Mike's L8est Pun

So, U will remember that Liz visited Mike @ his and Dee's apartment a coupla nites ago. Mike decided 2 post a comment telling the next bit of that story:

April,

Little sis. While Deanna is recharging her batteries from our 5th anniversary “couple time”, I thought I would take the time to finish my story about Elizabeth’s visit to us, which I started yesterday.

After Elizabeth had drunk all our wine, she was in our kitchen, with her body propped up on the counter, so she could stand without falling down. Deanna came in and said to me, “If son cries for food, Deanna gets up with son.” I started to help with his bottle, but you know how fumble-fingered I am. I’m a writer, not a baby bottle maker, after all. After I squirted most of my son’s formula over the counter by the stove, Deanna brought in our son and said, “If Mike is a fumble-fingered idiot, then Deanna takes over the feeding.”

Well, while all this was going on, Elizabeth started into what can only be described as the typical drunken love rant. You know the kind, where the drunk tries to convince herself that leaving the beloved was the right thing to do. And then the drunk’s speech is filled full of ellipses as she gets slower…and slower…and slower. Elizabeth was right on form when she said, “I miss Paul. I know I made the right decision to leave the north…but…I miss him so much.”

Then Deanna said something I was not expecting. She said, “Has he applied for a transfer to Toronto?” as she was holding our son on the kitchen counter so he could eat and not hurtle to the floor. I think Deanna must have momentarily been interesting what Elizabeth was saying, but she soon returned to her regular way of doing things. After Elizabeth answered her question with, “I think so. He certainly talks about it.”, Deanna walked off with our son contentedly in her capable arms, which was probably a smart thing to do. I wish I had followed her. I was forced to actually try and understand what Elizabeth was saying. What did she mean, “I think so.”? Is she suggesting that her boyfriend would talk and talk about getting a transfer and then lie about doing it? What purpose would that serve? More long phone conversations with Elizabeth? The way she was incoherently rambling, I seriously doubted that. If he doesn’t plan to get the transfer, then he has essentially ended the relationship and if he had any sense he would also end the phone conversations. If he has applied for the transfer, why does Elizabeth doubt him?

I was contemplating these things, when Elizabeth switched gears again and started talking about her boyfriend before this one, Warren Blackwood. I thought, “Kill me now. I have to listen to my sister compare her boyfriends to each other…again. Weren’t we done with this conversation back in December?” As a dutiful brother I listened to her as she said, “When Warren and I broke up, I promise myself-no more long-distance relationship!...And here I am, in another long distance relationship.” April, as you may recollect, Warren Blackwood was the boyfriend who wasn’t a boyfriend who never was a boyfriend. He made quite an impression on you at Elizabeth’s university graduation by buzzing the crowd with his helicopter, but after that…nothing. As mom would say about Warren, “A couple of platonic dates in university, with no contact for a 1 ½ years after that, does not a boyfriend make. Anthony Caine sees her more often than that.” As usual mom was right about Warren. However, I couldn’t take any more of this pity party. Cheeze. I love my sister Elizabeth, but there are two things about her I can do without. (1) Her incoherent rambling when she’s drunk. (2) Her complaining about long distance relationships when it is so obvious what she is about. When she graduated university, if she didn’t want a long distance relationship with her non boyfriend Warren, she should have moved to British Columbia where he worked and not that place in Northwest Ontario, whatever it was called, where she was for the last 2 years. If she didn’t want a long distance relationship with her constable boyfriend, she shouldn’t have moved to Milborough. And the one she failed to mention was, if she didn’t want a long distance relationship with Anthony Caine, she shouldn’t have gone to school in Nipissing, but stayed local. After all, Deanna and I both went to Western and we turned out great.

Then I had a stroke of Michael genius—a sure fire way to get me out of that painful conversation. A pun. And the best part is that unlike most of my puns which only have 2 meanings, this one had 3. I said, “Oh well. You know what they say: ‘Absence makes the heart go wander.’” You see, April. It’s normally ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder, Isle of Beauty, fare thee well!’ from Thomas Haynes Bayly’s Isle of Beauty. That’s meaning number #1. But because I reversed the meaning to its opposite with a clever rhyme. “Grow fonder” becomes “Go wander.” And by reversing it, it could mean that her constable, if he is truly not trying to get a transfer, may be out with other women, like what Warren and Anthony did when Elizabeth was a long distance from them. Or it could mean that Elizabeth herself is wandering into the arms of one Anthony Caine, which I think many people suspect, since she spent a lot of time with him recently talking about her court case.

I had also thought about, “Absence makes the heart go blonder”, which would work if her constable was interested in blondes. But where he is living there are probably not many of those. Or “Absence makes the heart ‘go yonder’, or ‘go ponder’, or ‘love squandered’ or ‘Andean condor’, but none of those others were as good. Anyway, I thought it was pretty clever with the 3 meanings, but not that funny. Elizabeth agreed with me and stretched her upper lip to a frightening degree to say, “That’s not funny!!!” I said, “Sorry.” But I wasn’t really sorry, I was so glad I found a way to get out. With Elizabeth behind me, her eyes half-closed and her mouth twisted and no doubt close to passing out, I escaped from the hideous conversation, thanks once again, to my fine punning ability.

Let this be a lesson to you April. First you pun, and then you run.

Love,
Michael Patterson

I don't agree w/Mike that often, but this time I've gotta say he's rite 2 point out that Liz made all these choices that led 2 "long-distance relationships", and now she's acting like these were just things that happened 2 her. Weird. I really don't get that. Mike, as 4 that other comment, where U ask me Y I'd wanna change Dee, U R making my head hurt, cuz U R the one who changed her, and now U R being all "let Dee be who she is". Y cdn't U have let her B who she WAS? Hey, ppl, can NE1 out there help me get Mike 2 understand Y The Stepford Wives is a tale of misogyny (vocab word!) and not "loving women"? Cuz I feel like I'm banging my head against a brick-and- stucco wall.

Howard, Becks, wow, that journey U guyz had thru the central vac in2 an alternate reality? Wow, I had no idea. I'll bet altenate-reality Mom is a lot nicer, 2, eh? U prolly wondered what happened on this end. I heard Liz screeching, "Soft-bellied Howard! What are U DOING here?" And then I saw this version of Howard who had obviously not taken up weightlifting, and he was all, "Darling, U know U can't drink in yr condition!" Then he saw that this Liz didn't have his Beth's "condition", and she obvs didn't luv him, and she didn't have a wedding ring. He asked Liz a buncha questions abt what happened in our reality last yr, but Liz was 2 busy chasing after Shiims to answer. So I told him the whole going-after story, and Liz going back 2 Mtig, dealing w/the "going after" in her "own way", meeting Paul, moving back here, the subpoena, blah, blah, blah. And he shook his head and said, "That is so very sad." Then he asked, "Where's my lovely future brother-in-law Duncan?" I was, like, "Wha? Dunc and I R just friends. I'm d8ing Gerald Delaney Forsythe. " And he was like "The special-needsist boy? U haven't dumped him yet?" Then Liz kinda passed out, and Shiimsa ran up to alt-reality Howard and jumped into his arms, and he was all, "Well, this is my cue to go back where I came from, strange, alternate April!" And he was gone.

Apes