Friday Morning Latin Lesson: Vol. LVII

Let's think of this one as a public service announcement, m-kay?

A couple of weeks ago, my very good friend Scope reported on how he had made a splash in his alumni newsletter. The "splash", of course, is referring to his asking the lovely (and crimson-tressed) Cora to be his bride.

While this was stellar news for those of us who have borne witness to their courtship, the actual reporting was...less than stellar. Here is the news as it was delivered (bold-faced mine):

"I found out that sometime yesterday an alum proposed to the love of his life in Annie Merner Chapel."

*blink*

Somewhere, a professor emeritus just felt a disturbance in the forti.

What this person meant to say was that they just learned that an alumnus proposed to the love of his life.

What that person said was that an aluminum sulphate salt proposed to the love of its life--presumably a potassium. That's a little chemistry humor for you. Don't worry, I won't quit my day job.

Alumnus is a Latin term used for a foster son. In English, we've applied it, rather broadly, to encompass any graduate of a college, university or high school. This makes sense, in that we refer to the school from which we graduated as our alma mater, which means our "kind, nourishing mother". In a sense, we are fostered out to this kind, nourishing mother, and the Latin familial extended metaphor comes full circle.

Of course, if Scope was a woman, he would be an alumna of his college. If there were two Scopes (gasp and swoon!), he would be alumni, and if he was two women, he would be alumnae. Sober Careful readers will see that I simply changed the ending of the word and was able to convey four different meanings (two genders, single and plural for both). This is called a declension. A declension shows how the noun is used in a sentence. For instance, is it the subject of the sentence, the direct object, indirect object, object of a preposition...and so on.

In English, we don't decline our nouns very much. We change the endings in order to show number (such as boob, boobs) or possession (boob, boob's). Some nouns are irregular in their plural forms (goose, geese; moose, meese), but a good rule of thumb--in English--is that slapping an "s" on the end will form the plural.

About the only place where you can really see a change in our noun forms is in personal pronouns. For instance, in the sentences "I am dashingly handsome", "She gave me a handjob", "It cost my last twenty dollar bill", all of the pronouns are referring to the first person, but we change the words depending on their role in the sentence.

I won't go into the declension endings of all the nouns...because there are five different declensions and six major cases (along with a couple of other minor ones). Instead, let's just see a couple of examples in action, shall we? As always, all translations are in the hovertext of the pictures.

Tuus fundus perfectus est!
Pronounced: "Too-oose foon-doos pair-feck-toos est!"

With ass acting as the subject of a sentence...

Fundum formosum amo.
Pronounced: "Foon-doom fore-mose-oom ah-moe."

...and as the direct object of the sentence!

Nunc ipsum, ab meo fundo tuum manum amovere.
Pronounced: "Noonk ip-soom, ab may-oh foon-doh too-oom mah-noom ah-moe-vair-aye."

...and with ass as the subject of a preposition!

In these examples, fundus (ass) changes form from fundus (nominative case, acting as the subject), to fundum (accusative case, acting as the direct object of the verb amo), and finally to fundo (ablative case, serving as the object of the preposition ab). With the noun endings telling you what role the word plays in the sentence, you don't have to be as precise with your word order as you do in English. This is why, most of the time, the verb ends a Latin phrase. Carpe diem! would be a very notable exception.

Have a great weekend, everybody. Go out and look at some nice fundis.

TMI Thursday: My Flower, Devoured

Does this not sate your thirst for awesome TMI stories? Then check out all the other glorious tales of things we probably shouldn't tell at LiLu's home for the staunchly raunchy, TMI Thursdays!

Today is my friend Rick's birthday. He's an occasional viewer (not since I've moved, I believe). He's 42 today. So, essentially, Rick is the answer to the Ultimate Question in Life, the Universe and Everything.

Christ, I hope someone gets that...

By fortunate, cosmic coincidence, today is also my high school ex-girlfriend's birthday. She is, I believe, 34 (only because I'm pretty sure that she's a couple of months younger than I am and I'm 34). So, she's not really the answer to Everything.

I really hope someone gets that...

She is, however, the answer to a bit of trivia in the world o' MJ: To whom did the Indefatigable One lose his virginity?

