So Says The Mouse In My Hair

Dear Miss Eliza

Dear Miss Eliza,
My next door neighbor appeared in last month’s issue of Good Gardens to Gape At. It was twenty pages of her lovely garden and those adorable gates and trellises and flowers and shutters in her windows. The pictures were lovely and liable to make a good many home gardeners envious. They might even ask, "I wonder what her secret is." Sadly, I am privy to the answer. This garden is a fraud. All those lovely flowers and vines and vegetables are fake. She doesn’t even HAVE shutters on her windows. Should I make a big deal out of this?
--The Real Deal

Dear Real,
This is not, as you seem to want to make it, a moral issue. It’s not about whether it’s "right" or "wrong" to let an entire country be deceived by the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of words This is a matter of pity.

If you are a pity person, you will feel sorry for the way your neighbor has to pretend to herself and to the whole world that she knows her gardening. Think of the psychological hell she must be putting herself though each spring as she plants her plastic seeds and watches them grow.

Ok, it’s a nice image, but doesn’t really work well. This is mostly why I’m not a poet. The rest of the reason being that I don’t want to be a poet. So there.

Your neighbor is simply damaged. This is not a sin. This is not even bad. I know damaged. I’m very good at damaged. I take pride in damaged. Damaged is what makes me the puppet I am today.

So head on over to your neighbor’s house and bring a basket of goodies. Not the green kind though, because that’s just showing off. Buy her some cookies or a pie or a frozen cake at the grocery store. What your friend needs is confidence. Confidence is also known as something you can see yourself as better than. In this case, she will conquer her self esteem issues by devouring cheesy signs of other people's laziness.

NO seriously, this works. How do I know? Did you know I’m a doctor? That’s because I’m not. Mostly because I haven’t got the training, but the rest of the reason being that I don’t want to be a doctor. So there.
--Miss Eliza


Dear Miss Eliza,
Make up a list of words that sound bad but aren't, like flaccid and moist.
--Tousled in New York
p.s. http://www.tyborg.com/blog/C549754167/E2078497269/Media/batgun.jpg

Dear Tousled,
Who do I look like? FREUD? This may be hard to SWALLOW (and easy to SPIT out), but we are actually two different entities. I do not have ORAL cancer. I do not even think about SEX in any of its latent forms. Yes, it is a common misconception, often COUPLED with the idea that I seek only GRATIFICATION of my own fantasies. This may be HARD for you to comprehend, but my nature is not a PHALLIC one. My PLEASURES lie in far simpler times of beach BALLS and SUCKERS. Yes, I am a MEMBER of the Peter Pan club. My HEAD aches and THROBS with such adult ideas as you are asking me to contemplate. Why must you ask me to PLAY WITH this question? I should be out FONDLING such lofty ideas as Relativity and the evolutionary advantages HORNY toads. Oh, dear, what is a poor girl to do?
--Miss Eliza

p.s. of course this is just one way to interpret your request. One could also run through the dictionary and pick out words that would be DIRTY if you were coming up with definitions. Examples being "kazoo" and "pheasant." (I mean, can you seriously tell me that doesn't sound libidenous?)

Dearest readers,
And by dearest I mean those of you how follow one word to the next and stick them together in meaningful ways.
Would you like to become active in the Dear Miss Eliza process? Are you bored by all the questions that other people ask? Think you could do better? Think you could do worse? Then prove it. We’re always looking for curious people around here. Just ask a question. You can post it here, or e-mail it to me at selizawalden@yahoo.com and I’ll answer it poste haste. Thank you for reading!
--Miss Eliza

posted by Sarah Eliza @ 1:18 PM