Nuff said.
Short posts rule. :rolleyes:
Cite?
So?
Here’s a copy of a longish post in response to one of the more interesting threads currently active in the pit.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=69981
See if you think it’s boring.
Well… I suppose it’s time for my cat lady story now.
About 5 years ago I was wrapping the last stages of my divorce and living in a little rental. I was leasing from a friend in the office and had just purchased a new house near the college. I had two months to go on the lease and was anxious to get into my new house and out from under the lease so I asked my friend to put it back on market for lease.
Out of pure chance I picked up the office phone one evening after hours and it was a woman inquiring about my rental! She said it looked appealing and had a large yard and would it be OK if she had pets. I told her that was up to the landlord but that I would help her out by reducing the rent to help her get in as this would help me as well. We made an appointment to meet that evening and I waited at the new house for her call. About 9:30 PM she called and asked if it was OK to see the house.
I pulled into the driveway as she arrived. She was in an old station wagon and when all the occupants got out it was like watching the female version of the three ages of man. First worn out granny gets out, then a small girl with long blond hair and then mama. She was thin and haggard, in her late forties (hard to tell exactly) and looked like she had led a hard life.
I showed them into the house and finished up in the kitchen where I made my rent assistance pitch again if they could make the deal with the landlord and get me off the lease. I then glanced down in the brightly lit kitchen and I saw… it.
There are images in life that burn themselves into your retinas and this was one. She had an open toed sandal and the left toenail was this huge, brownish, curving mobius strip of gnarled horn arcing out in a lazy curve from the end of her foot. It had to be 2 and half to 3 inches long and it must have taken a year to grow that thing. The shudder of revulsion that passed through me was barely under control as I flicked my eyes back up and continued the conversation. We said goodnight and I breathed a sigh of relief as they drove way.
They met with Mike the landlord the next day (his cubicle was next to mine at the time) and he took some info from them. After they left I could hear him calling the reference given at the trailer park where she lived and the conversation was a punctuated series of “Oh My!” and “That’s not good!” I saw my chances of getting out from under a $ 1300 rental obligation crashing and burning into the ocean. I had to leave and had no chance to ask him what the problem was. I assumed they were “bad pay” (It turned out she actually had decent credit).
That night while glancing at the news there was a teaser about a story coming up about someone convicted of animal cruelty. After the commercial I noticed two familiar faces being escorted down the courthouse steps by a law enforcement officer. It was granny and mama. The story was vague on specifics but it apparently involved too many cats in a trailer etc and the defendants agreed to vacate the trailer park and sin no more. End of story.
About a week later I ran into Kevin, one of our part time agents, who was also the head of the local ASPCA and I asked him what the scoop was on what they had done. He told me that mama had a number of cats crammed into a small trailer and they kept dying of feline AIDS and assorted other diseases. Mama would they buy little cat coffins for 100 dollars or so each and stack them up like shoe boxes in various parts of the trailer. The smell and mess had gotten to the point that the County had to step in and clear them out with help from the ASPCA.
As a final question I asked Kevin if his staff had noticed the toe nail. He said that they had and were all grossed out but it and then said…
"You know Chris the interesting thing is that this lady, after she would box and stack these cats and cultivate that giant toenail, would then go to her job which was to roll out and make every single Dunkin Doughnut sold in this county.
I have not eaten a Dunkin Doughnut from that day to this.
Feh.
Quite true, as Polonius in Hamlet said, “Brevity is the soul of wit”.
Of course, he also said:
"Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay’d for. There; my blessing with thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch’d, unfledged comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!
and:
Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. I do know,
When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul
Lends the tongue vows: these blazes, daughter,
Giving more light than heat, extinct in both,
Even in their promise, as it is a-making,
You must not take for fire. From this time
Be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence;
Set your entreatments at a higher rate
Than a command to parley. For Lord Hamlet,
Believe so much in him, that he is young
And with a larger tether may he walk
Than may be given you: in few, Ophelia,
Do not believe his vows; for they are brokers,
Not of that dye which their investments show,
But mere implorators of unholy suits,
Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds,
The better to beguile. This is for all:
I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth,
Have you so slander any moment leisure,
As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.
