Sneezy

Ah, choo!

Excuse me. Thank you.

My friend, Lady Coverly, calls me Sneezy. Do you know her? She's the special ambassador to Siam. She's a great lady. Her husband, Lord Coverly, is delightful as well. His passion is taxidermy. Mongooses. Or is it mongeese? I can never remember.

Anyway, I was at this state dinner. It was me, the Coverlies, and the king and queen of Siam. Well, I sneezed and blew that old queen's wig right off. I think the old lady had been bald most of her life. As a little girl in the Siamese courts a fire juggler misjudged and set the little girl's hair on fire. Before they could get any water on it, her hair burnt right down to the follicles. Her head's been as barren as salted earth ever since. The royal couple was livid. I had to give the King half of my stock in the Dutch East India company just to keep him from doubling the tarriff on English tea. Things looked pretty bad, but then we started drinking sake, everybody got drunk, and boy did we laugh about it then. The queen was twirling that nasty old wig on one finger and flinging it across the room. That was quite a night.

There was this other time. I was with the daughter of this exotic hat importer in the back of her old man's shop. He'd just gotten in a shipment of feathered hats from Madagascar. I think somebody must have been having some fun with the old boy and sold him a few crates of feather dusters, because that's what these damn things looked like. I think they might've been used as feather dusters, too. Because, well, this girl, she thought it'd be neat if we did it on top of this big pile of feathered hats. She said she liked the feel of the plumage on her back. You know, I'm game, so we're kind of rooting around back there, things are getting kind of steamy, and the more we, ummh, excercise these hats, the more dust they start kicking up. Well, you know, I start to feel a little tickle up in the nasal regions, but I just kind of crinkle my nose and keep doing what I'm doing, because, well, it just wasn't a good time. And she's loving it, too. She's going nuts. The rumors, ladies and gentlemen, are true. I'm happy to provide references. So we keep going, we're pounding pretty hard on top of these hats, allegedly from Madagascar, I think they use trained lemurs to make the damn things, and this tickle in my nose is getting stronger and I'm having a harder time holding it back, my face probably looks like a pretzel by now. I'm telling myself not to sneeze. Just don't sneeze. And she is going nuts now, absolutely apeshit. I can hear the front door of the shop open--it must be her old man--it's after midnight, what the hell is he doing here? Just don't come in the back, old man. Just stay out of the back room, please. And man have I got to sneeze, and this girl is shaking and vibrating like the god damn rinse cycle and just as she hits her peak, man, she's yelling and screaming I can't help it anymore and I let out the biggest sneeze of my life, right there in that little back room, and there were feathers everywhere, I vaporized those god damn hats, the air was filled instantly with feathers and dust and the force of the sneeze, this explosion, blew that tiny little back room door wide open, and I tell you what, it wasn't her old man in the front, it was some common thief looking to take off with some Louis XV hat, and boy you should've seen the look on his face when that door blew open and out comes all this screaming and yelling and dust and feathers everywhere, feathers like you've never seen before, you could barely see for all these god damned feathers, and that guy, I think he might have pissed his pants, just drops the hat and runs for his life. It was the funniest thing I'd ever seen. That guy never knew what hit him, he just took off running. I don't know if I've ever seen anybody run so fast.

Re: dove siete?

XXX wrote:

> 
> So Chris, did you misspell dove shit or does that mean
> something?
> Cause dove shit is funny.
>  

what's so funny about dove shit?  sometimes i get mixed up because the italian for dove is colombo.  but sometimes they use that word for pigeon, too.  but a pigeon isn't a dove.  i don't think.  although they do both coo.

which makes me think of these old roommates i had back in june and july and this girl, anna, she was polish, which isn't really important, but she found this bird one day, this colombo, i mean pigeon, that just fell down in the sidewalk one day and she brought the filthy thing into our living room, right there, and she left him leftover pasta and peas which he spread about the living room and he shit and he pissed on our floor, our fucking pavimento, and the shit and the piss mixed with the water and little bits of plaster, little bits of our ceiling and walls, and the bird should have flown, flown away but he hid under the sofa instead.

i figured if the bird is sick or if it has a broken wing it will never fly, fly away, without some help, so i found, and there is one, i was surprised, the society for the protection of birds right here in catania and i wrote down the address and i wrote down the phone number and i gave it to anna, who was unemployed and had lots and lots of free time, so she could take the bird to the people that help and the bird could fly, fly away instead of shitting and pissing on our living room floor, our pavimento, and she told me, 'thank you' and 'surely i will take him there tomorrow', and for days afterwards i was certain that soon the bird would fly, fly away but he hid under the sofa instead.

and days became weeks and the bird, the pigeon, the filthy fucking pigeon, shat on the floor and pissed on the floor and spread his food, the roomates' leftovers about the kitchen floor where it mixed with the water and little bits of plaster, little bits of our ceiling and walls, and everyday his wings were more ruffled, he'd sit for hours with his forehead pressed against the floor, getting dirtier, fatter, and more hopeless and anna said, "tomorrow i think i shall take the bird, the colombo, to the people that help because he is not well here" and i looked forward to the day when unemployed, indolent anna, with the heart big enough to take in sick birds, who was polish, which isn't really important, would take the bird, the pigeon, finally, to the people who help and it would fly, fly away but he hid under the sofa instead.

and weeks became more weeks and i ate more and more outside of the house, away from the roommates who ate my food, when the stores are not open on sunday, who not only used my toothpaste, but took it with them on out of town trips, away from the living room which was also the dining room and the home of the pigeon, the filthy diseased pigeon who was shitting and pissing and dying all over our living room floor and one day i came home and the roomates said, 'hey, chris, the pigeon, the colombo, died today' and they pointed and there he was in our kitchen in our trash with his dead, stiff little pigeon feet sticking up into the air and his dried shit still dry and shitty on the living room floor where it mixed with the water and little bits of plaster, little bits of our ceiling and walls that leaked down from our roof and anna, poor unemployed little anna, who quit her job because it was boring, asked me if i'd lend her 5000 lire for cigarettes and i didn't say anything, i didn't say one fucking word, i just took out the trash, our little grocery bag full of trash, with the dead, stiff little feet of our poor diseased filthy pigeon and threw it all into the dumpster.

chris
ps 'dove siete' is italian for 'where are y'all?'