We were sitting in the
cockpit of his concrete barge on the weekend. He was avoiding working on his
engine. I was avoiding helping him, and doing my best to reduce his surplus
stock of beer. We said Sarah reminded us of Mrs. Malaprop and recalled that Sarah
Palinprop was the one who invented the lovely word "refudiate."
OW said: "You
could have knocked me over with a fender when she dropped out of the race. It's
just beyond my apprehension. I'd be diluted if she came back."
"Success in
politics is elusive," I pointed out. "To all intensive purposes it's
a pigment of your imagination."
"That doesn't
diminish the extraordinarity of it," said OW, who, for once was looking
very dashing with a navy-blue crevasse around his neck.
We both paused to
reflect on the profundity of his remark, and to suck on our beers a bit more.
Then OW said: "Actually, politicians are a bunch of sharks."
"Quite
right," I said, "the waters of Washington are infatuated with
them."
There was another pause
and then I said: "I'm sorry to interrupt your strain of thought, but
whatever happened to the guy you hired to paint your galley after the
fire?"
"I had to fire him
for gross incontinence," said OW.
"He just started painting all over the powder from the fire
extinguisher."
"Hah!" I
said. "Serves you right for buying a Chinese extinguisher. It was just a
wolf in cheap clothing."
"It was an
antique," OW admitted, "but it worked. And Robin Lee Graham had the
same kind of extinguisher when he circumvented the world in 1965."
I pondered the significance
of that while OW fetched another couple of cans. Then he said: "Getting
back to politics, I wouldn't mind getting up-close and personal with Sarah. Nudge-nudge,
wink-wink. In political terms she's a hottie."
I was shocked.
"But she's married," I said. "You're making a
malaproposition."
"Can't help it.
It's all to do with fairy moans."
"Fairy
moans?"
"Yeah," said
OW, "Scientifically proven. Everybody's got fairy moans. Even you've got fairy moans."
"That's
offensive," I said. I put down my beer and stepped ashore in dignified
fashion. "I resemble that remark."
"Fairy
moans," said OW reflectively as I walked away. And then, earnestly:
"Lead a snot into temptation."
Today's
Thought
The
only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.— Oscar Wilde, Picture of Dorian Gray.
Tailpiece
"We're celebrating
the anniversary of my wife's birthday tonight.""Don't you mean you're celebrating the anniversary of her birth?"
"No, no. This is the fifth anniversary of her 39th birthday."
(Drop by every Monday,
Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)
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