But then the strains of “Love Lifts Us Up Where We Belong,” the monster Joe Cocker-Jennifer Warnes hit and perennial wedding reception favorite, began to issue softly from speakers concealed in the room’s crown molding, and her husband’s face began twitching and his right arm shot out straight from his shoulder as if in salute, causing others at the table to react with alarm.

“No–not that song!”

“Is he having a heart attack?” asked Nigel Scott, a balletomane investment banker as Jim Busby’s face contorted into a look of pain.

“No, he’s fine, he just needs some fresh air–it’s stuffy in here, isn’t it?” his wife replied as she stood him up and started to push him towards the door, but it was too late.

“Where the eagles cry,” Jim screamed in a guttural voice that recalled an animal caught in a leg trap.  “On a mountain high!”

Just like the real thing!

Once outside in the hall Busby could only groan at her missed chance as a straw poll taken in her absence resolved to invite her to become a “Friend” of the ballet, but nothing more for fear that a similarly embarrassing outburst would mar a high-toned fundraiser or opening night.

Jim Busby suffers from Joe Cocker Imitation Syndrome, an ailment that afflicts approximately 4 out of every hundred American men between the ages of 55 and 70.  “JCIS is characterized by spastic gestures, unintelligible singing and wild arm-flailing,” says Dr. Peter Girardin of the Massachusetts Home for Aging Baby-Boomers.  “The search for a pharmaceutical cure has been unsuccessful, largely because the syndrome itself is the product of excessive drug and alcohol use.”

The full Cocker

Victims of the disease typically first exhibit symptoms in early post-adolescence, performing imitations of uninhibited British rock singer Joe Cocker in private settings or at bars.  Triggering influences such as a strobe light, bad acid or light beer can cause the affected condition to become permanent, the way your mother used to warn you if you made an ugly face it might stay that way.

There are few support groups or dedicated medical assistance available to Cocker imitators, unlike the broad acceptance that Elvis Presley imitators have achieved through a campaign of annoying appearances at shopping malls and other public venues.  “As millions of male rock fans become senile, we as a society need to come to terms with this dreaded disease,” says Girardin as he looks at a brain scan taken during a patient’s rendition of “Delta Lady.”  “Do we want these guys breaking into raspy singing in public places, or will we allow them to age gracefully in secure facilities where they won’t bother anybody?”

“Hey there, Bink,” I call to him as he approaches the elevator bank.  He has a look of exasperated relief on his face, if such a thing is possible.  “Looking forward to summer?”

Bink

“No,” Bink snaps.  “The damn kids just got home from college.  Sarah’s become a vegan and Todd listens to that damn ‘rap’ music all the time.”

“Kids,” I say, commiserating with him.  “You can’t live with ‘em, but you can live without ‘em.”

Sarah, the vegan convert.

“You know, some of those rap songs are disgusting,” Bink grumbles.  “I think I heard one of those guys say mother-you-know-what.”

“Sort of like classical Greek tragedy.”

“What?”

“Oedipus Rex–by Sophocles.”

“Hmph.  I took mostly business courses.  Anyway, I’m worried about ‘em both.  Sarah’s thin as a rail, and Todd says he wants to be a ‘DJ’–whatever that is.”

The elevator door opened, and we got on along with a crowd of others.  As so often happens, the close confinement of the car acted as a stimulus to my brain, like the isolation booths on ’50′s game shows.

“You know, I think you could kill two birds with one stone if you just got more protein out of your music,” I say to Bink.  He looks at me as if I’m daft–and I’m not going to argue with him.

“What do you mean?” he asks with a quizzical look on his face, his head cocked to one side like a parakeet.

“Well, maybe if you played songs with a little meat in them, Todd would abandon the monotony of rap and Sarah would come back to the carnivore fold.”

“I don’t know any songs about meat,” Bink says.

“Well, there’s ‘Hey Pete, Let’s Eat More Meat’ by Dizzy Gillespie,” I say.  “Probably converted more vegans than any other song in the history of Western Civilization, but I don’t know if it’s raunchy enough for Todd.”

