Wednesday, April 21, 2010

The Strange Case of the Lovelorn Letter Writer

Dear Miss Dix,

I am a young lady of Scandinavian origin, and I am in a quandary.
I am not exactly broody, but I am kind of pondery.
I got a twenty-five waist and a thirty-five bust,
And I am going with a chap whose folks are very upper crust.
He is the intellectual type, which I wouldn't want to disparage,
Because I understand they often ripen into love after marriage,
But here I am all set
For dalliance,
And what do I get?
Shilly-Shalliance.
Just when I think he is going to disrobe me with his eyes,
He gets up off of the davenport and sighs.
Every time I let down my hair,
He starts talking to himself or to the little man who isn't there.
Every time he ought to be worrying about me,
Why, he's worrying about his mother, that's my mother-in-law to be,
And I say let's burn that bridge when we come to it, and he says don't I have any sin sense,
His uncle and her live in incense,
Well, with me that's fine,
Let them go to their church and I'll go to mine.
But no, that's not good enough for Mr. Conscience and his mental indigestion,
He's got to find two answers to every question.
If a man's a man, a girl to him is a girl, if I correctly rememma,
But to him I am just a high pathetical dilemma.
What I love him in spite of
Is, a girl wants a fellow to go straight ahead like a locomotive and he is more like a loco-might-of.

Dear Miss Dix, I surely need your advice and solace,
It's like I was in love with Henry Wallace.
Well, while I eagerly await your reply I'm going down to the river
to pick flowers. I'll get some rosemary if I can't find a camellia.

Yours truly, Ophelia.

by Ogden Nash

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