I have mentioned here and elsewhere how I personally, invented some million dollar concepts, only to be turned away by experts so that I gave up, allowing people with more grit and perseverance to get the glory and the money. The page-a-day calendar, the trivia board game, the shared universe short story anthology: these and other obsolete wonders were things I came up with in my spare time, only to be shot down. Well, I’m tired of it.
No, I am NOT going to burn the midnight oil developing my ideas. That takes effort. I am going to put them into a column so that I can do the Jules Verne thing and be credited long after I’m dead for coming up with these society-changing concepts. (I was told all through my childhood about Jules Verne’s talent as a science fiction author in coming up with ideas a century ahead of their time. The Interwebs are now filled with articles pointing out flaws in Jules Verne’s concepts for space travel and atomic submarines. I am willing to risk this. Greatness will prevail despite nitpickers. Anyway I’ll be too busy asking the superintendent of facilities if we can lower the thermostat a bit to be counting the wreaths tossed on my headstone.)
Let’s start with a new concept for those mega-sellers online. All of them already have places you can click to see “What I’ve Bought”. This is hardly sufficient. We would appreciate adding a few new tabs to click like “Where I Put It Once I Bought It” or even “Why Did I Buy This?”
For people who are frustrated by always getting the wrong size spoon or tongs when collecting food from a buffet, I say the buffet should embrace this and make it fun. Ditch the spoons and tongs: put in one of those claw machines you used to see in penny arcades. Have customers put money in the machine and then take a chance on grabbing up as many Swedish meatballs or Salisbury steaks as that fiendish contraption will lift. Same result, more fun; most of us will spend more calories than we eventually consume.
Add a meter to the screen on social media platforms, charging so many pennies for each minute we spend viewing cute kitty videos. No, I’m not saying we should pay the creators. I’m spending MY valuable time watching their content: they should pay me minimum wage for that. AND if I decide to post a comment offering very helpful advice on the dancer’s footwork, outfit or personal appearance, I demand a bonus for my generosity in sharing my opinion. (If this results in a Nobel Prize for single-handedly shutting down social media, I can provide a mailing address.)
Every time I rummage through my Useful Stuff Repository (i.e. junk drawer) in search of a twist tie, I grab one that’s broken off way too short to be useful (Yes, I always throw it back in the drawer; I’m not a barbarian.) Why don’t kitchens in this supposedly civilized nation come with a twist tie dispenser. Put a spool of twist tie inside once a month, and then just reel out the length you require. (Yes, this WILL result in some people trying to twist tie lumber in the back of the truck when building a deck, but “no sweat, no swag” as nobody said ever.)
This is all I’m going to have room for in today’s column, but I have plenty more ideas at least as useful as these. I hear you marveling that I am not yet the beau ideal and matinee idol of millions. That IS what you’re marveling, right? No, don’t answer in the comments. Wait until they install the meter.
Now in those days word came to Florence that her brother Noah was building a great ark to rescue the animals of the Earth from a mighty flood. But when Florence heard that her brother planned to fill the vessel with all manner of animals of all sizes and diets, this did not seem good to Florence.
“Lo!” said Florence. “I shall build my own Ark, as insurance, since my brother’s plan is inefficient and must fail, dooming life on Earth. And I shall appoint a committee to discuss the cost-effectiveness of each type and kind of animal, that we be assured of survival.”
And the committee was called, and long were its discussions of the animals of Earth. For some were small but had mighty appetites, which meant excessive cargo, while others, of more modest appetites, were nonetheless so large that such animals and the fodder thereof would have been too great for any such enterprise to succeed.
In the fulness of time, the committee presented Florence with a report. And reading through the bullet points about efficiency of housing and compactness of fodder, Florence saw that the report was good. Then and only then did she set in motion her plan, according to the report of the committee, ordering many cubits of gopherwood. And being constructed by a more efficient plan than that of Noah, the building of her Ark was accomplished quickly, and the ship stood ready when the rains came. And Florence, calling “Bon voyage!” to her brother and his inefficient zoo, set forth on her own Ark, with her wise committee.
Thus Florence and her crew lived comfortably, for there was ample room aboard their Ark, constructed along the lines of logic and committee study. And, as the committee with great wisdom had decided that the most efficient creatures to feed and house aboard a ship of gopherwood was termites, no one heard ever again of Florence’s Ark.
Chlorda paused on the side of corridor, setting the back of one hand against one golden cheek. “How disorienting! Fun, though.”
“But nex’ time we does it, us dainty types goes first,” said Bassada, folding her arms across her chest as she stood on the ceiling. “Watchin’ ‘em two slabsa chunk roast wobble round makes me hungry.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” yawned the gold.
“Wasn’t tryin’ ta sur[prise ya,” replied the blue. “If I was, I’da wore me colander.”
Bott, standing on the wall that had seemed to be the dead end of this corkscrew corridor, ignored his crew and twisted the thick gold knob on the ceiling. Lucky he’d been in the lead: the actual gravity always seemed to be on the left or right of the yellow path that wandered around the blue corridor. They had all been able to walk it in spite of this, but not without a lot of wobbling.
There! Slide the bottom and top panels to the left and the middle one to the right. He glanced back at the cold orange blob that popped and crackled as it burbled along the yellow road. Then he pushed on the door.
