Last night the Professor stopped by for a glass of Inniskillin Aligote and a spell of porch sitting after first checking to see that my wife was not home. The professor once patted my wife's behind at a faculty party while exclaiming loudly to all present that Pamela had a Rubenesque behind. Of course, Pamela took offence. She is hardly Rubenesque and old Peter Paul would have been considered her anorexic and hardly worthy of fetching the hot chocolate much less posing for a painting. After enduring his specious comments on the poor vintage (1996 really wasn't not a bad year for whites and it was better than the cheap French plonk he serves when forced to entertain) I told him about Michael's comment >Next time you have a bite to eat, you might ask yourself, >"Who is this?" on Paddlewise. You can't set up Inverbon like that so I turned on the tape recorder and sat back for the monologue. It follows suitably edited for young readers. You know, he said, that reminds me of my Aunt Nefertiti. As you know all my aunts were named after great beauties of history but this once it was inappropriate. Helen was a looker as was Sarah but Neffie was a bit horse faced. The children in town once mistook her for the pony ride at the fair. No end of trouble over that. Seems you cannot horse whip children anymore. She didn't have much of a figure either and reminded me of the those bronze sculptures of Rozinante. Anyway, she was a great believer in reincarnation. I think she was perfectly sane in all other respects. At least until she began talking to animals. It came to a head one Christmas. She took it into her mind that Grandfather had come back as a pig and argued at length with the Christmas ham over whether it had been over cooked. Quite disconcerting to the children. She said Grandfather would have preferred being Bar-B-Qued anyway. Neffie always loved Bar-B-Que. In later years she expanded the theme to vegetables and could be found arguing philosophy with Hegel in the garden. Hegel never struck me as being an eggplant kind of guy but then I didn't know him personally. Neffie wasn't unreasonable about this reincarnation stuff at least not at first. She subscribed to the healthy cannibal's belief that eating another person imbued one with that person's strengths and courage. She drew the line at peas. Said they were all Chinese - all looked the same and there were so many of them. Neffie never did like the Chinese. Loved beans though. Thought they were Bhuddists. Loved Bhuddists. I guess these things can wear on the mind. One evening when Father was entertaining business clients at home Neffie jumped up from the table scramming "I'm not a cannibal" at the Rutabagas. We found her later curled up in the corner of the garden shed petting a carrot. Father said he didn't mind her making a scene in front of clients but she spilled a perfectly good glass of Zindt - Humbrecht Pinot Gris and that was unforgivable. Dr. Peregrine Inverbon, Ph.d., DD, LL.d, Ph.G Transcribed by his humble servant John Winters *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************
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