I awoke fuggy-headed and asprawl the chaise longue and, somewhat shamefully, I was still attired in my tweed fatigues! It was some moments before I could compose my thoughts and recall whither I lay and what had passed the previous eventide.
I espied my deerstalker, which was resting precariously on the cusp of the detritus receptacle or, as the denizens of the New World insist on calling it, “trash can”. It looked as though it had been tossed thither with a most alarming indiscretion.
I rang the bell for the scullery maid, a delightful little filly called Rosalita, and bade her prepare breakfast. I was soon in the front parlour partaking of the most salubrious victuals – eggs, sausages, bacon, tomato, fried bread, sundry marmalades and jams, primarily (but not exclusively) quince and whortleberry, and a pot of invigorating English breakfast tea. Unfortunately, my current abode is lacking in fine china, and so I suffered to take my tea in an unholy ceramic vessel of preposterous size, which Rosalita said was called a “mug”. Nay, ‘twas a veritable tankard, said I, and it was I who was the mug to take my tea in so indelicate a manner!
If Rosalita comprehended my sally, she deigned not to show it in her pretty phizog.
As I was rooting around inside my Norfolk jacket for a cheroot, my preferred post-prandial digestif, I happened upon a strange bulge in my inside left pocket. Retrieving it, imagine my astonishment when I found it to be a stash of calling cards!
It was then that a deluge of memories descended into the conscious part of the Thropplenoggin noggin. I prepared a space on the breakfast table and, lighting up a cheroot, I glanced through the pile. With each name came a remembrance of things past, a brief snatch of discourse I’d either o’erheard or engag’d in at the soirée, allowing me to retrace my somewhat meandering steps through that long night.
David Lynch, amateur meteorologist and sometime film director.
“The skies are azure blue, there’s a moderate south-westerly breeze and it’s a pleasant 29 degrees out there.”
“Zounds! Sir, but how can this be? Nay, I fear you are in error, sir, for ‘tis now night, and yet you say the sky is blue. What twaddle! Would you likewise insist the equally improbable, that a man will one day walk o’the moon?!”
“The skies are azure blue, there’s a moderate south-westerly breeze and it’s a pleasant 29 degrees out there.”
“Yoiks! This man is addle-pated. Adieu, jingle-brains!”
Christian Bale, Rage Consultant
“So anyway, this fella comes walking right through my scene – a-dada-dada – right through my eye-line. I’m focused, I’m in the zone, and I see red, man, I just see fuckin’ red! So I says to him, all reasonable like, what the FUCK do you THINK you are DOING!”
“Perhaps Mr. Lynch was right when he said the air was blue – forsooth, your vulgarities have made it thus!”
Rue Paul, Shemale
“Good evening, sir. And how do you do?”
“Why, the pleasure is all mine. The name’s Thropplenoggin, Dr. Thropplenoggin.”
“Wow, now that is a mouthful. And I do so like one of those. I’m Rue. But you can call me Ms. Paul. Or just Paul.”
“Most peculiar, but very well!”
“You’re a doctor, you say. Well, I got a l’il somethin’ I’d like you to take a look at. Actually, it’s quite a big somethin’.”
“But I assure you I’m not a medical doctor, Madame. I’m afraid I won’t be able to help you with any complaint you might have.”
“Oh, I reckon you gonna be jus’ fine, sugar. Here, take a l’il looky at this” and she hoisted up her skirts.
“Good God, woman! You’re a man!”
“See, I knew you was qualified!”
Tom Screwloose, Occultist
“Sir, can I just ask you something? Do yer…do yer mind if I just – ha! – ask you one thing? What’s your name, sir?”
“Not at all, sir. It is Thropplenoggin, Dr. Y. U. Thropplenoggin.”
“Ah, you’re a doctor. Good. That’s good. What’s that, a medical doctor, or some kind of doctor of the mind, a psychiatrist or something like that?”
“I’m afraid you are barking up the wrong tree there, sir. My field is more closely aligned to anthropology.”
“Good, Doc. That’s good. Okay. Let’s cut to the chase. Are you helping?”
“I beg your pardon, sir.”
“Are. You. H-e-l-p-ing? ‘Cos either you are helping or you are not helping. So which one is it? ‘Cos if you are not part of the solution, then – ha! – you are part of tha problem. Now, if you wanna help, Doc, you gotta have a system – no, you gotta have the system in your life. And do you know what that system is?”
“The Hegelian dialectic?”
He ploughed on regardless.
“No, sir, it is not. I’ll tell ya what that system is, Doc. It’s Scientology. See, there was once this powerful guy called Xenu, bad guy, Doc, majorly bad guy, and he…”
“Sir, would you believe it – my presence is required in the drawing room this very instant!”
Nicolas Cage, for all your ‘unlikely hero’ needs
“Yeeah, Mista Throwapple, I’m shoootin’ a new movie where I’m jus’ sooome ordinary Joe, jus’ some blue-collar sort, mindin’ ma own bus’ness, and then I got to take on these fellas who, you know, jus’ wooon’ be reasoned with. You like movies like thaaat? I maaake lots of movies like thaaat.”
I stared in utter befuddlement at this buffoon’s incomprehensible drawl.
“Say, you listenin’ to me, buddy. Or am I gonna have to reason wit you, too? All I’m tryin’ to do is git home to see my l’il gurl. And no one gonna stop me from doin’ that, ‘kay? So, jus’ back away, Mista Throwapple – b-ack a-way!”
George Clooney, Smug-Wobblyhead
“Lotta people ask me that, Thropps – kin I call you that? Feel like I know you already! Hey Clooney, what gives with the head-wobblin’ smugness? people ask. Truth is, it’s hereditary, from way back. Evolved as an adaptation, you know, sort of a Darweenian selective advantage. So the head-wobblin’ has a hypnotic effect on the listener, enabling me to put you under my spell. How else d’you think I got all them plum roles, eh?”
Brad Twit, Orphan Collector
“Yeah, we got black ones, yellow ones, a sort of mocha-lookin’ one – slurp! – still tryin’ to get a green one, one of dem ET ones, to complete the collecshun – guzzle!”
David Letterman, Performing Monkey
“Dr. Topplesnog, lurve the old-timey name! Say, I haven’t seen a helmet like that since, oh, the Boer War! You’re a doctor, right? Tell me, what position do you take on the African problem. Let me guess, missionary?”
After each of these statements, which I deduced to be attempts at jocularity (with yours truly as the target), one could hear a ‘badum-tish!’ Upon closer inspection, I discovered Mr. Letterman kept a man-servant in close proximity and gainful employ for the eliciting of said noise from a miniature drum-and-cymbal ensemble, presumably to indicate hilarity had just ensued.
Gentle reader, I assure you it had not.
“Sir, I care not for such a bombardment of bon-woes. Forsooth, Dr. Samuel Johnson would be in no hurry to replace his definition of humour with your name or risible antics.”
Sensing I was in high dudgeon, he attempted to assuage me by proffering his card and promising that he would be in touch.
Lastly, Oprah of the Winifreds, Full-Circle Blessings, Healings, Diets and Über-Lavish Baby-Showers:
“You all kinds of crazy. Come on the show!”
Verily, a most daunting prospect!
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