Clinging to the doorway, he tested the gravity in the next chamber. Once he knew where down was, he set his feet there and pulled himself upright.
“Well, finally,” said the gold, pulling herself after him. “I suppose a four-poster bed would be too much to….” She stared, and then was tossed on top of Bott by Louba.
Louba’s eyes also widened. “Well, my mother should see butterflies!”
“Better’n seein’ yer feet,” Bassada pulled up next to her. “Whoogosh!”
Bott shivered. Vastnesses of floor space were interrupted, at long intervals, by light grey cubes, cones, cylinders, semicircles, and other building blocks apparently tossed down at random by some giant emperor. They were even bigger than they looked; Bott knew it was only the size of the room that dwarfed them.
“The door could be in any one of those,” whispered Chlorda. At least, the room made it sound like a whisper. “Or at the far end.”
“If it’s got a far end anywheres,” murmured Bassada.
Louba stretched back, hands high above her head, and then straightened. “Hope we’s getting’ refreshments, anyhuse.”
Chlorda’s eyes were troubled as she looked to Bott, but she also came to her feet.
The party of four eased out along the pale floor, radiating caution. Bassada was sliding her thumbs across her fingers; Louba pretended to have an itchy chin. Bott didn’t pretend anything, his head swinging back and forth to check all the landmarks for possible trouble. Everything was so far apart that anything coming out would have to be very fast or very potent. He thought he would not mention this to his crew.
He thought he ought to say something, at least, but no one heard him clear his throat, jumping as they all were from the sound of the trumpet. Somewhere, a door slammed open.
“Well, to steal a sausage!” Louba arched one green hand to the left.
A big orange head rose from a trap door next to a low semicircle far off in that direction. It looked neither right nor left as it came up. A green head appeared just beneath it. Bott frowned. A second green rider and orange mount followed the first, and then a third. They seemed to be Imperial Dragoons, the spiked planet emblem standing out clearly in shining threads on their banners. Bott did not recognize these particular Dragoons; the orange heads and faces were nondescript, but he felt sure he’d recognize those fat, ugly battle axes.
Five more followed the first three. By this time, the troop was marching up onto the low semicircle, as a second door appeared at the other end. The first rider rode straight down into this. None of the Dragoons seemed to notice their company was not alone in the room. Well-disciplined Dragoons, Bott thought: they might be useful.
“Know anything about these?” he murmured. The first riders were nearly all gone, but a second troop was rising from the first door.
“It’s a kit of cock aldorves,” Chlorda murmured back. “Loooks like a full kit, too.”
“Two kits, mebbe,” Bassada put in. “Reckon we gots ta knock ‘em all over?”
“That string!” Louba waved an arm at the banner held by this company. “Seen it…blister me buns an’ call me a pickle! Atsa same flag!”
“a dozen or so moving in a circle to make us think….” Bott reached out too late. “No! Don’t!?
The largest Klamathan had charged, calling, “Yamfrees!”
“Klamathans!” screamed the aldorves, their mounts rearing.
“Stand your ground!” bellowed their leader. “We can make a stand if….”
Looking left and right, he found himself alone. He urged his steed toward the exit at the end of the arch, rather too late.
The impact of Louba threw him completely off his mount. Before he could rise, Louba boxed his ears, and then boxed them again, apparently with the intention of keeping this up until her fists met. The green mount leaned in to nip at her, but jumped for the exit as her exertions shook Louba completely out of the top of her overalls.
Nott was startled to see she was wearing winged black nipple caps under the overalls. The wings flapped and fluttered, not in time to the ear boxing. Knowing what made them flutter, Bott shuddered again.
Wiping her hands on the officer’s tunic, she bounded back to her allies. “Make it look easy, don’ I? Anybody wanna touch me, just ger luck?”
Chlorda said nothing, but a gold underlip stuck out. “Gwan,” sneered Bassada, “Probly gots orders not ta hurt prisoners.”
The green waved a card on high. “But I got his rations chit!”
“Good job!” Bott called.
The rest of the crew was less appreciative. “Put yourself away, barrel o’ slugs. Them things makes me break out in homicides.”
Louba pulled her overalls up. “Bugs, huh?”
The blue sniffed. “Bags.”
Bott reached for his communications card. “I’ll ask the computer where the next rations computer is. We’ll….”
“Aggif!”
The sound came from the other side of the arch. It was not a word Bott had heard before, but the voice sounded familiar. He jerked his head toward the obstacle, and led his crew forward.
He’d been expecting the librarian, but had to put a hand up to brace himself nonetheless as he came around the arch. Nubry strained against a thick black harness which had ground angry red blotches into her skin. Her uniform hung from her in tatters. She looked…larger without all her clothes, lighter where the fabric had covered her. Tiny red stripes showed here and there bout this exposed lightness.
Above and behind her, in a high silver chariot, was the driver with the whip. Loose, convoluted grey skin hung over his eyes as he jerked his head up and raised the whip.
Nubry’s shoulders hunched forward; her head jerked up. Spotting the other prisoners, she cried, “Bott! Help me!” The whip landed again. “I’m the real one! You can see that!”