Diz Lives!

“Yes, the boy’s obsessed with,” here Bink stops to look around at the other passengers, then continues in a softer voice, “booty.”

“Well, there’s ‘It Ain’t the Meat It’s the Motion’ by The Swallows,” I suggest helpfully.

The Swallows

“Maria Muldaur recorded it too,” a frizzy-haired fifty-something woman behind us says.

“Righto,” I say, “but The Swallows were first.”

“Sounds rather–risque,” Bink says.  He once found a set of French postcards in his father’s underwear drawer, and ever since has assumed that all Frenchmen are hopeless debauchees.

“Well, it’s the sort of song that can bring a family together,” I say.  “Mom, dad, sis, junior–everyone gets a kick out of it.”

“But those songs are expressions of men’s fantasies,” the frizzy-haired woman says.  “How about ‘I Want a Hot Dog for My Roll’?”

“By Butterbeans & Susie?” a bike messenger with stringy hair asks.  I’m gratified to see that I’ve enhanced Boston’s often cramped sense of civic engagement by inspiring such a lively discussion among total strangers, except for me and Bink, who are each strange in our own way.

Butterbeans & Susie

“Yes,” the woman replies.

“I don’t know,” Bink says.  “All these songs sound vaguely–disreputable.”

I catch his drift.  Jazz, R&B, black novelty acts–it’s all music from the ”wrong side of the tracks.”

“You’re right, Bink,” I say.  “What you need is music that’s so well-established and esteemed it’s approved by the federal government of the U-S of A.”

Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton

“Yes,” Bink says, his gaze fixed on a point in the middle distance.  “I want something that’s as safe as a U.S. Treasury bill–like John Philip Sousa.”

“So I suggest the unexpurgated version of ’Winin’ Boy’ by Jelly Roll Morton,” I say.  ”It’s on a Library of Congress recording!”

“How’s that go?” Bink asks.

“Like this,” I reply.  A young man in the back takes the iPod buds out of his ears as I begin to sing.

A nickel’s worth of beefsteak, a dime’s worth of lard.
A nickel’s worth of beefsteak, a dime’s worth of lard.
I’m gonna salivate your pussy ’til my peter gets hard.

The car is quiet.  We have those little silent TV screens in our elevators, so I figure everyone’s looking at the Red Sox score.

Library of Congress

“That’s really in the Library of Congress?” Bink asks, incredulous.

“Yep–your tax dollars at work.  When you think of all the crap that our taxes pay for, it’s good to know that every now and then we get some value for our money.”

The car glides to a stop at Bink’s floor, and he steps off into the lobby.

“Well, uh, thanks for the suggestions,” he says.  “You know, whenever we have these little talks I always end up feeling . . . “

“Better?” I say as he hesitates.

“No–depressed.”

                                                                       The Boston Globe

The plaintiff

Contrary to what a lot of people think, it’s not easy being an administrative judge at the Bureau of Erotic Dance Disputes (“BEDD”).  That’s a lawyer thing, putting stuff in quotes inside parentheses.

There are the threats of potential violence by disgruntled tippers.  There are the, uh, “boyfriends”, hanging around for their cut of any big verdict.  And there are the owners, a lower class of animal life than which you won’t find anywhere outside of the silverfish under your kitchen sink.  Sorry for the “Throw your mother off the train a kiss” syntax; we judges can get convoluted when we get worked up.

But the girls–let me tell you–they’ll break your heart.  They’re working so hard to put themselves through school, or to move to a better neighborhood, or to get a breast augmentation.  I’ll admit it–I’m an activist judge, and if I can find any reason to rule in favor of the parade of Tiffany Ambers, Chastity Foxxes and Amber Tiffanys that passes through my courtroom day every day, I’ll jump on it like a duck on a June bug.

I put on my robe and my clerk checks my hair after my head passes through the neck hole.

“Looks okay, boss,” he says, and we’re ready to start another day meting out blind justice on behalf of women you can’t take your eyes off of.

