to walk up the slide the wrong way. For one, thing, the earliest citation of the poem online (at least where I was looking) traces it all the way back to 1977, when I had reached an age to be dared to go over and talk to that cute sophomore girl at the bowling alley. Another claimed the CORRECT version, traced all the way back to 2001, is “Made you look, you dirty CHOOK”, and the verse ends with “Stole a dime and bought some wine and now you look like Frankenstein.”
About the only information I found which can really be regarded as solid fact is that pocketbooks make crummy sauerkraut. Now, if everyone will leave me to my own devices, I will return to my ongoing struggle to find out why movie gangster slang made “Roscoe” a word for a gun. I suspect Fatty Arbuckle is involved, but the Interwebs continues to hide the True Facts from me.
Blogsy Babbles 