Bott could feel the Klamathans tensing behind him, but didn’t take his eyes off the librarian. “Ye-es,” he said, reaching into his satchel. “I’ll use one of the gas grenades.”
“Of course! He hasn’t got a gas mask! Has he?” She glanced back. “He…owww!”
The first grenade Bott touched went flying; he put a hand back to push his crew away in the same motion. Both Nubry and her driver watched the rise and fall of the projectile. The Pumferian dropped his whip and started a dive from the chariot.
With a dull burp, the grenade dissolved into a silvery shower. The driver was halted in mid-dive; Nubry was similarly frozen. A silvery tint spread across their features. Then they, too, fell into tiny metallic particles, leaving behind whip, harness, and other accoutrements.
The Klamathans followed him forward. “Y’know,” Bassada told him, “I got no complaint about how many copies ya wants ta kill, but the guy wit’ the whip was probly a pris’ner too. His Imperial Whiplash tol’ him ta do it. We coulda give him a better deal.”
Bott slapped down the flap of his satchel. “I don’t think I’d’ve liked him.”
“Got us some transport, anyhuse,” said Louba, kicking some of the powder away as she looked over the chariot. “We c’d take turns ridin’ an’ pullin’.”
“Cep’n our Cap’n here,” Bassada put in. “He rests wit’ one o’ us while everybody else pulls.”
“We’ll allow him to ride quite a lot.” The gold arched her hands at shoulder height and shook those shoulders.
Bott glared at her, not amused by this attempt to pit personal conditioning against racial size differences. Alarm on Chlorda’s face showed she was not wiggling to attract admiration.
Her fellow Klamathans noticed. “Don’t hear it, do you?” Bassada asked Louba.
“What’s happening?” Bott demanded. The gold’s eyes were rolling up, and she was wiggling with more vigor.
“Whip guy.” Louba crouched to take up a belt, shaking off lingering silver dust. “Dead man’s switch.”
Chlorda raised one leg and began to spin, moving generally in the direction of the triangle and the cylinder. Louba’s suggestion was reasonable; the Emperor had included a failsafe in case the driver was killed. Straining, he could hear a few notes of music, and spotted a tiny black dot high on the distant cylinder. “It’s a speaker,” he said. “What’s the problem?”
“Yes plays music at one frequency, an’ it makes little brasshocks here dance.” Bassada explained. “She’ll go for ‘at speaker. Gotta be a trap.”
“Hold her,” Bott ordered Louba. He thought he spied a flicker of disappointment in the gold’s eyes. “You go see what’s below that speaker.”
“Yer cap’n, Cap’n,” Bassada told him.
“I’m coming with you. I’ll have a grenade ready if something comes at us. You want to hurry.”
“Not much I don’t.” The blue nose wrinkled at him. “An’ iffen it’s a reap door?”
“I’ll grab you.”
The blue thought it over as Chlorda spun past her. “Awright, I’ll do it. But if any of yez wants ta kiss me fer good luck, I’ll tell yez where.”
Louba took hold of the gold and fell back, twisting, as Chlorda spun more violently. Bassada, better than her word, raced over to the big triangle, setting one foot carefully on the side. Bott followed, running where she ran, tiptoeing where she tiptoed, and setting a foot in the face of the pyramid, though he saw no reason for it. Testing her footing, Bassada started up the incline.
“We make a good target here,” said Bott, as their ascent of the triangle brought them closer to the cylinder and its speaker. Louba, carrying Chlorda with some difficulty, struggled up after them.
“So’s anybody down below,” Bassada grunted. “See a door? Or any more…flallop!”
Small black spots were flying their way from the speaker on the cylinder. Flattening himself against the wall of the pyramid opened a large door just under his head and shoulders. He was too low to fall in, but ducked his head as the pellets flew past. Bassada leapt off to one side, Louba and her captive rolling off the other direction.
The hard black pellets whizzed past for mere seconds. With a glance below, Bott slid down from the trap door, which slid shut before his eyes. “Close,” he said.
No one answered. As he watched the floor below, two black rectangles disappeared as their own doors slid shut.
“Well, that was more than I expected to spend. But if it helps me keep track of the wench and those seven little….”
“Ma’am! Look out for the…..”
“Oh, insult and incinerate it!”
“I really should have moved your broom farther inside. Are you hurt, Ma’am?”
“My old bones have been through worse than this, but did I break the….”
“Ma’am, you shouldn’t unwrap that mirror.”
“Don’t be stupid. If I cut myself, I won’t even bleed at my age. I just want to see…flames! It’s cracked. At least none of the pieces fell out. Well, since I handed over those cryptozoic scrolls, I guess paid for it. It’s still….”
“No, Ma’am! Don’t look! Wrap the mirror again and….”
“Get away; I won’t ask for a refund. The picture’s still…. Wow! I get a different scene in every piece now!”
“A mirror like that increases in power, Ma’am, but it can cast….”
“There’s the wench herself. And what’s this in the corner. A striped albino flying monkey? I haven’t seen one of those in….”
“Ma’am, look this way Can you tell how many fingers I’m….”
“Ooh, kitties! What else can I find in here?”
“Almost anything, Ma’am. That’s how it works its….”
“Let’s see, now. Here’s that rotten elderly wolf! Ha! Let’s…. You got any snacks?”
