The first episode features Joseph’s obsession with SQUIRRELS and guest Virginia Corbett’s obsession with the film STAND BY ME. Plus, eating noises.
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Monthly Archives: February 2012
Sense and Seven Minutes in Heaven
I wanted to write a new romantic story for Valentine’s Day. Instead, I just spent some time poking around on the internet. And I found something incredible: an unpublished Jane Austen erotica story called “Sense and Seven Minutes in Heaven.” Really, this was not written by me. It was written by Jane Austen. Which is odd, because there are a ton of f-bombs. Enjoy.
SENSE and SEVEN MINUTES IN HEAVEN by JANE AUSTEN
MINUTE ONE:
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man locked in a closet with a single woman must attempt to engage in pre-marital fornication. However little known the feelings or views of such a man on first entering the closet, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of single women, that should the suggestion of wanton ribaldry not be made, a single woman is disposed to consider it an insult.
These truths were not lost on Miss Margaret Lucy Anne Cockingwood of Cockton Manor on Old Cockingham Lane nestled in the quaint village of East Poppingcockshire.
Maggie, as she was known to her closest friends, was currently locked in a rather small closet with a legendarily dour gentleman named Mr. Frith Banbury Fannycock Cardington.
Mr. Cardington had protested greatly when the spinning bottle of port came to a definitive stop while clearly pointing in his direction with all the firmness and rigidity of a scolding Dowager’s jutting digit.
“I am ever so afraid, I must decline,” whined Mr. Cardington. “I do suffer from allergies so.”
But Maggie and the other dinner party guests had forced him into the closet as he bleated like a sheep about the dire risk of an apocalyptic sneezing fit.
And so, Maggie and Mr. Cardington stared at one another’s dimly lit silhouettes as the precious seconds ticked away and Mr. Cardington fumbled about for something interesting to say.
“I say,” he said redundantly. “This small, tight space is rather damp isn’t it?”
“Not yet,” responded Maggie with an equal mixture of annoyance and lascivious intent.
MINUTE TWO:
Mr. Cardington was baffled by this blatant innuendo. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, “come again?”
“At this rate, there shan’t be time for that,” grumbled Maggie.
“What?” retorted Mr. Cardington as though he hadn’t just been bashed about the head with a rather obvious reference to multiple orgasms.
“Honestly, Mr. Cardington,” Maggie huffed, “have you no sense of social decorum? We are in this closet for a most singular purpose. Do you know what it is?”
“No!” Mr. Cardington whisper-yelled.
“There are no end of euphemisms for it,” Maggie protested. “Roasting the beef. Ringing for the butler. Braiding the wick. Visiting the stable. Polishing the soup spoon. It works with virtually any verb and noun, for heaven’s sake!”
Mr. Cardington’s ignorance was palpable. Indeed his confusion was as large as the British Empire itself, but ironically it appeared as though the sun would never rise on it.
“Mr. Cardington,” Maggie blurted, “I simply wish to fuck you!”
MINUTE THREE
Sadly for Maggie, the only part of Mr. Cardington that stiffened was his upper lip.
“Miss Cockingwood,” he lectured, “as a gentleman, I’m afraid that I cannot bring myself to even mention aloud, much less agree to, such an illicit act.”
Maggie took a deep breath and launched into a lengthy speech about pride and pagan rituals and the hubris of British culture daring to impede the basic carnal knowledge to which flesh is heir, about sense and bi-sexuality, and the hideous damage sexual repression can do to the psyche of a nation. However, the thesis of her strident and eloquent argument could have easily been communicated with this compelling universal truth:
“There is nothing sadder than a single man who will not put out.”
MINUTE FOUR
The next 30 seconds passed in silence.
Time dragged forward with all the speed and warmth of a melting iceberg.
Finally, Mr. Cardington’s defiant posture slumped in defeat as he mumbled, “Oh, bugger me, fine.”
“We shall have to make haste,” Maggie admonished. “We only have three minutes left.”
Mr. Cardington cocked his left eyebrow and said, “That shan’t be a problem.”
Maggie kissed him furiously and the unlikely couple engaged in an awkward ballet of inelegant button popping and lace removing that was as hideous as it was exciting.
MINUTE FIVE
They fucked.
MINUTE SIX
They continued fucking. The couple stumbled and wrestled, kicking up dust, causing Mr. Cardington to sneeze repeatedly. The closet became a symphony of bizarre human sounds.
Sneezing, moaning, copulating, perhaps flatulating?
Who could tell?
And who cared?
What with all the fucking.
MINUTE SEVEN
Still fucking!
Maggie reached for Mr. Cardington’s fob. It was not a euphemism.
She reached into his waistcoat and popped open the watch. She was able to make out the time as Mr. Cardington’s naked white ass was so bright it actually gave off a glow—a dim romantic light like a big, tight kerosene lamp.
“We’re almost of time,” Maggie moaned.
Mr. Cardington, ever the gentlemen, informed Miss Cockingwood he was simply waiting for her.
There was a polite round of offers from both parties to allow the other to climax first.
Mr. Cardington stated rather firmly that he would hear nothing of it. He argued that he had already violated his own sense of gentlemanly conduct by agreeing to fuck Miss Cockingwood in the first place and should he allow himself to climax prematurely he feared he would not be able to live with the shame.
What would they say in London?
Maggie began to rebuke Mr. Cardington for his baroque attitude towards orgasm etiquette when fate intervened.
At the exact same moment, five things happened.
Maggie climaxed.
Mr. Cardington climaxed.
The closet door fell open.
Mr. Cardington sneezed.
The rest of the dinner party guests stared in shock.
