Friday 29 February 2008

Leap!

In days of yore, in a land far far away (let's call it "England", for the sake of the story), February 29th had no legal status. Thus it was a day for Radical Behaviour and Breaks with Custom: the king would pay taxes to the peasantry, beagles would bring their people breakfast in bed, rather than the traditional reverse, and channel 10 would screen well-edited programs with compelling and informative content, in lieu of the usual seventeen consecutive hours of So You Think You Can Be America's Biggest Weight-Losingest All-Dancing Idol With a Freaky Medical Problem on a Tropical Island. Most importantly of all, on February 29th, the day that dawned only once every 1461 days, the spinster would be encouraged to select for lifelong companionship whichsoever eligible spatula she happened to fancy; she was to do this by leaping up to the spatula and reciting the words, "Oi be choozin thee, for thou art a foin figger of a kitchen utensil". This, of course, a radical departure from traditional practice, wherein spatulas normally beat paths to spinsters' doors, bending down on one prong to propose the mutual and codependent flipping of pancakes.

6 comments:

Maria said...

I've been told it's also a day that any criminal behaviiour is not acknowledged in the eyes of the law; as the 29th holds no legal status.

For that reason, I'm pulling out my extremely criminal blue jumper with thye flowers on it. Ahoy!

TimT said...

Also, on the 29th of Feb, young lads with the names of Frederic have the habit of being born: they also have the habit of subsequently being kidnapped by pirates, ending up on weird island filled with a bevvy of buxom belles, police patrols, Major Generals with improbable talents (one of aforesaid improbable talents being the singing about of aforesaidaforesaid improbable habits), falling in love with one of aforesaid buxomly bevvy, before discovering the secret of their birth and bursting into tragic-comic arias titled "I am but a little boy of five!" - which, you know, is technically true.

(How's that for a sentence? Some men are sentenced to death; I just have the ability to make others cry DEATH TO THE SENTENCE!)

TimT said...

CORRECTION: make that aforesaidaforesaidaforesaid bevvy of buxom belles. Bah! Can't even get the spelling right!

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

I spy a William Schwenk Gilbert moment!

M, that jumper sounds kinda up my alley. Blue with flowers? Chuck in corduroy elbow patches and I'm there.

Ampersand Duck said...

Worked for me, four years ago. I caught me a foin figger of a spatula that actually -- gasps -- knows its place in the kitchen, arrr. Leap years rawk.

Ampersand Duck said...

As do Penznancy Pi-rates, I meants to say.