“I can bring tea, Ma’am, but if you plan to sit there in my doorway, I’ll have to ask for a few more scrolls.”
“Never mind. At home there’s cold brew in the cauldron. Where’s that broom?”
“Here, Ma’am. No, over…a little up. There! Are you, er, sure you can fly and watch the mirror at the same time?”
“I know my way home in the dark. I can do this. Thanks! This is the most brilliant….”
“Look out for that cloud over…. Dear dear. I hope this only takes seven years..”
The problem with archaeology is that the world wants answers, not just simple answers, but answers which are simple and absolutely fascinating. For every person who is interested in controversies about pharaonic Egyptian paint composition, there are a thousand who want to know how many ancient Egyptian temple maidens were blonde. This is a problem with joke archaeology as well. I see that this year I have written two columns on postcard jokes which require some context to understand. I could do this because I felt I had the answers. But, um, there ARE some fine old jokes where I have to admit I don’t quite git it. I cannot promise that any of these involve temple maidens at all.
Here is Buchsenmacher (Gunsmith) Sepp. What I have learned on the Interwebs is that this is about it. This portrait was all over everywhere in Germany in the 1970s or thereabouts. But I can learn nothing else: the portrait did not spin off into a line of cartoons or jokes or comic books. He DID have a wife, who is also a postcard icon, but…what’s it all about, Deutschland?
If you are enough of an archaeologist to look over the oldest days of this blog, you will see that I did a column on “handing you one”. But in all those postcards, what was being handed over was a lemon. (I never did QUITE get to the bottom of why handing someone a lemon was the equivalent of a later generation’s “giving you the raspberry”.) Are we just taking an everyday occurrence and relating it to the lemon gag, or am I missing something here? (Please don’t write in about the phrase “to give him one”, which is entirely other.)
I put this up for sale as a Mother’s Day card, but that may be original with me. This comes from an era when I’m told we did not make jokes about infidelity, but I may, like Rick, have been misinformed.
Someday I will discuss another catchphrase of a bygone era: “Who said rats?” which usually involves a postcard showing very alert dogs. So I know a LITTLE about this joke. Now, “bugs” was once a description of someone crazy, taken from “seeing bugs”, a phrase for having the D.T.s (a state in which we moved on to “seeing snakes” and “seeing pink elephants”. “Can it” may have started in the Bronx, but is still used in some places for “Cut it out. Stop it.” But how does this all work together? Or doesn’t it? Maybe we assume too much: some jokes didn’t even work at the time they were made and we sure won’t figure them out now. This artist may just have wanted to draw a big bug. No, canned beer was not available at this point, except in the can, or growler, used to haul it. And yes, what we said earlier does explain how Bugs Bunny got his name.
Why is the postal lady throwing mail around? What does this have to do with the caption? Or do we just assume, as above, that the author simply wanted to draw a lady in shorts and filled in the rest later?
Why is…what’s her suit…does she…. What I really mean is where is she going in town and why don’t I ever get invited?
And this is obviously some sort of gag mocking the Temperance movement and some paricular Temperance group. But I’m not sure what specific group we’re mocking as the “Wee wee Club”, and I DO wonder (given their expressions and their drinking habits) whether “wee wee” meant in 1909 what it does today. But that is a WHOLE nother blog. If I find out, I’ll let you know, as with the others. Unless the authorities come to find out why I am Googling “wee wee” so much.
His Imperial Worship frowned, his chin on his palm, one little finger between his lips. “It might be amusing to send you out next,” he said, his eyes steady on the monitor, “He might kill you out of general principle.”
Nubry formed a large letter Y, head down and with her feet far enough apart to suggest His Imperial Worship was thinking of making her into a T, but hadn’t made up his mind yet. It was not a comfortable position, but she could, at least, see the second monitor, the one that printed out as text what was being said by the contestants on the silent screen above it.
The Emperor knew this. “It is a pity you’re literate,” he said. “There’s so much more suspense if the prisoner doesn’t know what the group is deciding. But even the Imperial Power can’t have everything.”
She could read upside-down, though it was not a skill she’d ever expected to use much. The real pity was that the one thing she had never learned to read was lips.
YOU UNDERSTAND, CAPTAIN, SIR: FREQENTLY THEY DO MAKE THE PRISONER WATCH THE MONITORS.
I HOPE IT WAS THE REAL ONE, MY BLUE BEAUTY. SHE TALKS ABOUT NOTHING BUT HER BILSTIM BOOKS.
“You’ll like this,” the Emperor told her, still not looking back. “Where they open the door and see they’re not out yet. This gets better with each door.”
A bulging iron porthole sprang open at a touch to reveal a vast, undulating blue web. The Blue Klamathan took a step onto the sticky fibers and turned to Bott.
THAT LITTLE LIBRARIAN WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ABLE TO COPE EFFICIENTLY WITH THIS SOR T OF ROOM, WOULD SHE, CAPTAIN SIR?
OH, NEVER. SHE WOULD HAVE BEEN A GREAT OBSTACLE TO OUR PROGRESS.
Nubry frowned. “Will they really be able to reach the Dragonshelf?”
