 |
||||||||
 |
|
|||||||
|
||||||||
|
 |
Dadblastit Joe, let's try to keep things cl--n
© St. Petersburg Times, Some intercepted correspondence: From: U.S. Bureau of Hyphen Retention, Licensing and Usage To: Port Richey City Council member Joseph Menicola Subj: Expiration of hyphen allotment. Dear Mr. Menicola, The U.S. Bureau of Hyphen Retention, Licensing and Usage regrets to inform you that you have recently depleted, and, in fact, exceeded your Lifelong Hyphen Allotment (LHA) and are therefore permanently enjoined and prohibited from using, or causing to be used, any hyphens from now on. The bureau realizes that both its existence and the existence of the LHA that it administers is a little known aspect of modern society. Our sister agency, the Bureau of Exclamation Point Licensing and Limitation, is much better known because many persons use their entire lifetime exclamation point allotment in a single letter to the editor. It is a well-known fact that newspapers use hyphens to eliminate letters in words they feel to be objectionable, depending on how prissy they are, and that the resultant cryptograms do, in fact, protect the sensitivities of anyone functioning on the cognitive level of the average 5-year-old. Regulation of hyphen usage and production became necessary recently when it was discovered that the aging population's vision problems made it difficult to count the hyphens and figure out what the dirty words are. You, of course, exceeded your allotment during taped telephone conversations with the Port Richey police and city manager in which you used various profanities while protesting the understandably upsetting fact that your political clout was apparently insufficient to protect a member of your family from being subject to the laws of your city. That notwithstanding, the allotment has now been exceeded and you, in the future, must substitute the word "hyphen" for any and all such language. The word, in its gerund and adjectival forms, is easily substitutable, less offensive and doesn't require extensive editing. So you may still, if you wish, call the police chief a hyphen, tell the city manager how hyphening tired you are of not being treated with the respect you think you are due, and tell anyone that you don't give a hyphening hyphen what they think about you throwing your weight around. You may even do so when you know your remarks are being tape-recorded, although, frankly, we find that to be just hyphening stupid. With all due respect, Robert Smythe-Jones Executive Director-Administrator And, on another nearby front. ...To: New Port Richey City Council member Tom Finn From: Poles-R-Us. Dear council member Finn, Because of your stated fears about terrorism and, in order to avoid security concerns upon the arrival of unusually shaped parcels, we wish to advise you that you will be receiving, within the next few days, a gift from your fellow council members. To wit: a 10-foot pole. The beautifully handcrafted hardwood pole is intended for you to use to measure the distance from which you may soon be ordered to keep yourself at all times from your fellow members of the council to avoid any further misunderstandings about whether your touching them was sexual in nature. Also, please find enclosed a manual, Groping As If You Mean It, explaining how to touch people in ways so that they can clearly identify whether your intentions are sexual or whether they are shoulder taps. (Frankly, we would expect you and your colleagues to know the difference, although we have heard things about Pasco County before.) In fact, your fellow council members already have 10-foot poles with which they have vowed not to touch you, and you may store yours in the space behind the dais where a former member, now County Commissioner Pete Altman, used to keep the 10-foot pole with which nobody will touch most of his political ideas. Regards, Jack Jones, Marketing Consultant Poles-R-Us
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
|
Times columns today Mary Jo Melone Jan Glidewell Darrell Fry From the Times North Suncoast desks |
