Wednesday, 21 October

Constant Correspondent:

From your latest it is apparent that you have been overtaken by a nostalgic funk that can only lead to no good end. I have no doubt that upon reflecting on these old names you’ll soon be at their gravesides (those that have them) singing the old school song and dancing the old school dance. I for one don’t go in for all that weepy years past sort of thing.

Now here’s a list of ne’er-do-wells I’d thought I’d heard the last of -- that is until the postal eunuch brought ‘round your latest:

Jergen Mahoney
Arbie Floman
P. Androcles Weinstein
Snert McGee
Thibault Rationalizer
Bernard "Stately" Holmes

Yeeks what a bunch. I wouldn’t give a caught tuna for the load of them. (By the bee, no need for the quotation markings around “Stately” -- that really was Holmesy’s middle name.) Each one had some sort of malady that made him beneath contempt. Mahoney had the backwards teeth, Floman the third nostril, Weinstein the overdeveloped muscle, Snert McGee the constant sneer of one jaded by the mere act of breathing, Thibault that asymmetric limbing problem and the aforementioned Holmes, well, he smelled of wet newspapers, didn’t he?

Damnit, why can’t I focus on the happy things? Why does the dark cloud of evil always permeate my thoughts? Who am I to judge these men, born of woman just as were you and I? I am nobody -- that’s who. If they think of me, and I doubt they do, they must remember me poorly, as a vague outline on the periphery of their thoughts. “Who was that chap in the Northern Dormitory, the one with the whatchyamawhositz?” Yes, that would be me. Oh that I could show up at all their homes on Christmas morning with a goose under one arm and a hearty hug in the other. Would I be a better person then? Would that keep these damnable ghosties from visiting me nightly to show me my past foolishness and its ultimate consequences?

Damn the nights!

Adult Menjou

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