“Oyez, oyez, oyez,” my clerk yells as I walk into the court room.  I don’t know what the hell “oyez” means–I think it’s some kind of shellfish–but he has to say it.  “All rise–the court of the Honorable J. Willington Ballard”–that’s me–”is now in session.”

“Be seated,” I say.  “Clerk, call the first case.”

“Crystal Goblet vs. Gentlemen’s VIP Lounge II,” my clerk bawls out.

“Are the parties and their counsel present?” I ask.

“Anthony Vigliano on behalf of Gentlemen’s VIP Lounge II, your honor.”

“Counsellor, can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“Is there ever a Gentlemen’s VIP Lounge I, or do you just start with Roman numeral II?”

“Your honor, under adult entertainment signage regulations, you are prohibited from using a single Roman numeral I–you got to straight to II or even III.”

“And why is that?”

“I dunno–a single ‘I’ might confuse people, make ‘em think you’re an optician or something.”

“Thank you for that clarification.  And on behalf of the plaintiff?”

A sultry brunette rises from the table on the other side of the room.  “Crystal Goblet, your honor,” she says with a voice that’s as warm and soft as a kitten’s belly.  “I’ll be representing myself.”

It is at this point that I must warn any party who comes into my courtroom and proposes to appear pro se–that’s Latin for ‘by her own bodacious self’.

“Miss Goblet, may I remind you of the old adage–’An erotic dancer who represents herself has . . . ‘”–I hesitate for a moment, stunned by the combination of girl-next-door-freshness and tacky beauty that she presents to me–”‘one babelicious beauty for a client’?”

“I don’t know that adage,” she says, batting her eyelashes like a hummingbird supping at a Smith & Hawken feeder.  “Do you know the one about ‘The cat wanted fish but would not wet her feet?’” she asks demurely.

“Can’t say that I do,” I reply, looking up at the ceiling as I search my memory before opposing counsel interrupts my reverie.

“I object on the grounds it’s irrelevant.”

“Put a sock in it, counsellor,” I snap at him.  “If I had to listen to relevant stuff all day I’d quit tomorrow.”  I turn my attention back to the plaintiff:  “Miss Goblet–is that your real name?”

“It’s as real as the two little girls you’re staring at under my low-cut blouse.”

“Close enough.  You may present your case.”

She clears her throat, and lays out a compelling argument; how the defendant’s business was a tissue of lies, a web of deceit, and a diaphanous cheesecloth.  How she and other dancers were charged to perform, subjected to late fees and required to participate in every dance routine, no matter how tawdry!

“Counsellor,” I say, turning towards the defendant’s lawyer, “you know that in Massachusetts we have a three-prong test–sort of like a salad fork–to determine whether an individual is an employee or an independent contractor, correct?”

“I know,” Vigliano says.  “Under Attorney General Advisory 2008/1, the three prongs are referred to as prongs one, two and three, or as prongs A, B and C.”

He’s done his homework.  “And how do you respond?”

Sort of like this.

“Okay,” he says as he wipes flop sweat off his brow and begins.  “Prong number one is freedom from control.  Gentlemen’s VIP Lounge II never told Ms. Goblet how to dance.  She’s free to shake her booty anyway she wants.”

The plaintiff rises, seething with anger.  “That’s not true!” she fairly shouts.  “On Thanksgiving I had to strip out of a Puritan costume–it was sick!”

“The whipped cream isn’t just for the pumpkin pie!”

“I’ll defer judgment on that point,” I say.  “Continue, Mr. Vigliano.”

“Prong number two is that the service in question must be performed outside the usual course of business of the employer,” he says.

“And how do you square that with a club whose sole purpose–whose very raison d’etre . . .”

“We don’t serve raisins,” he says, “but we are primarily in the business of serving food.  We are not–repeat not . . .”

“Not . . .”

“You don’t have to repeat it, I did–we are not in the dancing business.”

I turn to the plaintiff.  “Ms. Goblet?”

“Your honor,” she says, one eyebrow raised to express her skepticism, “do you call microwave-stuffed quahogs food?”