And this is the story that accompanies that question:

I had been sort of friends with this girl for a while during my junior year of high school. She thought my humor was rapacious and witty; I thought her tits were huge. While I won't give away her secret identity, I will say that she shares a name with a city in Ancient Greece and a moon in our solar system...which was named for a nymph that lived near that Ancient Greek city. Anyway, she was friends with my good friend, Kelly, and so Kelly kind of pushed us together.

Unfortunately, though we knew each other, we didn't know each other very well. No problem, right? That's what first dates are for. Things on the first night went well enough, and as we were waiting for my dad to pick us up--wait, wait...let's hold up.

Yes, I was seventeen. And my dad was driving my ass around. Because my mom didn't think I could handle the intensely awesome traffic of Huntington, IN. So, she forced my dad to chaperone our asses around--Miss Daisy Style. We were in the back seat, my brother was in the front with my dad. Oh, what fun.

Anyway, we ate, and then we ended up going to this place called Penguin Point because my dad wanted to talk to one of his friends from high school. While we were waiting for my dad to pick us up (he had dropped us off and then went to putz around Target(!) or K-Mart or something for an hour), she revealed to me, in a sort of rushed way, that she wasn't a virgin.

It was kind of like: "Oh, by the way...I'mnotavirgin!"

Oh.
Hot.
Damn.

Not only is she attractive, and I enjoy spending time with her, but she puts out! Upon further review, the ruling on the field stands! Touchdown!

Everything advanced swimmingly. We talked on the phone almost every day. We walked to and from classes together, spent time together in the mornings, and immediately after school. We held hands. We smooched after dates. She introduced me to Dr. Who; I introduced her to the motion offense, via Indiana University.

We were in love. High school style.

The sexuality was ramping up weekly. She would tell me about what underwear she was wearing and we would talk about sex and possibilities and such. Sometimes, while we were talking about sex and her underwear and such, I would beat off while on the phone, and try not to let her know what was happening. She let me fumble around awkwardly in her sweaters, and she would rub me through my jeans. It was pure, unadulterated high school sexuality.

One Saturday afternoon, we were out driving around, and we drove out into the state reservoir that stretched south of my little town. We had had some lunch together that afternoon because she had to be at work that evening (at Target!), but before I took her home, we decided it was go time.

So, there we sat, a little nervous, but our bodies pumping with youthful, sexual energy, awkwardly fumbling with each other's bodies in the front seat of my father's Ford Escort Wagon. I referred to it as the "Doody-mobile", because it wasn't polite to call it "A Rolling Pile of Shit on Wheels". If it went more than 54 miles per hour, it would vibrate violently, and the car was so out of line that Twelve-and-Seven were the new Ten-and-Two. The thing redefined the term as "Grocery Getter".

Because there was a console between her and my throbbing genitalia, things were even more awkward. Finally, I motioned for us to get into the back; as smoothly as possible given the tight constraints of the interior, we slid back to the trunk. Ro-fucking-mantic! That's when clothes began coming off.

Naturally, being that I was a horny teenaged male, I practically tore her sweater off. She worked the button and the zipper on my pants expertly, but was having troubles with my underwear--I was a tighty-whitey man at the time (mostly because my parents still bought my unders for me), so her inability to operate the flap on the front is understandable. Especially with myself throbbing against it.

Finally, I was free. I ended up just pulling my pants and briefs down, and she grabbed me in her hand and then her mouth. Oh, it was bliss. And then I decided that she needed to be naked, as well, and so I first pulled down her pants and then slowly removed her panties.

What I saw shocked and awed me. Stifling a terrified shriek, I was met with a wild, tangled, twisted, thick mat of dark, dark hair. It was exactly at that point in my life that I decided that I did not like pubes--not on my soap, not on my women. And, well, not on myself, either, but that's a different story. Undaunted, I went forward. I mean, it wasn't like I was going to pull them back up and instruct her to trim up a little before we could progress.

We messed around with our fingers and mouths for a while, and then finally I dug through my pockets of my casually discarded jeans to find the condom I had bought a few days earlier (at Target!), and I slipped it on, pinched the tip, and I thrust forward with my dick as if I was trying to unhorse my opponent. Unfortunately, (or maybe fortunately) I just bounced off her. Jesus Christ, can I look any more like I have no clue what I'm doing? Again, I tried to joust away into her when she took me in her hand and guided me inside of her. At which point I started jackhammering away like I was trying to bring down a concrete edifice.

