There being a certain shortage of jokes around here, today I offer you some gentle humour from Ogden Nash - and by the way, did you know that his grandpa, I think, gave his name to Nashville - 'nottalotta people know that'!
To Husbands
To keep your marriage brimming
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you’re wrong, admit it;
Whenever you’re right, shut up.
The Common Cold
Go hang yourself, you old M.D.!
You shall not sneer at me.
Pick up your hat and stethoscope,
Go wash your mouth with laundry soap;
I contemplate a joy exquisite
I'm not paying you for your visit.
I did not call you to be told
My malady is a common cold.
By pounding brow and swollen lip;
By fever's hot and scaly grip;
By those two red redundant eyes
That weep like woeful April skies;
By racking snuffle, snort, and sniff;
By handkerchief after handkerchief;
This cold you wave away as naught
Is the damnedest cold man ever caught!
Give ear, you scientific fossil!
Here is the genuine Cold Colossal;
The Cold of which researchers dream,
The Perfect Cold, the Cold Supreme.
This honored system humbly holds
The Super-cold to end all colds;
The Cold Crusading for Democracy;
The Führer of the Streptococcracy.
Bacilli swarm within my portals
Such as were ne'er conceived by mortals,
But bred by scientists wise and hoary
In some Olympic laboratory;
Bacteria as large as mice,
With feet of fire and heads of ice
Who never interrupt for slumber
Their stamping elephantine rumba.
A common cold, gadzooks, forsooth!
Ah, yes. And Lincoln was jostled by Booth;
Don Juan was a budding gallant,
And Shakespeare's plays show signs of talent;
The Arctic winter is fairly coolish,
And your diagnosis is fairly foolish.
Oh what a derision history holds
For the man who belittled the Cold of Colds!
Many thanks. I do love ON.
Posted by: Andra | Tuesday, 09 April 2013 at 00:29
A flea and a fly in a flue
Were imprisoned, so what could they do?
Said the fly, "let us flee!"
"Let us fly!" said the flea.
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.
—Ogden Nash
Posted by: Andra | Tuesday, 09 April 2013 at 00:32
Thanks, Andra, superb!
Posted by: David Duff | Tuesday, 09 April 2013 at 08:57
That first poem is IMHO wrong way round, at least as far as admitting you're wrong is concerned. You'll get no credit for it.
"Whenever you’re right, shut up" is OK. Why go on about something that's the natural order of things?
Posted by: Laban | Tuesday, 09 April 2013 at 22:12
I ask myself that constantly, Laban, because, of course, I am right about everything!
Posted by: David Duff | Wednesday, 10 April 2013 at 09:19