Luckily, they were all quiet high on opium. They were also blinded by the sudden brightness of Mr. Cardington’s luminous white ass, so no one was precisely sure of what they saw that night.
Later, Maggie and Mr. Cardington would agree that three out of the seven minutes they spent in that tight, damp closet in Cockton Manor on Old Cockingham Lane nestled in the quaint village of East Poppingcockshire were, indeed, heaven.
THE END.
A version of this story is also available in my book COMEDY OF DOOM.
Thanks for reading.
Filed under Comedy Story
MURDER CRUISE 2012
On February 19th, 2012, a boat will leave Fort Lauderdale and sail out into the Caribbean Sea carrying with it the attendees of MURDER CRUISE 2012.
There are several inaccuracies in that sentence, so I will preemptively push my glasses up and correct myself.
Technically, it’s not a boat. It’s a ship. But come on, boat sounds more romantic. Also, it doesn’t sail. It moves under some other power than blowing. Nuclear reactors? Coal shoveling? Perhaps a flux-capacitor? I think it might be a combination of turbines and will power. It’s unknowable without looking it up on wikipedia.
And, no, it’s not actually called MURDER CRUISE 2012. That was a joke started by Paul F. Tompkins on the twitters. It’s actually called JoCoCruiseCrazy II. It’s a big floating geek concert/comedy festival hosted by Jonathan Coulton.
If you’re not sure who Jonathan Coulton is, it’s possible this is the first page you’ve looked at on the internets since 2003. All you really need to know is this: Jonathan Coulton is a nice man who sings songs and makes money doing it. After singing songs and making money on land for a while, he looked around and said, “What if I sang songs and made money in the middle of the Caribbean Sea?” And he did and it worked out, so now he’s doing it again.
The cruise is packed with talented entertainers and I’m honored to be doing a performance on this will-and-turbine-powered geek boat.
Right here and right now, I’m going to make seven predictions about what will happen on JoCoMurderCrazyCruise II and we’ll see how accurate they are.
PREDICTION NUMBER ONE:
There will be a MURDER. Not a sad real life murder involving consequences and human feelings, but a light, festive, Agatha Christie murder where some jackass no one likes gets drowned in a chocolate fountain when the lights go out on the Lido Deck and a bunch of colorful suspects with easy-to-remember names happen to be in the same room.
PREDICTION NUMBER TWO:
We will not sink. Though we will be attacked by a Kraken.
The Kraken will be easily defeated. A Kraken is basically a bully who lives in the sea. We will confront the Kraken about what is missing in his life that he has to attack a boat. He’ll say, “It’s not a boat, it’s a ship.” And we’ll say, “Don’t be pedantic, Kraken.” And we’ll make some quick and funny “It Gets Better, Kraken” parody videos and he’ll go away.
PREDICTION NUMBER THREE:
There is a possibility the owners of the cruise line will charge me extra if I look at the sea too often.
PREDICTION NUMBER FOUR:
I will probably get full-on old man cranky about the use of the word “squee.”
There will be a lot of excitement on the boat and people will want a short, emphatic word to express that emotion. I’m all for that. The emotion, the expression. Just not the word choice.
When I hear the word “squee,” I picture a panel from a Star Wars comic book in which R2-D2 is farting. Big, block letters shooting from the little astromech droid’s backside.
So while I might enjoy the comedy of John Hodgman or the music of Paul and Storm or the stories of Wil Wheaton or the reasonably priced rum drinks at a pirate ship bar on a small island in the Bahamas, I can’t squee.
For me, it’s a matter of respect. I can’t bring myself to say, “I’m enjoying John Roderick’s song. I think I’ll use my mouth to fart like a robot.”
Perhaps this opinion will lead me to be the man that is drowned in the chocolate fountain.
PREDICTION NUMBER FIVE:
I will foolishly attempt to define geek culture to an old woman from Arkansas.
The people on the cruise who are there for Jonathan Coulton and friends call themselves Sea Monkeys. Sea Monkeys are a fun, friendly, and inviting group of people.
There will be many people on the boat who are not Sea Monkeys. They will be confused and alarmed by all the excited people running around singing songs and saying “squee.”
They won’t even know that “squee” sounds like you’re imitating a Star Wars robot farting in a comic book. They think comic books still cost a dime and mostly feature Superman beating up nazis.
At least one of these people will gaze at me across the gaping cultural chasm and say, “Hey, you want to leap across the gorge and explain this to me?”
And I will try. And I will fail.
I will say words like “twitter” and “ukulele” and “bonhomie” and phrases like “no, we don’t all wear glasses, some of us have contacts” and “no, nerd isn’t really a negative term as we’ve made an effort to culturally appropriate the word and celebrate its positive aspects.”
And the perfectly nice woman from across the chasm will say things like “what?” and “huh?” and “so you’re all just getting together to sing songs about the Star Tracks?”
And I’ll use the word “filk” and she’ll think I’m swearing at her.
And I will go drown myself in the chocolate fountain.
PREDICTION NUMBER SIX
Even though my name is Scrimshaw, I will fail to hunt and kill a whale, then carve a picture into its bones. I will drown my sorrows in whiskey and this will make my ancestors proud.
PREDICTION NUMBER SEVEN
The cruise will be awesome. I will grossly overuse the word “awesome” and it will make me seem like a big hypocrite about the farting robot word.
After the cruise, I’ll do my best to let you know exactly how inaccurate my predictions were. Until then, I’m off to pack some shorts that I will not wear for fear of blinding my fellow Sea Monkeys with the pale white glow sticks that are my legs.
Cheers!
Filed under Comedy Trip