His Imperial Worship reached into a tall glass column at his elbow./ Nubry had read about these. Filled with dirt, they eld vast cities of the tiny Pitchopki, a highly developed if minuscule race of sentients. A steeple and two legs dribbled onto his chin as he chewed.
“Of course,” he said, around the mouthful. “That’s why they have so many rooms to go through. Any less, and I would be untrue to my own empire. Besides, they’d probably blow up the ship, thinking it was a trap, if they got there too soon.”
The Imperial head came around to take in her expression at the thought of the ship being destroyed. “And what do you suppose you will do when you see them fly away without you?”
The idea had not previously occurred to Nubry. She gave it some thought. “I believe I’d cry. Would I? Yes, I would.”
Something about this answer brought a crease to the Imperial forehead. A thumb landed on the chair controls, and he came over to study his prisoner. A long fingernail came out to stroke the line of her chin. “I wonder if your pirate would recognize a copy that was missing just one toe.”
Nubry would have pulled back if she could; the Imperial breath was not enhanced by being flavored with the deaths of intelligent beings. His Imperial Worship smiled, and fingered the controls of the chair again. It moved around to the back of the prisoner, where she couldn’t see him.
Nubry felt herself being lowered, slowly enough that she could pull her head to the side and rest on her chest when she reached the square below. She rested for one second and then was jerked stark upright in moments, nearly dislocating both shoulders. Knowing there was no position she could move to to ease the tension, she looked up to the screen.
The green Klamathan was kicking spiders as big as her head left and right. Bott was removing the Gold Klamathan from a tangle of webs.
YOU COULD NEVER HAVE DONE THIS WITH THAT USELESS LIBRARIAN, EH, CAPTAIN SIR?
LET US FIND A ROOM WITH A GOOD SOFT FLOOR, MY ORANGE CONFECTION, AND I SHALL DEMONSTRATE SEVERAL THINGS I COULD NOT HAVE DONE WITH THAT BOOK-WORSHIPPER.
Her midsection jerked forward. The second kick twisted her to the left, grinding that wrist against its manacle. The third kick landed as a new kind of pain proved that her ankle cuff was being moved to make her kick herself. Silly of her to think His Imperial Worship would have gone to the trouble. She wondered if he even had feet, or was permanently attached to his chair.
She bit her lower lip. Each kick bounced her joints further into difficult positions: a few more and either hers arms or that eg would be completely disjointed. She’d never seen this before, and swung her head left and right to find out what it looked like.
“I should make copies of you for my own collection; you’re an interesting houseguest.” The chair slid around her again. “But enough pleasure before business.”
Nubry snorted as she felt the copier start up again. As the first pains rippled through her, she twisted to the left. His Imperial Worship had thoughtfully left enough give in the manacles to allow for withing. A pop at each shoulder told her she had missed the spectacle of seeing her shoulder come apart.
She pulled to her right; this did not ease any of the pain. Perhaps she should think about something else, as her mother had suggested every year during the annual inoculations. She considered the screen. What did she know about Bott Garton?
He was not tall. At the moment he was punching spiders taller than he was. But he wished to be as big a man as his father, in deeds if not in inches.
He was musical. They had not had the leisure for him to demonstrate his harmonica repertoire, but she was certain he would be the best harmonica player she’d ever listened to.
She blinked away some of the sweat pouring down her face. He was interested in reading. Even now, he was looking through her book, apparently seeking the conversation between Bunny Bunk and Spider Stringer as he and his party paused between a strand of web leading to a red door and one leading to a yellow door.
Why didn’t her teeth snap? Her jaws were doing their best to accomplish this. Back to the list: the pirate was a good shot, and probably a good pilot, too, even if he was a little pushy when it came to other people’s ships. Maybe that was because he was a pirate. She breathed in and found her nostrils also flooded with sweat. She didn’t dare sneeze or cough; apparently a large blade was forcing its way up inside her throat.
On the screen Bott was saying something into his card as the four moved through the yellow door. At this angle she could not read what he was saying. That was a pity; it was probably something funny. It had been fun to listen to him make jokes to the Drover. A pilot needed a sense of humor.
And he was one of the good guys. Was he? Yes, he was! The way he talked to the Klamathans was only…a way to mislead them. Yes. He didn’t know them very well, and was afraid they might be Imperial spies. He was lulling them, leading them on until he was sure. You could tell from the way his jaw stuck out that he was holding something back.
“Ohoo!”
That spasm twisted her whole bod y up toward her wrists. Nubry was afraid her spine would snap in four places, but she couldn’t stop. Every muscle in her body was trying to rip free of bone and skin.
The she dangled against her manacles. A new Nubry landed on the floor. For a second, the original watched the copy try to rise on overextended arms. Then the newcomer dropped out of sight.
Her eyes went up to the screen. What had His Imperial Wortship programmed this imitation to do?
Her eyes rested there only a moment. A whirring sound announced the arrival of long multi-jointed arms. Eight-fingered hands jutted from these arms, tiny toothed blades buzzing at the end of each finger. Her eyes—al she could move at the moment without Imperial permission—followed them in. “Enough business,” the emperor declared. “Back to pleasure.”
Kellek tried to see where the voice was coming from, but could find little farther in the murky cave beyond the spiked knees of the demon, high above him. “Vengeance,” he said, through cracked lips.
