Trousered Ape

An exercise in presumption.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

We now return to our regular program of silliness, as we present a tale with no moral at all:

Bad Bobby was sent to a school
Where the diet consisted of gruel,
And brutal correction
Was not the exception,
But rather the general rule.

Bad Bobby was rid on a rail
Out of Heidelberg, Oxford, and Yale:
At each seat of learning,
They found he was turning
A profit from crib sheets for sale.

Bad Bobby came home from Australia,
His hoped-for redemption a failure:
He had given his labors
To relieving his neighbors
Of their costliest paraphernalia.

Bad Bobby, in smuggling vein,
Having stuffed several tons of cocaine
In an elephant’s skin,
Brought it easily in,
For his passport read “A. Quatermain”.

Bad Bobby assembled a band
Of burglars, the best in the land;
Then swindled the lot
Of the swag that they got,
And departed for far Samarkand.

Bad Bobby, the hired assassin,
Did many a lad and a lass in:
His victims he’d lure,
And bind, and immure;
Then he’d turn the valve letting the gas in.

Bad Bobby was sentenced to hang
Along with the rest of his gang;
But he broke from his cell,
Disappeared down a well,
And turned up as a tout in Penang.

Bad Bobby again lay in prison,
Confined on well-founded suspicion
Of, with a sharp blade,
On the scullery maid
Performing a lethal incision.

Bad Bobby, in direst straits,
His thread finally cut by the Fates,
Pulled his last and best trick,
Fooled and fuddled Old Nick,
Dodged St. Peter, and slipped through the Gates.

Posted by Bob the Ape 10:14 PM

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

I must not let today pass without noting that it has been exactly twenty years since I did the second smartest thing I have done in my entire life, namely, marrying the woman who has been my friend, companion, supporter, solace, and lover ever since, and has let me be as much (to the best of my poor ability) for her.

Thank you, Lord, for bringing us together, for our love, for our marriage, and for blessing us with two such wonderful children.

(And the smartest? Taking up my cross and following Jesus Christ - what else?)

(And in case anyone thinks I'm dissing the Bride, she says the same; and I of her.)

Posted by Bob the Ape 7:28 PM

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

A recent post at Korrektiv dives into the stormy waters of that most contentious issue: what is the Catholic view of women in pants? In the comments, I make a contribution to the discussion:

Some Catholic men will look askance
At any woman wearing pants,
And mount a soapbox, take a stance,
And utter shrill, splenetic rants.
We hope God in His mercy grants
To each such man the grace to glance
Into his own heart, where, perchance,
He'll see his soul's misgovernance.

Which is responded to, and topped, by JOB, one of Korrektiv's bloggers:

Some Catholic women look askance
At men who dare to wear the pants,
Against their Feminazi stance
Of fevered brows and keening rants.
We hope these Clooneys, Laws and Grants
Will find it in their hearts to glance
Up skirts and down shirts, where, perchance,
They'll find womankind’s last romance.

I am honored to have inspired such a superb riposte.

Posted by Bob the Ape 7:45 PM