I consider this question for a moment.

“Recall what Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. said,” she adds. ”‘The life of the law has not been logic, but experience.’”

Holmes:  “I seem to have flecks of quahog in my mustache.”

“Your honor,” Vigliano interjects, “he also said ‘Three generations of imbeciles is enough.’”

“I thought that was Yogi Berra,” I reply.  “Anyway, let me hear about the third prong.”

“Well,” Vigliano begins, “prong three is whether the individual is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, profession or business.  If so, she’s an independent contractor.  And as we all know, being an exotic dancer is thisclose to being a member of the world’s oldest profession.”

“Your honor, I object,” Goblet exclaims.  “I am a performing artist who works hard to perfect her craft.  My expenses for practice poles alone last year totalled . . .”

“Sustained as prejudicial,” I say.  “This doesn’t strike me as a difficult case,” I continue, “so I’m going to rule from the bench.”

You could hear a pin drop in the courtroom as plaintiff and defendant’s counsel hold their breath.

“Bailiff, please remove the woman in the back row who dropped the pin,” I say.  “Given the facts and circumstances of the case, I rule that the plaintiff was an employee and therefore entitled to overtime, health insurance, Social Security and unemployment.”

“Is there a consolation prize?” defendant’s counsel asks, crestfallen.

“Counsellor, your crest has fallen,” I advise him under my voice.

“Oh, thanks,” he says as he zips himself up.

“For the loser in today’s match we have the home version of ‘A Day in Court at the Bureau of Erotic Dance Disputes’, a 44-piece jumbo pack of Mrs. Paul’s Crunchy-Style Fish Sticks, and a year’s supply of modeling clay.”

“Oh, judge,” Crystal says, growing misty-eyed.  “I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.”

I choke back my own tears, which tend to flow like a lawn sprinkler whenever I see that justice has been done.  After a moment, I’m able to speak.

“We’ll think of something.”

Available in Kindle and print format on amazon.com as part of the collection “Boston Baroques.”

Some editors’d greet her, but none who liked meter
And so with rejections she wandered alone.
They weighed down her barrow,
and cut like a harrow
Crying: trochees and spondees, a-live, a-live oh.

She died so despondent, for each correspondent
Replied that he liked his verse blankish and free.
Now her ghost wheels her barrow,
and its cry chills the marrow
Crying: trochees and spondees, a-live, a-live oh.

(With apologies to Joe and Rose Lee Maphis even though
they don’t need ‘em ‘cause they’re already dead.)

Pink tights, tu-tus and schmal-tzy music
Is the only kind of life you’ll ever understand.
Pink tights, tu-tus and schmal-tzy music
You’ll never make a wife to a home-lovin’ man.

A home and little children mean nothing to you.
You’d rather spend your nights prancin’ round in a tutu.
You’d rather be with friends takin’ your a-dult bal-let
At a walk-up dancin’ studio that’s ten miles a-way.

You say that you’re just goin’ ‘cause you want to take the barre.
I say that that’s okay I don’t really need the car.
And then I get a call from a different kind of bar
They say you’re drunk on Cosmos and actin’ quite bizarre.

Pink tights, tu-tus and schmal-tzy music
Is the only kind of life you’ll ever understand.
Pink tights, tu-tus and schmal-tzy music
You’d rather spend your time with a tights-wearin’ man.

The music that you dance to, I just cain’t understand
It’s treacly and it’s schmaltzy, played upon a baby grand.
This fella named Tchaikovsky, you say he’s pretty smart
Well I’m sorry for you and your adult ballet heart.

The guys you hang around with, they strike me as pretty weird
They all wear tights in public, and there ain’t none has a beard.
And when they go outside, they all put on a scarf.
There’s one who goes by “Evan” who really makes me barf.

Pink tights, tu-tus and schmal-tzy music
Is the only kind of life you’ll ever understand.
Pink tights, tu-tus and schmal-tzy music
You’ll only make a wife to an arts-lovin’ man.

