} (Enter three ne'er do wells, each looking rumpled and disheveled)
}
} NDW 1: Zounds, this year the garland of victory in the annual Futility
} Regatta is to be mine! For I have spent the past twelve months
} attempting to persuade my dearest love that the Three Stooges truly are
} funny!
}
} NDW 2: Be off, or I'll kick you upstairs! *My* entry in the Fu'Tatta is
} thus: I have attempted to train my Siamese cat to catch a frisbee in
} her ponderous and marble jaws!
}
} NDW 3: Miscreants, get thee behind me! For I have attempted to speak
} out against the impending American invasion of Iraq!
}
} (Ne'er do wells 1 and 2 goggle in disbelief)
}
} NDW 1: Truly, the garland is thine!
}
} NDW 2: Clear a space on thy mantle!
}
} NDW 1: Stick a fork in us -- we art done!
}
} NDW 3: (beaming) Yea, yea, verily -- who wanteth to touch me?
}
} (Enter supplicant)
}
} SUPPLICANT: Hold! For at last, I have the advantage!
}
} ALL NDW: Gadzooks, odd's bodkins, 'tis the Supplicant!
}
} SUPPLICANT: Each of you work, tho' not every week and not for very
} much, but what thou dost purchase with thy meagre wages, thou ow'st. Am
} I not right?
}
} ALL NDW: (reluctantly) Yea, thou speakst aright.
}
} SUPPLICANT: Lo, for twice three years now I have lived under a roof,
} behind doors, within walls, whose open space I arrange as I see fit.
} Yon walls are thin, and the appliances truly suck swamp skimmings, but
} 'tis mine. But not mine forever; o, no! For each month I buy the room
} anew, and such is my agreement with my Lord of Land that I must do so
} forever, but can never own this property inhabited by me.
}
} (All NDW gasp. A heavenly chord plays, a beam of light picks out the
} supplicant, and an enormous garland of leaves descends from heaven,
} with the word DOOFUS cleverly woven among the branches)
}
} ALL NDW: 'Tis the Garland of Futility! It hath been awarded by
} acclamation, without so much as a formal judging!
}
} NDW 3: Truly, what you have done hath given you the unbeatable
} advantage in our race to do the most futile thing ever done. Dost thou
} ever plan to buy a home outright?
}
} SUPPLICANT: Yea, anon. Just as soon as I persuadeth my boyfriend to
} poppeth the question. I think I'm wearing him down -- I make sweet,
} fabulous love to him each night. I am certain he cannot resist my
} wiles, and soon will move to make me his betrothed and only bride.
}
} ALL NDW (trying to hide their derisive grins): Well done!
}
} NDW 1 (to NDW 2 & 3): Do the rules provideth for a co-champion? For I
} believe yon Supplicant hath tied with herself!
}
} You owe the Oracle an invitation to the wedding. Don't expect a
} present.
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