Monday, February 2, 2009

Perambulate.

There are not many left alive who know the mysteries behind this word’s dark and sordid history. Of those knowledgeable individuals, only a few are prepared to divulge their precious information. In turn, only a select handful are willing to do so without some sort of massive compensation. From that small sampling, only two meet the required criteria as members of the human species. And only one of these brilliant and sesquipedalian duo could be said to be something other than a severed head floating in a pie pan of brine and gravel bits.



The last remaining authority on the subject, it should be forewarned, is a six-month old girl. In addition, the only means of communicating her wealth of perambulatory insight is through a complex and encoded system of primitive sign language and lighting sticks of dynamite, then hurling them at passing cars along Route 66.



This form of communication is known in ancient circles as “Dangerously Criminal Activity”.



Despite the fact that Baby Disturbia’s enchanting, baroque ritual is a practically extinct art, there are still a precious few who are able to interpret these circumspect explosions and languid gestures. Of these few, however, only half are still on this planet. Those left behind, quite frankly, are not very good looking. Of the two or three who we might even consider sleeping with, only one of them really seemed to enjoy our clever and timeless anecdotes involving our varied encounters with celebrity garden hoses.



And she, in turn, was promptly blown to a thousand pieces while driving along Route 66.



At which point, we broke for lunch.


As luck would have it, our waiter was Noah Webster. Along with informing us about their delicious Crêpe Suzette, he further went on to explain (in bizarre, rather halting verse), that Perambulate was a:


transitive verb

1 : to travel over or through especially on foot : TRAVERSE
2 : to make an official inspection of (a boundary) on foot.

We told him we were pretty certain it had something to do with assigning hearsay to a fellow named Ambulate, and maybe he should just go ahead and get us our dessert and coffee.

Mr. Webster then promptly set himself on fire, earning himself a twelve percent tip.

“Come on, Folks!” Someone joyously declared. “Let’s Perambulate on out of here!”

And so we did, happily abandoning the shambling Noah Webster and his futile attempts to douse the hungry flames with his own, tortured tears…




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Happy Bastille Day, One and All!

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