For a few minutes, we were locked together in some grotesque, twisted version of teenage lust and sexuality. It was cramped, it was sweaty, it was hot and it was awkward, but, dammit, I was having sex! A few minutes later, I was finished. I rolled off and quickly shed the condom (that's what we were instructed to do in all those educational videos in health class--ejaculate, pull it out, strip that fucker off, pray the rosary). I ducked out of the car and hid the used rubber in a discarded Pepsi cup that I found in the little parking area where we made sweet, sweet love.

Er...something like that.

Tossing the cup containing my seed-doused prophylactic into the bushes, I pulled my pants up, crawled back into the car, and we kissed for a little while longer. Then I had to get her home so she could get ready for work, and I had to get home before my mother and her kitchen timer decided that I had been away from the house for too long and she would punish me.

We did some more things while we were together--she gave me a blow job, I fingered her a few times, some more secret, silent phone sex--but about two weeks after the sex my mother decided that we were too close and spending too much time with each other. She started pressuring me to break up with the girlfriend, and after about a month, I finally caved. I just kind of started avoiding her and didn't take her phone calls. Eventually, the relationship just sort of collapsed.

I'll admit it: It was a horribly immature way of going about it, but my mom was really fucking persistent (read: shrilly nagging) about me ending it with my girlfriend. I felt kind of bad, but my life at home was a lot easier because I didn't have to deal with my mom reminding me not to have sex and that my girlfriend probably would try to pressure me into having sex just so she could get pregnant and shit like that. *eyeroll*

We didn't speak for the rest of our junior year, and, fortunately, her last name and mine were far enough apart in the alphabet that we didn't have lockers near one another as seniors. Also, we didn't take the same classes, except for calculus, when we were seniors, so we didn't see each other then, either. I emailed her once while I was in college, just to sort of catch up, and I saw her once at a grocery store back home, but I didn't say hi. I don't know if she even saw me. I didn't REALLY see her until about seven years ago, at Kelly's wedding. I didn't get to talk to her, but we smiled and acknowledged one another. I was trying to get over to her table, I was even going to ask her for a dance (all vertical, no horizontal tango--don't worry), but she and her new husband (or maybe they were just dating at the time) left before I got a chance to.

So, I guess this story satisfies Rule 34, at least as it concerns my ex-girlfriend.

And that is the gift that keeps on giving.

Tales of the Bookstore, Chapter 1

I think it's time I start telling you some tales about the bookstore where I worked. I spent a year as an assistant manager at a store called Little Professor Book Company in Fort Wayne, IN.

When I was a senior in college, rolling out of bed at 10 am for that difficult Christian Humanities class, I completely forgot to submit my applications for graduate school. So, Notre Dame would have to wait a year before I got there. However, what to do in the interim?

Upon graduation, I interviewed for a few chemistry jobs around the greater Fort Wayne area, even went up to Ann Arbor (Jesus, is she a whore) for an interview at Parke-Davis (which got bought and closed down six months later) for an analytical job. All of those jobs in the chemistry/science field did not pan out, so after about a month of not having any money and my good looks not really getting me by anymore, I started applying pretty much anywhere with a "Help Wanted" sign in the window. I hit up Lowes, Meijer, and eventually settled on the bookstore.

Little Professor interviewed me the day after I submitted an application, and two days later (I decided to NOT start working on the weekend), I was employed full-time. About a month after I started, I got promoted up to Assistant Manager and made a whopping $7/hr. That's fat cash, homies. Well, it was fat enough to pay for an engagement ring, pay off the last of my school bills AND my credit card, and keep me good and liquored up for ten months.

It was about the third day at work that I met Shane.

Shane was...not a model citizen. By any stretch of the imagination. Good guy, loved working with him, but he hated working there about as much as I did. If you can believe it, I was the Dante to his Randall. I may not have wanted to be there, but I did at least put forth an effort to provide mediocre customer service.

Shane didn't give a fuck.

