A Bit Different Today

I'm Not Sure How This Will Work, Or Even If It Will

If you've been reading the blog for any length of time, you'll know that Conrad is a Dog Buns addict for Codewords, the crossword variant with no clues, just a couple of letters of the alphabet given a number, where you have to work out the other 24.  Or 25 if it's one of those swinishly difficult ones.  Art!

Quite possibly the Remote Nuclear Tormentor

     You'll also recall how I regularly froth with nitric ire at the obscure or foreign words the compilers put in, and I respond with the malicious mechanism above.

     Today, though, these words are going to work for me, since I now have 13 of them and am going to seed them throughout a long piece of written scrivel.  I will embolden and empurple the words.

     Arnie Schickelbaum, 42, was a veeblefetzer servicing technician (a repairman in plain English) who lived in the Bronx.  This strained his marriage somewhat, as his wife, Gardenia, lived in New Zealand.    He'd been in the veeblefetzer repair business for some years, had extensive experience and was no TYRO ('A novice or beginner, from the Latin 'Tiro', meaning 'Recruit').  Art!

Arnie veebles the fetz

     Given his extensive work with veeblefetzers and the knowledge he'd acquired over time, he could instantly diagnose faults and remedies to the delicate electronic gadgets, thus having something of the VATIC (characteristic of a prophet, from the Latin 'Vatos', meaning 'Prophet') about him.  Indeed, one of his SYNOPTIC (Of or relating to a synopsis (a brief review), from the Greek (Sunopsis' meaning 'View') responsibilities for the owners of the business was to create a detailed work sheet at week's end to itemise what work had been undertaken.  Art!

Either a partially-assembled or partially-disassembled veeblefetzer

     Don't think Arnie was a mere worker drone.  Not at all.  At the weekend he worked on restoring old cars, hard physical work as a change to his finely-tuned job.  On Friday nights he could be seen in the Bronx's bars, where he would QUAFF (To drink heartily or in one draught, from the 16th century and possibly Teuton in origin) many a beer and have a riotous good time.  This sent his distant and neglected wife into a PAROXYSM (Uncontrollable outburst, fit or convulsion, from the French via Latin and the Greek 'Paroxunein'. meaning 'To goad') fit of rage, and you can hardly blame her.  She began to plot.   First, she laid in a stock of QUIRTS (Whips with a leather thong on one end, from the Spanish 'Cuerda' meaning 'Cord') because she wanted revenge, not a murder charge.  Art!

Quirts

     She took a flight to New York, with her whips safely stored in cargo as it's almost impossible to hijack an aircraft with a two-foot leather cord, and arrived at La Guardia on the fourteenth of March,  brimming with confidence and seething with rage.

     That, gentle reader, is an example of a SEGUE (To proceed from one section of music to another without a break, also used of other media, from the Latin 'Sequi').  

     Gardenia immediately went to Arnie's place of work, a part of her plot that she hadn't thought through, as it was Sunday and they were closed.  She cursed Arnie, his employer, Sunday trading regulations and the author, before finding an hotel and rooming there overnight.  Art!

     She was slightly mollified by the author's having given her infinite hotel funds, so she roomed at the Crosby Street Hotel, which cost $4,550, as she spent $300 on room service and the mini-bar.    They do a mean Caesar's Salad Brunch Burger, you se

     ANYWAY come Monday morning she proceeded hot-foot to 'Eric And Ernie's MacGuffin Machinists - for all your veeblefetzer needs!', expecting to find her errant husband beavering away on delicate electrical equipment whilst nursing a sore head.  Yes, blowing $150 on beer at the Bronx Draft House will do that.  Art!

Yes it's a real place

     Artie, standing in as a LOCUM (Properly LOCUM TENENS, being a person standing in for a member of the same profession, such as a chemist, clergyman or Senior Veeblefetzer Servicing Technician) for Arnie, was rather cowed by the whip-wielding woman, and volunteered that Arnie had the day off, so wouldn't be there at all.  He did volunteer that, if Gardenia wanted to encounter her hubbo, she should try his favourite Chinese restaurant at lunchtime: the TOPAZ KUMQUAT (A white or colourless mineral often tinted by impurities, found in cavities in igneous rocks, from the Greek 'Topazos';  several small Chinese trees and the small round orange fruit of same, from the Cantonese 'Kam Kwat', meaning 'Golden Orange')

     Artie you craven traitor!  Art?

     

     Gardenia, keeping her whips out of sight in a suitcase, as New Yorkers tolerate a lot but only up to a point, went and sat in a corner of the restaurant, as the author had apparently given her GPS-like powers of navigation.  Or she caught an Uber.  This is the twenty-first century chaps, do keep up!

     ANYWAY AGAIN she confronted Arnie when he came in from the street, a little bleary-eyed and stubbly, wanting to get Won Ton Noodles, his go-to hangover cure, topped with a fried egg.

     "How dare you abandon me in Whakapapa!" she screeched, raising a quirt.  "The best years of my life!  The prime of my youth!"

     "I'm sorry, but you are?" asked a baffled Arnie.

     "I'M YOUR WIFE!" shouted Gardenia, her face a radioactive red.  "You better watch out Arnie Stepanovich, it's the Fifteenth of March - the IDES (In the Roman calendar the 15th day in March, May, July and October and the 13th day of other months were dubbed the Ides' and Julius Caesar was famously slain in the Ides of March).

     Arnie briefly wondered how much he'd really had to drink last night and if he'd accidentally gotten married.  Then he began to put two and two together.

     'I'm Arnie Schickelbaum, not Stepanovich.  I think you and I are victims.  Victims - of BAD WRITING!'

     Gardenia immediately took umbrage, and her quirt, and began belabouring the author.

     "What, am I a mere ADJUNCT (An incidental or non-essential component added to another object, from the Latin 'Adjunctus', meaning 'To adjoin') to you?  Is that why you named me after a flower?'

     'Let us go plight our troth,' said Arnie, kissing the back of Gardenia's hand.  'Forsooth, my chariot awaits.'  Yeah, quoting the Bard Of Avon always wows the ladies.  Art!

Arnie's ride

     ZEPHYR A soft or gentle breeze from the Greek 'Zephuros' meaning 'West wind'.

          There you have today's slice of scrivel.  I apologise for larding the definitions at the beginning of the piece, and having a Chinese restaurant be the source of two is definitely reaching.  Both the hotel and bar are real, the hotel being the most expensive in New York.  

     Regardless of whether you enjoyed reading this or not, Conrad had a hoot writing it.  I also now have two fully-formed characters in Arnie and Gardenia - yes, it's a flower - who may return, as veeblefetzers never go out of fashion, and an angry wife makes for splendid comic material.  Well, it makes a refreshing change to compose a blog without The Usual Suspects intruding.