“On whom, mortal?” The voice of doom sounded a little bored.
“My king, his court officials, and those of his army who decided to destroy our village to build a new palace. They killed my family, my neighbors, my dog.” Kellek tried to hold his voice steady, but the long climb up the mountain, along with the grueling rituals required to summon the demon, had left him weak. He felt a tear slip down a dry cheek, and lacked the strength to wipe it away.
“And what do you wish to become of these people?” demanded the thunder from far up above him. “And what will you pay to have it happen?”
“Let them die, all die, just when they think they are safe and powerful,” said Kellek. “Let them lose their powers and die, and know themselves to be dying. Give them pain…and fear.”
“Very well,” said the voice. “And what will you pay?”
“Anything.”
The voice rattled the walls, and made Kellek’s bones seem brittle. “Everything?”
Kellek did not hesitate. “Everything.”
“This includes your entire afterlife of service, and you will not like your role in my world.”
“So my enemies die,” said Kellek. “It is…..” The rest of the sentence dissolved with him into a pile of noisome sludge on the temple floor.
Huge toes kicked this out of existence. “What was that all about?” inquired an equally thunderous but slightly higher pitched voice.
“Another to empty buckets of sulfur through eternity. He vowed everything so that his enemies would die.”
“Were his enemies mortals, too? Wouldn’t they have died anyway?”
“Yes. He was a little specific about how he wanted them to go, but the people he picked out are the sort to die much as he hoped, which will satisfy his request.”
The next laugh shook the mountain. “So he should be happy.”
The deeper voice laughed as well, starting several fatal avalanches. “No. Not at all.”
This page seems to be having a run on Marital Woes postcards. A really serious blogger would either settle in for an in-depth discussion of marriage in comedy through the centuries, or move on to some other significant topic, like “Are there regional differences in what people put into their devilled eggs?” But we are not a food blog here (p.s.: I already did a blog on the relationship between devilled eggs and devilled ham and devil’s food cake, which you can check elsewhere on the Interwebs.)
However, what we are going to do is switch from infidelity at the office to issues closer to home. It surprises me how long jokes about dealing with the maid went on in a world which was gradually deciding that hiring servants was the exception rather than the rule.
The joke, of course, depends less on the foolery itself than in the master of the house getting caught at it. There are other comic possibilities, but those involve more words and action than can really be done in one postcard illustration, like this one from 1906 or thereabouts.
There are certain conventions to be observed in framing the joke, which might not need a caption, but which DID require that the maid be a good deal younger than the husband cheating or the wife cheated on. Not all maids were, or are, twenty-somethings with the budget needed to pay for short, suggestive uniforms. But, again, though there might be excellent comedy in a story about a young man cheating on a young wife with a maid who is twice his age, it would be hard to do that on a postcard, even if you used both sides. (Of the postcard, I mean. I WISH you would stop letting these stray giggles of yours interrupt us in our study of vintage comedy.)
It’s the “getting caught” moment which has the comic impact required.
Even when that moment is denied, at least for now.
Or when somebody other than the lady of the house handles the discovery.
When hubby is having a heavy-duty flirtation with the cook, of course, the cook doesn’t even need to be present. Cooks seem always to have been involved in making biscuits or something similar when the mister drops by the kitchen.
Yeah, maybe someday I will also do an in-depth study of the handprint postcard. Anybody who wants to can take the job of analyzing just where those handprints are and deciding what was going on in the kitchen.
The same goes for those of you who might be interested in why there don’t seem to be many postcards about the lady of the house fooling around with the chauffeur. Is it because more postcards were bought by men, who wouldn’t have found that funny? Or did this arise out of a desire to mock the rich and their minions? (Look back over the cards in this column: how many of these homes look big enough to require a host of servants? For cleaning, I mean: not for other purposes.) Maybe, looking over this selection, postcard cartoonists simply liked drawing feather dusters. We can return to this, I suppose, at some future date. I need to get back to devilled egg recipes. (The maid just brought me another tray. Gotta go.)
It was testimony to the lung capacity of Klamathans that Louba was able to sigh so heavily in midflight. “Stick a hat on me butt an’ see if I thinks better that way.” She leapt over the third box of assorted chocolates. “I feels a right lumpuck.”
“They roast lumpucks, don’t they?” inquired Chlorda, slapping at flames in her hair as she ran.
The four contestants fled deeper into the forest, taking full advantage of the canopy of broad green leaves. The shelter wouldn’t do much good for long; each fugitive could see the smouldering holes in the leaves as they rushed on under the wailing lop-eared owls. Not one of them doubted that the Emperor had intended all along for them to come this way. Bott felt that to refuse to fall into this trap would only upset His Imperial Worship.
“All you have to do,” he told himself, “Is make it through this. Then you can retire and live on your reputation for the rest of your days.”
Pretty soon, though, his crew would look to him again for answers. Nubry’s book could carry him only so far. How could he choose between doors if there were no doors to choose?
“Ove here!”
Seeing what Bassada had seen, they swung as one in that direction. Smoke was building up around them: if nothing else that big square well might clear their throats.
“Is it a door, do you think?” Chlorda peered down inside. “Someone jump down and find out.”