He'd call his girlfriend/fiancee/wife a fucking whore--while on the phone in the children's section! He'd drop other indelicate phrases while working on the floor. He would go over to the bay which housed the self-help and grief books and talk about how he hoped they'd never find a cure for cancer. He would also drink all the coffee provided by the shop next door, thus making the young women who worked there come over and replace it.

On second thought, that was a good thing. The chicks who worked next door were fucking hot.

I once had to field a complaint about Shane from an angry customer.

Me: Hello, Little Professor Book Company, Covington Plaza, this is Matt, how may I help you?

Customer: I want to speak with a manager.

It was at this point that I rolled my eyes. I always had people calling up bitching because some employee couldn't find a book or they farted or something like that. I had a feeling this was going to be another one.

Me: I'm a manager, how may I help you?

Customer: Yeah, I was just in your store around lunch time [it's after dinner by the time this call came in] and I heard one of your employees swearing.

At this point, I knew exactly who it must have been.

Me: Do you know who it was?

Customer: It was a guy.

Me: Could you be a little more specific? I can't really berate the offender if that's all I have to go on.

Customer: What the hell? I've seen your staff. How many fucking guys work there? How fucking hard could it be to figure out who it was that was swearing and fire his ass?

Me: Well, aren't you one to cast the first stone?

Aaaaaand...then I hung up.

He called right back.

Me: *opening spiel upon answering the phone*

Customer: Hey, asshole, I don't appreciate being hung up on. I just wanted to let you know that I will be taking all of my business to Borders from now on. Because I do not appreciate being hung up on by some fucking loser who works in a bookstore.

Me: Well, good luck with that.

I then put him on hold. And then I never picked the call back up.

I found Shane. Instead of pulling him aside to tell him to cut it the fuck out, I did the professional thing and confronted him out on the book floor in front of the staff and customers.

Me: Hey, some asshat just called up voicing his objections over your use of the word "fuck". Tone it down a bit, would ya?

Shane: *after a pause where he realizes what I just did* Well, alright then, Captain!

So, yeah.

The biggest problem with Shane was that he had a severe case of oral diarrhea. If something went in his ears, it came out his mouth.

Since I was a manager AND the tallest person on the staff, I was charged with changing the light bulbs around the store. In the children's section, we had a display set up that was supposed to look like a tent, with all these vinyl banners and such hung over a couple of lintels. Under the "big top" there was a stage where some sucker had to sit and read books to kids on Saturdays and Tuesdays.

One Sunday afternoon, I was struck with a desire to not do any real work, so I decided to change all of the burnt out light bulbs. As I was maneuvering myself around the stage in children's, I noticed a thick layer of dust on top of all the vinyl banners. On a whim, I dragged my fingers through the dust, drawing my initials in the dust as well as the date.

Later that day, I showed Shane, because I couldn't contain myself over how fucking clever I was. He thought this was hilariously brilliant, got out the ladder, and did the same on the next banner over. Cool, I thought, now we'll see how long it is before the guy whose job it is to keep the displays clean finally does his fucking job.

The next morning, Shane came in and showed our little bit of artwork to the store manager.

She was not amused.

That night, I had to get the ladder back out and I had to wash the dust off all the banners.

Because I'm mature like that, I took the bucket of filthy, dirty water and dumped in the bed of Shane's new pickup.

Revenge is a dish best served muddy, I guess.

It's That Time Again...

You guys know what today is, right?

Okay, yeah, sure, it's Groundhog Day. It's the day when we celebrate the prescient powers of Marmota monax, which is a mixture of Latin and Greek meaning "lonely fatass ground squirrel". In case you were curious (and I know that you weren't), if it ends in an -x, it's typically a Greek word.

Today is also Candlemas, which is traditionally viewed as the day that Christ was presented at the Temple. Mary also had to go to the Temple in order to perform rites associated with recovering from childbirth, a sort of purification, if you will. It is observed 40 days after Christmas. Hey, only 324 shopping days left, slackass!

Also, Candlemas is supposed to be the very last day that you're supposed to have your Christmas greenery up. If you happen to be my neighbor and reading this then...*hint*hint*

And how are the two related? I'm glad you asked! Now, sit down, shut up, and listen: back in the old countries, the English and Germans and other various northern European peoples used to believe that, on the 2nd of February (which is halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox), bears, badgers, wolves, and weird uncle Lute would emerge from hibernation to inspect the weather and determine if they should go back to sleep or not--which is very curious, considering wolves don't hibernate...