                                                  The New York Times Book Review

          Tiny and me-excuse me–Tiny and I–had been circling the block on Oakridge Road for probably half an hour, casing the joint where our book club was meeting.

          “Pretty nice neighborhood,” Tiny says as he looked out his window at the houses that started at a million-three, easy.

          “You betcha.  The kinda guys who live around here, they got good grades in between when you and me was beatin’ em up in school, slammin’ em up against lockers in the hall.”

          “Hmph,” Tiny grunted.  “We gonna go in pretty soon?  ‘Cause I gotta take a leak.”

          I slowed the car to a stop.  “Tiny”–his name was an example of “irony,” as he weighed about 300 pounds–”don’t youse know nothin’?”

          “What?” he rejoined, with more than a little umbrage I might add.

          “The first thing you do when you walk into a nice house is not ask to go to the bathroom.”

          “Fine,” he said.  “I’ll go on the lawn.”

          “And have us both end up in back in the big house?  Unh-uh, pal.  You go in, greet the hostess, tell her how nice her place looks.  We drop off the pear tart in the kitchen, say hello and nice-to-meet-you’s all around.  Then and only then do you ask to use ‘the facilities’.”

          “What facilities?”

          “It’s a euphemism, you mook.  You gotta use a euphemism for the bathroom.”

          We’d been sitting there maybe a minute at most, and wouldn’t you know it, somebody had already called the cops about a suspicious car parked on the street.  That’s the way it is in nice neighborhoods.  There’s always somebody lookin’ out their blinds to make sure nobody’s doin’ nothin’ to bring down property values.

          “Everything okay, gentlemen?” the cop said after he rolled down his window.

          “Yes, officer, we were . . . uh . . . just looking for 37 Oakridge Road.  We got book group tonight.”

          The guy didn’t buy it, not for a second.  I knew we were in for the third degree.

          “Book group,” he said, his left eyebrow arching upwards with skepticism.  “Whatcha reading?”  He figured he had us, but I didn’t get a record as long as my arm without wrigglin’ out of a few.

          “The Namesake,” I shot back.

          It was like I’d hit the bull with a lead pipe.  He was stunned, and it took him a while to recover.  “By Jhumpa Lahiri?” he asked, struggling a bit with the name.

          “On the nosey,” Tiny said.  “She’s got a collection of short stories out now–Interpreter of Maladies.“

          The cop looked at Tiny, all 6’2″ of him.  “Isn’t that kind of-chick lit?” the cop asked, curling his lip in an expression of contempt.

Me and Tiny
          “I’m comfortable with my sexuality,” Tiny said, looking straight ahead, completely unabashed.  As Norman O. Brown might have put it, Tiny was polymorphously perverse.

          The guy looked us over like we was a mismatched pair of socks.  He didn’t have probable cause for nothin’.  We were just sitting there, minding our own business, in a parked car.  “Oh look,” I said to Tiny, putting on my best faux surprise demeanor.  ”There’s 37–that’s where Sally Henderson lives!  It was right in front of us all this time!”

          “Yeah,” said Tiny, picking up on my verbal cue.  ”I think the place is darling.”

          We got out, shut the car doors–not too loud–and I clicked the remote entry key to our rented Toyota Highlander.  If we had to make an escape, it would help us blend in with all the other SUVs.

          “You gentlemen be careful,” the cop said out his window, apparently conceding.  ”Not too much chardonnay–okay?”

          “We’ll be on our best behavior,” I said with a poop-eating grin.

          “Yeah,” Tiny added.  ”Maybe we’ll bring a slice of cheesecake down to the station.”

          The guy gave us a nasty little smirk that said we’d better be able to pass a field sobriety test when we walked out, stuffed with Trader Joe’s frozen hors d’oeuvres and hoarse from all our high-toned literary conversation.

          Tiny held the dessert while I rang the bell.  ”Well hello there!” Sally said as she flung the door wide open.  She was resplendent in a tailored sweater-skirt combo from Talbots.  “I’m so glad you could make it!”

