From: jeg5s@uva.pcmail.Virginia.EDU
Subject: A holiday story (Mike liked it?)
Reply-To: jeg5s@uva.pcmail.Virginia.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Date: Sat, 26 Dec 1992 08:20:35 GMT

This is a random thing I wrote the summer before 9th grade.  Sent
it the band about a month ago and got a goofy card back from
Mike; he stole a couple of lines, and says that Barry Manilow
didn't write "I Write the Songs"... anyways,  here tis... merry
christmas... this may require a B....

TAKE US TO WEEKAPAUH -- ALL THE WAY AND FURTHER -- OUR BLASTOPAST
IS PACKED AND OUR "goshdarn" (5-28-89) MYSTERY SHIP IS FUELED --
WE GOTTA LEAVE SANITY BEHIND EARLY AND GET TO THE PLACE OTHERS
MIGHT HAVE MISSED.  CAN I TALE YOU A TELL? CAUSE THERE'S
SOMETHING OUT THERE, SOMETHING YOU'VE WHISTLED AWAKING OR HEARD
IN THE DIN OF THAT NIFTY BUS, THAT NONE OF US HAS KNOWN BUT ONE
DOES KNOW HAS GROWN AND, IF T'WERE (BUT T'WERE'NT) T'NIGHT THAT
YE'D BE JUST DOWN THE TRAX, WELL, MAYBE THE STORY OF THE MORAL
WILL HELP GET US THERE...
 
********************************************************************
 
   KING ARTHUR AND THE RIGHTS OF ANIMAL CRACKERS ON A ROUND TABLE
 
********************************************************************
 
     Once upon a time, I knew what those four words meant.  Then
they meant I had to go to bed.  Now they mean I have to listen to
some stupid fairy tale.  I don't think I ever really liked fairy
tales until I got to college.  I know I never really feel
comfortable at room temperature.  I'm also not sure anyone fully
appreciates animal crackers.  Not even Cracker Jacks come in a
box with a carrying string.  And you sure can't bite the heads
and feet off a Chicken McNugget.  (I hate reading paragraphs with
parentheses: I'm never sure whether or not I should just whisper
those parts.)  Have you ever ended a written sentenced with
quotation marks just to confuse the reader?"
 
     My Uncle Arthur pronounces his first name (Arthur, not
Uncle) "foo-kway".  He says it's becase he enjors a good bowl of
applesauce, and green isn't that close to blue anyway.  Uncle
Arthur never liked animal crackers.  Uncle Arthur also never made
any sense.  He thought he was a fish -- kept kneeling on the
floor, looking up at the ceiling, whistling show tunes and
waiting for someone to sprinkle food in his face.  When Aunt
Sarah was in a tolerant mood, she'd throw graham cracker crumbs
at him.  When she wasn't, she'd empty the hand-held vacuum all
over his facelifts.  I never understood lifting faces higher than
the rest of the body.  I also never understood why people use
hand-held vacuums to clean up spilt food when all you really need
is a kid sister.  Then again, a kid sister might not clean up
smashed bugs in the den.  But a kid brother most definitely
would.  He might even bite off the heads and feet and carry them
in a box with a string.
 
     Longue thyme, know sea.  I never really enjoyed homonyms.
Synonyms I can handle, because you can't hear them.  Like a
silent e, they might as well not be there.  Why do all silent e's
come at the end of words?  Quick: who invented the paper clip?
Did you ever read a diary written by a llama?  They always come
out sounding like a dog wrote them, and there's nothing as
repetitive and subservient as reading the life story of a dog.  A
Chicken McNugget, maybe, but not a dog.  I had a diary once, but
I couldn't keep up with it.  I think my kid brother Eralph (with
a silent e) was pulling it away with an animal cracker cage's
string.
 
     Barry Manilow makes some pretty outrageous claims.  I don't
think I heard even one song he wrote that made me laugh or cry.
I never could listen long enough to get very emotional, at least
not past that initial on-the-brink-of-explosive bottom of your
stomach thing.  I wish I could see everybody smile, all at the
same time.  Maybe we should all get together and play old Barry
Manilow records.  On third thought (I secretly considered it this
morning before I brushed the fuzz off my teeth), life's a bitch
and then you bury one, or at least that's what Uncle Arthur used
to say.  She didn't cry at the funeral.  I think I'd like to
learn to polka.  That and take a group bath in a large bowl of
lightly chilled strawberry jello with flourescent ukelales
squeaking in the background.  No Tupperware, though: it makes the
jello edges get rubbery.  And no fruit slices: they'll stop up
the ukelales.  Is Jim Henson really dead? Is Herr Bush really
president?  I have this recurring nightmare that my Uncle Arthur
has woken up to find that the fuzz in his navel has turned to
tapioca pudding and clogged his gills.
 
     If I had a dime for every time my mother began a sentence
with "if I had a nickel for every time...", then I'd be twice as
rich as she wasn't.  "Nickel" is kind of a stupid word.  So is
"cow."  Cow.  Nickel.  Cow.  Nickel.  Not very stimulating
dial-a-gogue, now, is it?  Life's a big word, but somebody has to
spell it.  "Google" -- that's supposed to be the name for a
number with a one and then one-hundred zeroes, but my
multiplication tables stopped at seven, so I never really got to
exercise my knowledge of google.  I have a drawer full of paper
clips; there are probable a google of those.  Do you ever feel
like your throat might be closer than it seems?  Everything
happened either once upon a time or long, long, ago.  Someday, I
want to hear a fairy tale that happened that morning.
 
     Why do people park on driveways and drive on parkways? (I
stole that last line, so if you repeat it to anyone, say it in
parentheses.)  Why do hotdogs come in packs of ten, while buns
come in packs of eight or twelve?  We always end up throwing the
extra two at Uncle Arthur.  He likes them.
 
     This morning, in a galaxy far, far away, someone called me a
hypocrite.  A hypocrite is still a person, but who isn't one?
Liberachi.  I never liked any of my loved ones.  I hope they
don't put "R.I.P." on my tombstone.  I won't.  Maybe just an
engraving of a paper clip on a carrying string.  Before I die,
someone emancipate Uncle Arthur and the animal crackers.
Everyone smile.  And play me a polka.  I'm going swimming in the
jello."
 
      KEEP SMILING, GLIDING, AND RIDING THAT TRAIN!!!....
           ........SOMEONE SOMEWHERE IN C-VILLE!
 
claimed mine by ellis godard. reproducible in whole or large
part, but never for profit, and only with credit. except for mike
gordon stealing the "if i had a dime" line.

cya Monday night! :-)


ELLIS OF LEMURIA  email: jeg5s@uva.pcmail.virginia.edu
   snail mail: P.O. Box 3240, Charlottesville, VA 22903
     +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
motto: keep smiling, gliding, and riding that train!!  :-)