“Try it yerself.” The blue was climbing on the wall of the well, but only to get farther under the little roof provided over the top. “Tell us how ye likes it.”
There wasn’t room for all four of them under the little tin roof. Bott looked around for any sign of doors it would soon be impossible to see. The only thing to be seen beyond smoke, leaves, and trees was the well, its stones all marked with carved pictures of Nastrid snails.
Not snails. He frowned. This was a message. He’d never seen that symbol before, but he was recognizing it. Maybe it had been a picture in Nubry’s….
His hand went into the grenade satchel, but came up without the book. He looked from the stones to the horn he’d picked up earlier, the malachite one. He shrugged, and brough it to his lips.
The Klamathans looked to each other, Chlorida shuddering at the sound that came from the horn. “Perhaps his people play a dirge before they’re melted into…lala!”
Everyone jumped left and right from the shelter they’d been elbowing to ge into. Long glass spikes shot up from the well. “Good thing we didn’t any of us try it!” said Louba. “We’da…well, kick me sister and listen if I yells!”
The spikes sat on the roof of a long glass case sliding up before them. A door swung open just as the spikes pierced the tin roof.
“I can pay anything when I’m sober,” Bott told them, setting the instrument back into the satchel. “And I haven’t had a drink in three days. Let’s go!”
The smoke had thickened; there was nowhere else to go. The Emperor was easily wealthy enough to burn down an entire forest and then replace it.
Bott knew some regrets as the four of them squeezed into the glass elevator/ Chlorda pressed his shoulder, whispering congratulations/. The blue stood right behind him, rubbing the seat of his pants. A pinch on his left thigh told him Louba was not going to be left out.
“Crew,” he said as the glass chamber started to slide down into the well, “You know we’re here because nobody has been waiting for the captain’s orders before acting.”
Green shoulders shrugged. “Ain’t easy, cap’n. Cep’n these bits o’ batbait, ain’t had a cap’n since afore I got inta this rebelment business. Me last cap’n wouldn’ put me up fer promotion: said I was too green. So I killed some people.” The big green shoulders bounced again, setting off more bounces around the room. “Mosta her fambly,as II recall. Never knew she’d be so attached to ‘em.”
Bott scowled, ignoring the fingers trickling along his spine. “Well, we’re going to have to take this more seriously if we plan to escape.”
The gold smiled and shook her head. “You do understand, Captain, that His Imperial Wormhips doesn’t intend for us to win this game.”
“We have a chance until he actually kills us.” Bott looked away from the horned skulls peeking in through the walls of the case. “And we should be able to go on for quite a while yet. He wouldn’t let the game end early.”
He found himself surrounded by soft shrugs. “Been here days now,” said Bassada, dealing one buttock a solid squeeze. “Not so bad a life: always sumpm ta do. We c’d stay on and be traps fer what prisoners he sends in next.”
“Until they get tired of feeding us,” said the gold, sliding a hand down Bott’s chest.
The blue continued to give a good workout to what she had hold of. “Anyway, even if we gits out, we gots a whole Drover ta git troo. Even if we does it, where’s we goin’ next?”
Bott glanced down to make sure Chlorda’s fingers didn’t catch in any of the holes torn in his jacket. “That woman you saw—the real one, not the one who went down the ravine—was escaping Imperial forces with…with a special cargo on her ship.” He looked over his shoulder at his crew. “That ship is waiting at the end of this maze.”
Louba grabbed his head and gave it a hug. “Bite m’thigh an’ call it measles! Cap’n Bottsy knows it all!”
Chlorda rubbed one of her cheeks against Bott’s, nudging the green arm out of the way. “Do you honestly believe we’d be allowed to try anything with your friend’s ship?”
The skulls outside the case had given way to exceedingly large Bialfa fireworms. Bott shook his head free and considered his crew again. “I’d as soon be killed in her, escaping, as in this maze.”
The faces around him showed affection, but little conviction. Bott thought it over and added, “The ship has carpeting on the floors.”
Bassada tipped her head to the left. “Does it got…stuff onna ceilin’s we could hang swingy-swings from?”
Bott tried to remember, even as he said “Of course!”
“Sold!” cried Louba. “Ya doesn’t even hasta fly it!”
His crew seemed to be all fingers and lips. Bott wondered if they had squeezed all the breath out of him permanently when the lights went out. Then his nose caught the acrid burnt egg smell peculiar to fireworms.
“I don’t suppose you could arrange to bring that ship of yours in here,” said Chlorda, pulling away from him.
The car stopped descending. “Gotta motivate this thing.” He could feel Louba backing away. She put one hand on each of his shoulders.
“No! Wait!”
The case shuddered under the impact as she came down from her leap. It seemed to work. Bott felt himself moving down again. Then he realized he was moving down upside-down.
“She bunged the frung…ack…floor!”
One advantage to having a crew of Klamathans, Bott decided. There wasn’t much more comfortable to land on in a chute like this.
“Opf!” cried Chlorda, as he bounced away from her stomach. “The…captain has some heft.”
“Jus’ as well,” said Louba, rising to her feet and starting to lower his clothes. “I’m guessin’ it’s time I was stood in a corner.”
Bott raised a hand. “Let’s wait and see if this room has corners, okay?”
