Flibbertigibbet

Why I Need Mister Bookworm Around

Yesterday, my boss ordered pizza for us because he trapped us in a long meeting and the pizzas had irregular names, like one of them was "Florentine" and another was the "Marguerite." Well, someone said, "I'd like some of the Bianca."

I hate that pizza place and I was complaining about it and so I said, "I'd rather some of the Kate."

Crickets. People looked at me with confuzzled expressions.

"Anyone with me on this? Bianca. Kate. Taming of the Shrew? Anyone? What about Ten Things I Hate About You? Oooookaaaaayyyy..."

Then, last night at the client dinner, some of the guys in the room were complaining that our dining room didn't have any television sets. I pointed out that even still we had a delightful ficus tree. They countered asking if the tree could give us the score.

I laughed and said, "This isn't The Giving Tree."

Again with the puzzled looks.

Shakespeare to Silverstein and no hits.

I usually attribute these things to some unexpected free associations in my mind, but I know that Mister Bookworm would have understood the references at the time without me having to explain. I could have even quoted lyrics from The Clash, made references to Guy Fawkes, Atilla, and Eurydice, and then alluded to Janice Dickenson's apparent insanity and he would have understood it all.