The Book of Judith and the Demon Sarah

From the time of the last millennium, the fair Judith was beholden to the great pulmonologist Bimalin, who prescribeth a huffing beast to sleep by Judith's side each night.  And the huffing beast guardeth her and  pumpeth the very air into her lungs to defeat the evil scourge known as Apnea.  And the Lord Insurer, who vouches to hold harmless its loyal though disgruntled subjects, saw that it was good.

After many years, the huffing beast grew weary and, after a brief illness, went to rest forever in the arms of the Lord Recycler.  And, lo, it was the custom in those times that the Lord Insurer made his vassal Apria to assign a new huffing beast to battle the scourge, and Apria reaped a vast empire of wealth from the purses of the Lord and of Judith and Judith's Consort.  But though the new beast huffeth and puffeth, its air was of the desert and caused Judith's tongue to swell and thrash in desiccated agony.  And Apria said, "Thou shalt have a humid-maker for thy huffing beast, and the Lord and thy Consort shall pay through the nose for it," for they had exceeded the Lord Insurer's policy limits for durable medical equipment.

Soon, the prophesy of Apria came to pass and, alas, the humid-maker made the sea to flow into Judith's nose, and she awakened each night amidst much snorting and foofaraw, and Judith's Consort came to know misery and suffering.  And Judith spaketh thus, "The huffing beast maketh my soul to drown and castest me into the waters of the damned.  Maketh this Apria son of a bitch to fix this huffing beast or thou shall not lie with woman."  Never has man seen such fury, and he was gravely vexed by his return to a state of chastity.

Judith and her Consort visited the Angel Rob, whose trade was to tame the huffing beast but who was not the vassal of Apria, and Rob interveneth on Judith's behalf, saying to Apria's sales-vassal, "Thou shalt not sell huffing beasts in my province without thou release the damsel Judith from her torment."  And the sales-vassal vowed that it would be done.

But the sales-vassal was a lying bastard and he sent the Demon Sarah, who donned the fleece of the weasel whose name was Customer Service.  And the Demon Sarah spake unto Judith that the waters in the nose would ceaseth with the dawning of Summer, for the humid-maker vomited water only in Winter.  And Judith spake, "Hast thou taken leave of thy senses?  This be Florida, thou condescending ass."  And she spake the name of the Lord, but she spake in vain, and Judith's torment prevailed for long nights.  Long chaste nights at that.

After some days, the Angel Rob burned the sales-vassal at a stake and made him to dispatch the Demon Sarah once again.  And Sarah again spake soothing words, not, however, to the drowned Judith but to her suffering Consort, who longed for the pleasure of Judith's charms.  And the Consort saw that it was bullshit and spaketh so to Sarah.  But Sarah did not relent readily and she called forth the Virtues Patience and Perseverance and some other stuff that the Consort in his rage could not long remember.  And the Consort spake at length about those who begat the Demon Sarah and about her knowledge of dogs, and thus was the Demon Sarah scandalized.  And the Consort held her fast in his goodness and fury, though she writhed and gnashed her fearsome teeth, until she was defeated.

Thus conquered, the Demon Sarah pretended to be the Angel Sarah, who vouchsafed that she would "to be honest with thou," and she revealed that the Lord's vassal Apria was lying through its rotted teeth and indeed sat upon the right hand of Satan.  For the huffing beast harbored a secret which Sarah spake to be a "known problem," and it would be made good under the writings of the Lord Warranty.

And thus the angelic Demon Sarah prophesied the appearance of a new and improved huffing beast with no known problems.  Tomorrow between 3 and 5 p.m.

Newt

Another Thing You Don't Often See in the North

The Florida legislature gathers altogether too often in Tallahassee to consider new ways to deviate from the mean.  A debate is raging there today, as it has for the past three years, over whether to outlaw sex with animals.  It took the unfortunate death by accidental strangulation of a sweet young goat named Meg to bring this issue to light.

I swear I am not making this up.

I suppose I should say something clever, like how the supporters of sex with critters are being led by Meg's husband, Billy Joe Jim-Bob, but that would be wrong.

God, how my muse loves this place.

Newt

Snowbirds, Rednecks and Crackers - An Appreciation

Despite wave after frantic wave of snowbirds, Florida remains, at its heart, a southern institution.  If you think not, consider a locally bottled beer that says it is "like a California pale ale, except made in America."  I wish I'd thought of that line.

You can tell how far south you are by the local expression for "you" (plural).  If you live in the North, you say "you," and southerners are folks who say "you all."  If you all say "you all," southerners are folks who say "y'all."  And if y'all say "y'all," southerners are folks who say "all y'all."  Real native Floridians are few, but they all say "all y'all."  If all y'all are real native Floridians, however, southerners are those who say "all y'all" while barefoot.

Motorcyclists who get old and retreat to Florida promptly buy 3-wheel bikes.  Old farts on tricycles are more common down here than old farts in new Corvettes, although not by much.  I saw a Harley-Davidson the other day that looked like a 3-wheeler.  Well, it happens, embarrassingly enough, that Harley does make such a bastard machine.  But this guy had modified his 2-wheeler by adding a pair of outrigger wheels.  Yup, training wheels on an H-D. I was embarrassed for him.

Speaking of embarrassed, I've always wanted to crawl into a hole when members of my supposed profession trumpet how great they are.  One of the far-too-many such legal clowns down here - we'll call him "Peter Ticktin ," because that's his name - calls his website "LegalBrains.com."  You could look it up. 

Hereabouts, there is a hybrid retail industry that combines the ubiquitous gun shop with the ubiquitous pawn shop.  I'm trying to think of something to say about this that won't piss off the wrong people.  That probably wasn't it.

Newt

Writing Through Tears

I meant to compose a light romp through the vagaries of Florida life based on some curious things I have seen here lately.  But as I checked into the Internet, I clicked again on the news and again got caught up in the hundreds of images of devastation in Japan.  As much as I would like to get back to my carefree lifestyle here in my dotage, I just can't look away from the painful pictures.  Today's estimates of 10,000 dead must be pitifully low. 

In other news on the same website, this headline: "Users complain iPhone clock bungles time change."

Sadly

Newt