And So it Goes, A Gossip Column for Our Times

And So it Goes, A Gossip Column for Our Times

Most gentle and kind and hospitable reader: if you would like to know who fell into the arms of a most willing stranger, continue to read to the end of this column, in which I will divulge to you the secret of the century.

Until then, and while we sit together holding hands, bating our breath and clinging to each other like school children surprised by the late bell ringing while we pass through the gate, try to surmise, if you can, the latest glistening golden gossip. Alas, I have overcorrected. Let me not call it gossip. Allow me to call it what it really is: true knowledge, or rather, scientia ipsa potentia est.

On Sunday of last, Mrs. Penelope Pottie, a distant relation to philanthropist and most dapper and debonair Oliver Rothschild (for further reference, please refer to column number 29, August of last), allowed her eldest child, one Christopher Pottie, to come out of the house in the middle of afternoon tea with no less than twenty newly denuded of their plastic protective covering, maxi pads, strapped to his bare flesh, complete with one on his forehead, one on either cheek and one each on either hand. Guests who were spread out on the lawn stood as still as Rodin statues prior to opening their mouths and letting out the loudest of guffaws.

Mrs. Potty, red-faced, mouth agape in steaming impersonation of my favorite Quahog Clams, set about to wrangle the child, all the while carrying her youngest daughter in her arms. Little Courtney's baby blue baby eyes were wild with delight as the bounteous breasts of her mother heaved around her in pursuit of her older brother. The crowd too, took delight in such a boisterous bosom so carelessly bouncing. 

Young Christopher eventually relinquished his hold on said pilfered pads – or was it their hold on him that was released? – and was immediately banished to his bedroom, after which he lay prone for the next hour, in true resemblance to a Sears catalog doll, minus the majority of his clothes. I laugh now, piqued and pleasant reader, as I recall it. Should you see Mrs. Pottie in passing, please do your best to keep your smirks and comments to a minimum, as to this day, she is rightly vexed and horrified and has put her house up for sale. 

In other bloody news, a young and, to this columnist's opinion, preternaturally pretty Miss Teri Leigh Ralston was seen holding hands with a plain-as-beige paper teenage boy with the similarly plain-as-beige-paper name of Ted. The unlikely couple were on their way to a jovial and long overdue garden party at the semi-illustrious home of her parents at 68 Elgin Street, in London's dismally working-class part of town, where after their arrival at the party, Miss. Ralston was seen beaming ear to ear and flirting with young Ted when almost the worst of all possible things happened. A very distraught young transboy, whose name shall remain omitted from this missive, intentionally and with sufficient malice, threw a lawn dart at the overly confident boyfriend, thus piercing him in the right foot, which was garnished with only a cheap sandal and not a leather tennis shoe as would have been a wiser choice.

Screams and wails could be heard throughout the yard. All mothers, summarily vexed, went back to snacking once the realization hit them that the person pierced was not their own precious progeny.

The dart was thrown, say onlookers, by the jealous and obviously rebuffed young gentleman of only thirteen years of age. When questioned later as to why he tossed the dart toward non-dapper Ted, all he could reply was, "She was my girlfriend first." No charges are being pressed in this case, the lawn dart has been cleaned and put back in its package, and the young trans boy is still in love with the girl of his dreams and thinks of her to this day, although how I know this information, I am not allowed to divulge. No need to mention here the current condition of the foot of the plain beige teen.

Blood was also spilled three doors down and on the same Sunday, in the backyard of Mr. Andrew Schmidt, who completely severed his pinky finger with a less-than-sharp bird's beak paring knife whilst decapitating a yellow-eyebrowed Greater Prarie chicken. Mr. Les Pottie – father of the aforementioned, embarrassingly decorated child Christopher – was in attendance during the finger's accidental removal, whereupon he grasped the severed chunk of skin from out of another hungry and very much panicked chicken's mouth and stuffed it into his pocket. Doctors at the hospital emergency room were unable to reattach the mangled digit, as it was covered in particles of well-worn pocket fuzz and one single, half-eaten lemon drop. All individuals involved in the incident ate chicken that evening, including Mr. Schmidt's son, the young dart-throwing trans boy, who spent the entire evening wiping tears from his eyes with his non-dominant left hand. 

We turn now to the oft-tempestuous world of roller skating. It has been reported to this reporter of reported reports that a young Miss Nancy Sykes, of some such address near the public school on Hamilton Road, was seen kissing in a lingering fashion a female classmate whilst the couple traveled in counter-clockwise circles on the Wheel roller rink. The girl in question, Miss Francine Hope Fernandez, later denied the allegations when her father threatened to no longer allow her to skate on Saturday evenings. Young Miss Nancy, when prodded further for reasons why the kiss happened in the first place, said that Francine had the nicest lips she'd ever seen and that she would kiss her again in a heartbeat if a mirrored ball was spinning and the music was sufficiently disco enough to cause Francine to look as she did under those glorious lights. 

Alright, my most kindly adjusted to all kinds of dishy gossip readers, I shall now present to you the juicy tidbit of information that I promised you at the beginning of this column. Several nights ago, whilst going for my nightly stroll through the park closest to my home, aptly named after the greatest Queen of all times, Victoria, I came upon a young woman whom I have known for several years. I shall withhold her name for fear of divulging le nom de la femme que j'aime. Said young woman was haphazardly lounging on a park bench, a small but well-read letter crumpled in her hands and her lovely, smooth, and youthful face stained with the trace of so many tears. I walked past at first but turned back again upon hearing her plaintive sobs. She looked up at me with the largest brown eyes this man had ever seen. 

I sat down next to her and asked her what vexed her so much that she should be seated upon a lowly green park bench while pigeons, grey and in pursuit of food, circled her feet. I do not mind saying that her rosy cheeks and her ever so slightly plump lower lip drew me to her in the most intense way. She'd found, she said, her recently betrothed fiance in the willing arms of another woman. What's more, she said, the woman in question was neither pretty, nor rich, nor intellectually compelling. When she confronted her fiance, he drew no plausible explanation, whereupon the lovely damsel let the man know his services as a prospective husband were no longer needed. This left her alone and distraught at the ripe old age of somewhere under thirty. (My long-time readers will know I never give away a lady's age.)

After the big sobs had ended and only little ones remained, I found myself sitting next to her, comforting her, and in this way, she leaned her head over and placed it on my shoulder. Her perfectly straight and recently combed hair smelled to me as though a lilac and a rose bush had had a baby. I inhaled the scent of her repeatedly as I could not get enough of it. On my last inhale, she sat straight up and turned her face toward mine, and kissed me on the lips. You may think I am joking, gentle yet inquisitive and possibly perplexed reader, but I can assure you, I am not. 

I cannot say I kissed her back, sitting in shock such that I was. She then stood up, straightened out her skirt, and promptly disappeared into the crowd on the lawn, all of whom had gathered to watch a dashingly dressed musical ensemble play what should have been the world's most romantic song but which, to my horror, turned out to be Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, a song that I can no longer listen to without crying like a child whose toy has been forever lost. I have not seen this young lady since that day and so request of you, fairest and most romantic reader, that if you see this young woman in the park and if you think she resembles at all the woman of my dreams, do please show her a copy of my column. I should be forever grateful. 

Yours truly, Otto Byography.