Look to’t, I charge you: come your ways.
and
Marry, sir, here’s my drift;
And I believe, it is a fetch of wit:
You laying these slight sullies on my son,
As ‘twere a thing a little soil’d i’ the working, Mark you,
Your party in converse, him you would sound,
Having ever seen in the prenominate crimes
The youth you breathe of guilty, be assured
He closes with you in this consequence;
‘Good sir,’ or so, or ‘friend,’ or ‘gentleman,’
According to the phrase or the addition
Of man and country.
and
At ‘closes in the consequence,’ ay, marry;
He closes thus: ‘I know the gentleman;
I saw him yesterday, or t’ other day,
Or then, or then; with such, or such; and, as you say,
There was a’ gaming; there o’ertook in’s rouse;
There falling out at tennis:’ or perchance,
‘I saw him enter such a house of sale,’
Videlicet, a brothel, or so forth.
See you now;
Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth:
And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,
With windlasses and with assays of bias,
By indirections find directions out:
So by my former lecture and advice,
Shall you my son. You have me, have you not?
and
That hath made him mad.
I am sorry that with better heed and judgment
I had not quoted him: I fear’d he did but trifle,
And meant to wreck thee; but, beshrew my jealousy!
By heaven, it is as proper to our age
To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions
As it is common for the younger sort
To lack discretion. Come, go we to the king:
This must be known; which, being kept close, might
move
More grief to hide than hate to utter love.
and
This business is well ended.
My liege, and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day and time.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief: your noble son is mad:
Mad call I it; for, to define true madness,
What is’t but to be nothing else but mad?
But let that go.
and
Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
That he is mad, 'tis true: 'tis true 'tis pity;
And pity 'tis 'tis true: a foolish figure;
But farewell it, for I will use no art.
Mad let us grant him, then: and now remains
That we find out the cause of this effect,
Or rather say, the cause of this defect,
For this effect defective comes by cause:
Thus it remains, and the remainder thus. Perpend.
I have a daughter–have while she is mine–
Who, in her duty and obedience, mark,
Hath given me this: now gather, and surmise.
(Reads)
‘To the celestial and my soul’s idol, the most
beautified Ophelia,’–
That’s an ill phrase, a vile phrase; ‘beautified’ is
a vile phrase: but you shall hear. Thus:
(Reads)
‘In her excellent white bosom, these, & c.’
and
Good madam, stay awhile; I will be faithful.
(Reads)
'Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.
'O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers;
I have not art to reckon my groans: but that
I love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu.
‘Thine evermore most dear lady, whilst
this machine is to him, HAMLET.’
This, in obedience, hath my daughter shown me,
And more above, hath his solicitings,
As they fell out by time, by means and place,
All given to mine ear.
and
I would fain prove so. But what might you think,
When I had seen this hot love on the wing–
As I perceived it, I must tell you that,
Before my daughter told me–what might you,
Or my dear majesty your queen here, think,
If I had play’d the desk or table-book,
Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb,
Or look’d upon this love with idle sight;
What might you think? No, I went round to work,
And my young mistress thus I did bespeak:
‘Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star;
This must not be:’ and then I precepts gave her,
That she should lock herself from his resort,
Admit no messengers, receive no tokens.
Which done, she took the fruits of my advice;
And he, repulsed–a short tale to make–
Fell into a sadness, then into a fast,
Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness,
Thence to a lightness, and, by this declension,
Into the madness wherein now he raves,
And all we mourn for
in the first two acts alone!
I
Agree
:rolleyes:
I’ve been accused of ‘drive by posting’, which is kinda funny.
Those of us who are verbose and can’t get enough of our own words are all off (offended) composing 5,000 word responses to complain to this thread.
Be back in a coupla days.