He rose from among his crew and considered their landing spot. This new room was a dim, irregular metal box with all sizes of chutes opening from the ceiling, and alarming bumps and ridges along the floor. There were dark obstacles around them, which might hide anything, and anything else could be dumped on them from a chute. He could still smell the enchanting aroma of fireworms. Rumor said His Imperial Worship had the largest fireworms in captivity. Rumor had not said WHERE they were in captivity.
“Help me,” someone whispered.
Bott looked to his crew, a hand still up. The sound seemed to have come from a large pyramid on their left. There was chute above the pyramid; something dropped from it as they watched. Bott hoped it wasn’t a victim of fireworm infestation. Once the fireworms took over the major internal organs, such people were hard to kill, no matter how hard they tried to die.
He took a step forward, using both hands to gesture to his crew to stay back. He was not especially surprised to find them right behind him as he came around the pyramid.
“Help me,” Nubry whispered again, turning toward him as he approached.
She was being drawn backward over a large iron book, which was open to form a wedge, its spine against hers. Small objects were dropping from the chute, landing with pinpoint accuracy in baskets attached to her wrists and ankles. Her face twisted as the weights drew rrach limb farther and farther down.
“I’ll cut them offa ya, Hon,” said Louba, moving forward. The captain shoved an elbow into her stomach to attract her attention.
“Can’t…release…all the…weight at once,” the prisoner gasped. “It’s…mined.”
“Ah.” Nodding to Bott, the green took a step back. “Cap’n’ll tink o’ sumpm.”
“I know,” she whispered. “You…got away…from the HSUs. I didn’t…think…you could.”
Bott pointed to a high metal ridge away to the left. “Check that out,” he ordered. “Tell me if there’s anything behind it. All of you. And wait for my next command.”
The Klamathans, impressed by a new metal in his voice, hurried away. As soon as he saw the blue backside disappear around the ridge, the captain tore out his knife and slashed at the ropes holding the baskets to the prisoner.
“Bott!” Nubry wailed, as the second basket came loose. “Look out!” He leapt for shelter.
The blast helped push him farther. He ducked little lead weights that flew free, mixed with bits of the prisoner.
“Another copy, Cap’n?” Chlorda inquired, as he rejoined the crew.
He nodded. “How could she have known about us escaping the HSUs unless she was watching an Imperial monitor? Let’s go.”
They started forward, but Bassada lingered, wiping blood from the sides of Bott’s face. “Y’know, Cap’n,” she murmured, “Sometimes ‘ey makes prisoners watch ‘em monitors, too.”
Last week in this space, we considered a couple of the cartoon side effects of marriage: fighting about money and carrying groceries. In checking my inventory of fascinating but somehow not yet sold postcards, I find another popular cliché about the married man, especially, the married man of business: the suspicion that his work at the office came with certain benefits not mentioned to wifey at home.
Cartoonists assumed for decades that executives take far too much of a hands-on approach at the office. Of course, every good cliché is based on a LITTLE truth. The story was told where I worked that the CEO’s office was designed with a back door from which a bygone executive could walk into the area where his underlings worked, but which was really there so that if his wife showed up without warning, certain young ladies would have an escape route.
Exaggeration, however, is at the base of much comedy. Cartoonists knew readers would nod and smile at the suggestion that applicants for a secretarial post simply assumed there were duties not mentioned in the job description.
Or that the interview would involve a test of their dedication to the work at hand. (Somebody just snickered; I heard you. I wasn’t going to say “at hand”, but make of it what you will. Once we start down that path, though, no words are safe.)
Is this joke confused, or is the cartoonist playing on our confusion? The executive here has the desk, but his secretary is the one holding it down. (Stop snickering; you’ll wake the other readers.)
And who’s crazy about their position here? Our businessman seems more pleased at how well chair and secretary seem to be made for his satisfaction. (More snickering. Okay. Have you heard the one about a scholarly speaker explaining how 1930s businessmen in Chiago took advantage of their authority? The speaker noted that the president of a major museum “naturally created a position for his mistress.” When the audience laughed, he spluttered a bit and said, “Oh, you know what I mean: he found a place for her on his staff.”)
Anyway, THIS cartoonist makes it clear who is entertained and who is entertaining.
A big part of this cliché, though you have observed it is not universal, is that the businessman taking advantage of that private office is a good deal older than the secretary involved. Neither this, nor the basic premise, are limited to mid-century jokers. These were established at least as early as 1908, when this joke was mailed.
This is one of a very few such gags where the secretary is a little bit older herself. There are other interesting points here as well: the typewriter, the arrangement of the office, her expression, and, most worthy of a whole nother blog, that this is one of several postcards on our theme which refer to “my busy day”. I may have to look that one up and find out if it was a song or a comedy catch phrase in 1909 or thereabouts. (I heard that murmur about “getting busy”; if you thought you could make me snicker, you’re late on the job and your check will be docked.)
And here we look into a deeper, darker secret. All those young men who were taught that hard work and ambition would bring them fame and fortune were actually inspired by another perk of work: if they kept at it, one day THEY would have that private office for their own hanky panky, with or without a back door they could use. (Yeah. Just giving up. You’re not you without snickers.)
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