While settling the New World, the tradition was carried over and, apparently, since black bears just didn't cut it, the settlers adopted...the groundhog...as the midwinter mascot. Isn't that...just...awe-inspiring?

In case your awe isn't inspired enough, one of the nicknames for the groundhog is the "whistle pig".

All of this shit is just filler. Most important of all, today is Betsy Hagar's Birthday!!!

Now, I've mentioned Betsy Hagar in the past on here. Several times. And usually it was with one hand in my lap and the other slowly tapping out words like "whipped cream" and "tall blonde goddess" over the keyboard. Hey, one-handed typing is not easy. I see some of you nodding. Don't think I'm not on to you. *mouths the words 'Call me'*

Some of you might not be up on the list of young women I lusted for during my high school days. Betsy Hagar was at the very top of that list. She is the one about whom I would write long, involved, erotic stories and then, being that I was so turned on by my own lustful creativity, I'd crank one out while still fantasizing about Betsy. Upon climax I would breathlessly begin to feel crushing guilt over my carnal tendencies and I'd take the paper on which I wrote the story and I'd burn it, supposedly (in my sick mind) as a way of burning the lust out of my mind for Betsy and all the other women on the list.

And it was quite an extensive list...

But, Betsy was different. As I mentioned here, there was a lot of crushes that came and went during my high school years, but the one constant throughout the time was my seething desire to part Betsy's thighs. Despite how badly I wanted her, my mind invariably forgets about her until Groundhog's Day/her birthday rolls around. She's kind of my portal to the "good old days", when things seemed a lot simpler, and I didn't have so many fucking bills to pay. Yep, less debt and long, sexy, gorgeous legs. That's what thinking of Betsy Hagar reminds me of.

So, Happy Groundhog's Day. Let's hope that lonely little Whistle Pig enjoys his day in the sun. And Happy Birthday, Betsy Hagar: you fill me full to the brim with lust and nostalgia.

Hello, Black Ice, My Old Friend...

For many people in the South, the thing they fear more than education and literacy is black ice. In case you're unaware, black ice is that phenomenon that occurs when you've had some melting of ice and snow on the roadways, but then the water refreezes. It's usually not a very thick layer of ice that refreezes, so it looks black on the surface of the road.

But really, we know that it's "Black Ice", because it's a killer.

It raises up from the surface of the road, axe in one hand, log chain in the other, and either cleaves you into kibble or smashes you into meat paste. Afterward, it hurtles your car into the nearest pine grove. Then, it's bloodlust sated for a few moments, it eases itself back down to the tarmac where it quietly awaits its next hapless victim.

So, for that reason, I'm home today. The kids have a day off school, and my wife had to go to work. But, it's not like I was too torn up over it. I think the conversation went like this:

Wife: The school call--
Me: Oh, I guess I'll have to take a day off work. Oh no!!!!

And then I went dancing running from the room giggling wailing and beating my breast and other things that you're supposed to do when you're so overcome with emotion that you have to express it through actions.

So, here I sit at home, pondering how I'm going to find enough energy to shower, wondering if I have clean unders upstairs, and wondering if it's a social faux pas for one to take a nap if one has slept in until 10:30.

I am hoping, however, that with this weekend's forecast of another round of snow and sleet and winter weather, that we won't have to deal with Jim Cantore anywhere in the Carolinas. The man actually reported that Charlotte was experiencing "Sneezle": that's snow, sleet and freezing drizzle.

Fuck you, Jim Cantore.

He then went on to explain the "dire situation" in the state where 45,000 customers reported power outages. "That's doubled in just the past hour". And...then it never went back up. And power was restored pretty quickly.

Hey, look at that...bitching about the Weather Channel two weeks in a row on Monday...what are the odds? Is that a faux pas, too? Or is that just an internet meme?

I know one thing that's definitely not a faux pas, and that is to hope that the forecasted sleet and freezing rain for tomorrow morning comes just in time to re-ice the roads. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go wail and beat my breast and plan on where my early afternoon nap is going to take place.