The Guy in 3C and Other Tales, Satires and Fables

by R.P. Burnham

  One day Griswold was taking his ease in an alley just as twilight approached, and when he opened his eyes he couldn't help noticing a woman across the way. That's because she was prancing naked back and forth in the window and shrieking along to the sounds of an Italian opera as she did her exercises. Griswold didn't care for opera, but as he watched the well endowed woman with growing interest, he decided it was high time he got into culture. "Hey, lady," he said, leaning into the window and ogling, "We should get to know one another. What's your name?"

  The lady was doing a series of cartwheels so that various anatomical delicacies flashed by Griswold's bedazzled eyes. She glanced Griswold's way every now and again, but it was only when she finally came to a stop several minutes later that she said, "My friends call me Felicitie. What's your handle?"

  "Call me Griswold. And hey," he said with a series of eyebrow elevations just like Groucho, "I sure like your birthday suit."

  "Is that so? Well, it's your birthday too. Put on your birthday suit and get your butt in here."

  That was the kind of offer that was music to Griswold's ears. In his haste to get in the window and into his birthday suit at the same time, though, he got stuck in the window and had to be yanked into the room by the athletic lady. "You ready for some jumping jacks, sport?" she asked as she helped him into his birthday suit.

  Griswold gave her a knowing look and followed it with a wink. "I can think of better exercise than that."

  "Humph!" sniffed the lady. "Let's get one thing straight, buster. You gotta be in shape to play in my league." So saying, she started doing jumping jacks and shrieking away to the music.

  For a moment Griswold was deflated, but he was too shrewd to let any little obstacle deter him. He started jump jacking to beat the band all the while bellowing away to the bass parts of the opera as best he could. After a while, though, he ran out of wind. Huffing and puffing, he yelled above the music, "What say we take a break?"

  The lady stopped for a moment and appeared to be cogitating. Then she jump-jacked over to the tape deck and flipped it off. "My tune-up's over, sport. Let's start the engine."

  Just then, however, the white clad keepers busted in and took the lady away. "Shame on you, Griswold," one of them said. "Cheer up, Griswold," added another one. "This is your lucky day. The big boys have decided you're not right for this place. You've got your walking papers."

  So Griswold, and not for the first time either, was forced to absent himself from felicity.