Mojo, The Bard, & Me

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

 

Stand sir, and throw us what you have about ye:

If not, we’ll make you sit and rifle ye.

 

Third Outlaw

Two Gentlemen of Verona             Act IV, Scene i, Line 4

Valentine, one of the two gents, is being robbed by highwaymen. A few comments.

First, they’re fairly polite robbers, calling Valentine ‘sir’. I’ve been getting called ‘sir’ a lot of late. Thankfully not by robbers, and mostly just because I’m old and I look old. Sometimes I like it, but most of the time I see it as a recognition that I’m old and then it bugs me a little bit.

The other thing I took note of was the word rifle, used as a verb. I use that word (I rifled through the drawer looking for my keys) but I don’t hear it used much as a verb; just a noun, an ever present noun. I kind of like the verb; it’s very descriptive. If I rifled through the drawer, I didn’t look in an orderly fashion; I just pushed things around, usually in a rush, and probably left the drawer in a mess. So it’s a pretty good word as far as verbs go. 

As a noun, in 2023 America: not so much.

Here you have the famous Underpants Incident picture of 1985. That's Emily in the front row deciding, for some inexplicable reason, to show everyone her Wonder Woman underpants. Aren't these underpants great!, she's thinking. That's Jessica, to her left with the red bow, aghast because she realizes that Emily stole her underpants. Did she rifle through my underpants drawer?, she's thinking. That's cousin Matt, the younger fellow observing the Underpants Incident with his hand on his head. WTF, he's thinking. That's Aunt Marie, in the blue dress, the only adult who realizes in real time that the Underpants Incident is taking place. Ummm...., she's thinking. 

And what are the rest of this blissfully ignorant group thinking? That was almost forty years ago; who the heck knows!