          “Thanks for having us,” Tiny replied, rallying a bit.  ”You can’t imagine how much nicer your place is than the Norfolk County House of Corrections!”  So he did have some social skills, way down deep behind that grim, psychopathic mask that he wore whenever he knocked off a pharmacy for Oxycontin.

          “Come in and meet the gals!” Sally said.  ”You’ll know most of them if you belong to the Junior League or the PTO.”

          We were ushered into her living room, which was really quite charming.  A lot of “chintz and prints” as they say, but you won’t hear me complain.  Frankly, I find the “Brutalist” style of my cell–the plastic bench and exposed toilet–a bit tiresome after three years, two months and twenty-four days.

          Sally introduced us to everyone–the names buzzed by me in a blur but I recall a Tori, a Deirdre, a Liz and a Staci “with an ‘i’.”  After we filled our wine glasses with Kendall-Jackson, we got down to the business of the evening in earnest; admiring the hostess’s taste, and gossip.

          “Are you still using that decorator–what was her name–Lisa?” Tori asked.

          “Yes, she’s a little expensive, but who has time to shop for fabric, what with soccer, and ballet and hockey for the kids!” Sally said, plainly overwhelmed by the demands of her busy suburban lifestyle.

          “I know I don’t,” Tiny said, as he stuffed two mini-quiches in his mouth.  “I barely have time to get any exercise in,” he added, and two of the other housewives nodded in sympathy.

          “They’ve added a Saturday morning spinning class at HealthPointe!” Liz said enthusiastically.  She keeps herself in terrific shape.

          “Where’s Stephanie?” Deirdre asked.

          “Uh, she’s not going to be coming for awhile,” Sally said, somewhat cryptically.

          “What’s the matter?” Tori asked.

          “She and the kids have moved to Colorado, to be closer to her parents.”

          “What about Greg?” Liz asked.  Her brain is never quite as toned as her body.

          “You didn’t hear?  He came home two days late from his office Christmas party,” Sally said.  “She traced him by his credit card.  He had checked into a room at the hotel with his administrative assistant.”

          “Oh, dear!” Tiny said, oozing sympathy.

          “I told her I wouldn’t say anything to anybody,” Sally added with a cautionary tone.

          “Jeez, that’s awful,” I said as I finished my chardonnay in a gulp. “He’s gonna regret it.  Someday he’ll want somebody to talk to about literature, not just a hot piece of ass.”

          Tiny cleared his throat–I thought he was maybe choking on one of them quiches, but he gave me a disapproving look.  Perhaps I was just a bit tacky, so I changed the subject.

          “So what about this week’s selection?” I asked cheerfully.  ”What did everybody think?”

          “I liked it!” says Liz.  She always does–her tastes aren’t very discriminating.

          “I didn’t really fall in love with the characters,” Tori says.

          “Well, let’s think about that,” I say.  ”Does anyone ever really like Iago?”

          “Who’s E-AH-go?” Deirdre asks.

          “Yeah,” Liz says, a bit defensively.  “I don’t remember any character with that name.”

          “He isn’t in the book,” I say, trying to explain.  “He’s in Othello.“

          “Then why bring him up?” Liz asks airily.  ”I have enough trouble keeping track of characters as it is!”

          The others laugh, and Sally offers everyone more wine.  Deirdre holds out her glass, and Tori coos at the new David Yurman bracelet that hangs from her friend’s wrist.

          “That is so pretty!” she exclaims.  ”You must have done some extra duty to get that little bauble, missy!”

          The others gather round, and I give Tiny a nod of my head.  He follows me out to the kitchen, and we look at each other-hard.

          “Whadda ya think?” I ask him.

          “I dunno.  What’s next week’s selection?”

          “The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, by Kim Edwards,” I say grimly.

          He inhales, and I know which way he’s gonna come out.  ”Do what you gotta do.”

          I pick up the phone, and dial 9-1-1.  The operator answers, and asks the nature of the emergency.

          “We’re convicted felons,” I say.  ”We want to turn ourselves in.”

          Available in print and Kindle format on amazon.com as part of the collection “Boston Baroques.”

