Bartleby in the Bathroom

"We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital," Whipple said. - from "Crack the Whipple: On the Prevalence of a Can-onic Surname in Pop-Cultural Toiletry", article in The American Standard, T.P. Barnum, Ed.

"He told investigators he brought his girlfriend food and water, and asked her every day to come out of the bathroom.

"And her reply would be, 'Maybe tomorrow,'" Whipple said."

To which her boyfriend, a Pretender to the throne, replied in who'll-stop-the-rain lamentation:

Maybe tomorrow, maybe someday
Maybe tomorrow, maybe someday
You've changed your place in this world
You've changed your place in this world

"The boyfriend called police on Feb. 27 to report that 'there was something wrong with his girlfriend,' Whipple said, adding that he never explained why it took him two years to call."

Recalling the boy who, speechless till he was seven, opened his mouth one fine morning only to announce "The toast is burned."

"Dear Boy! Why ever took thee so long to spake unto us?"

"'cos up to now, toast's been fine."

I remember making a presentation in my undergrad American Lit. class about what if Poe wrote Bartleby. To which I surmised that after 512 replies of "I would prefer not to" was greeted with an axe blow to the head and the body chopped up while the narrator cackled "Would you prefer under the floorboards or in the wall?"

I meant blog *sigh*

Jim: See lead graf, 7:47 pm comment.

Throneward Bound, by Lyman and Carbuncle

I'm sitting in the bathroom wasting
Got all stuck it's sure a consternation
Not the sort of fun I'd planned, sat torment more than I can stand
And ev'ry flush is neatly planned, for I know it, I'm forever canned
Throneward bound
I flush, I is
Throneward bound
Throne, where my life's escaping
Throne, where my legs sit swaying
Throne, where my seat's encircling
Surrounding all me

[To be sung on every state on tour, save for Can's Ass...]

I can't help thinking that this is not really that newsworthy. It's just freaky. It's sensationalistic. It's "Man Bites Dog."

"Sorry, wasn't trying to one-up the original post" - doug

Sorry, I'm afraid you just did - but far be it from me, that most perpetual of offender-benders blocking the open Rodway, to complain...

For some reason, the episode you recounted in such pained fidelity recalled from memory the sovereign precedent of the immortal Mr. Creosote, Gargantuan gourmand from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life...

"It has been suggested that the scene is one of the most repulsive in twentieth-century cinema. Director Quentin Tarantino has confessed to being nauseated by this scene, but critics with stronger stomachs have praised its dark humour. (Leonard Maltin noted it as 'an unforgettable scene, like it or not.')"

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Creosote

When you get *Quentin Tarantino* reaching for the Drama(as it were)mine, you know you've aced your Grand Guignol lesson plans...

Paraphrasing Jim:

"You are too clever for us naughty people." - Cardinal (Michael Palin), "Court scene (witness in coffin/Cardinal Richelieu)", Episode Three, Monty Python's Flying Circus

Hey, If Newton and Leibniz could share credit for independent discovery of the differential calculus, I'm differential enough to your claim to split the deference...

Thanks, but the fact you left out "rootin'-tootin'" from that litany means it's pistols at dawn for you and me - I'll be the one running the hot-dog stand behind a fake mustache, whispering "He went that-a-way" in pointing to my brother-in-law's house...