Is Rumer, the Anglo-Pakistani chanteuse with a retro-pop heart, the new Karen Carpenter?

                                                                    Boston Herald

As I took my place in line, 289th according to the number handed to me by officials, I was feeling a little intimidated by some of the other candidates to become the new Karen Carpenter.

There was the French-Canadian girl with the emo-country kidney who had charmed the judges in the prelims–she totally nailed “Close to You.”  Bitch–that was my number.

In front of me was an Aleutian Islander who’d been adopted by Lithuanians in Worcester, Mass.  I peeked at her application–she apparently had a soul/funk-klezmer spleen.  I’d worked hard, I told myself–six years of Karen Carpenter lessons at Ms. Finch’s Easy Listening Finishing School–but it would be tough to compete with that.

Some girls had made a big deal out of skipping the complimentary breakfast buffet–”No thanks, I know Karen would never have a Snack Pak-size box of Special K, much less Pigs in a Blanket,” one said.  Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth–if she could bring herself to put it there, that is.

Still, I’m the only Swiss-German-Native American contestant with a classical-country-house liver, so I figure it’s worth hanging in there.  I’ve already paid my $35 entrance fee, and my mom and dad are here.

In a thoughtful mood . . .

They were the ones who sacrificed so that I’d have a shot at becoming the New Karen Carpenter.  They paid for the testosterone therapy that lowered my vocal range by two full octaves; they’d paid for the drum lessons; they were the ones who got me admitted to the experimental liposuction trial to bring my weight down from 120 to 87.5 pounds (avoirdupois).

“Sweetie, you need to take a Stridex Medicated Pad to your oily nose!”

Still, they were getting near retirement age.  I couldn’t continue to play the eternal ingenue, forcing them to tap into their life savings to pay for hair extensions so that I’d project the natural, wholesome, girl-next-door image that Karen pulled off so effortlessly.  They’d gone out of pocket to have my humdrum, ordinary tonsils removed and replaced with high-performance Zydeco-Polka models.

Oh no–I can’t believe it.  Look what that “gal” is bringing in–that’s no fair, no way!

The contest rules specifically said no inflatable Richard Carpenter dolls may be used as props!

She lived with us and her spinster daughter,
   a kitten no one took, much less would’ve bought her.
The latter cat’s coat was a sort of tortoise shell pattern
   that marked her a mongrel, the spawn of a slattern.

The other kits in the litter quite flew off the shelf,
   but not Baby Cat, who was left by herself.

The sort of thing that would set Big Kitty off
   was a stray remark, a sneer, a scoff
at Baby Cat’s dubious legitimacy,
   her mongrel, miscegenate, odd-looking kittemacy.

Big Kitty was the sort of blowsy blonde you’d find in a feline cocktail lounge.
   Toms would buy her drinks with parasols, and pizza-flavored goldfish.
She never had to scrounge,
   she ate from a gold dish.

But the lady in her would disappear and she’d kick your sorry butt
    if you happened to suggest that her daughter was a mutt.
She’d be all over you like a can of flea powder
    you’d scream real loud, then you’d scream even louder.

We’d watch them come home with vindicated pride
   after tanning some impertinent cat (or dog’s) hide.
The aging mother’d lick her daughter’s mottled fur
   until her offspring would begin to purr.

And then she’d explain
   in her best cat mommin’
“Don’t mind that trash,
   they’re tacky—and common.”

Moral: Even the runt of the litter is some cat’s kitten.

I like it when they strike my palate
after having been sprinkled upon a salad.

But croutons, I’m told, have bad carbohydrates
Which, when ingested, tend to migrate

to stomachs and hips and locations like that
that are excellent places for one to store fat.

It’s the butter they’re brushed with, or sometimes oiled
that with calories heavy the experience is spoiled.

And so when I gaze upon them from afar
as I saunter forlornly past a salad bar,

Olivia Crouton-John?

I think how cruel, how ironic, how sad!
That croutons spoil the good by being so bad.

I composed this poem to express my doutes on
that damn dimunitive, the deceptive crouton.