The Height of THe Ridiculous...

     One of you loyal "Cheese" readers (and you KNOW who you are!) recently asked me if I woke up laughing from my dreams?  And still, another (and you know who YOU are, too!) responded recently with a lovely email about how "Cheese" had helped bring back a "sense of humor" to the madness of their MS.  I blush in the shadow of your praise...and it is unfortunate for the REST of you that these types of emails only spur me onward in spewing the twisted tales in my brain and splattering them on the Internet for all to read!

     Unfortunately, I don't feel particularly "funny haha" today..."funny peculiar", yes...but not the laughing kind.  I've fallen a bit under the weather, so to speak (and right now in the Pacific Northwest, WEATHER and being under it is about all we talk about) since stopping my vertigo medication and my concentration is about as "deep" as a Britney Spears concert...I DO have underwear on however, for those of you wondering.

     But in an effort to maintain the theme of brevity, I am posting one of my all-time favorite "oldies" poems by Oliver Wendell Holmes...I await the copywrite suit with baited breath...It is the same poem I emailed to my now favorite "truck driver" today:

The Height of the Ridiculous By Oliver Wendell Holmes 1830

I WROTE some lines once on a time
In wondrous merry mood,
And thought, as usual, men would say
They were exceeding good.

They were so queer, so very queer,
I laughed as I would die;
Albeit, in the general way,
A sober man am I.

I called my servant, and he came;
How kind it was of him
To mind a slender man like me,
He of the mighty limb.

"These to the printer," I exclaimed,
And, in my humorous way,
I added, (as a trifling jest,)
"There'll be the devil to pay."

He took the paper, and I watched,
And saw him peep within;
At the first line he read, his face
Was all upon the grin.

He read the next; the grin grew broad,
And shot from ear to ear;
He read the third; a chuckling noise
I now began to hear.

The fourth; he broke into a roar;
The fifth; his waistband split;
The sixth; he burst five buttons off,
And tumbled in a fit.

Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye,
I watched that wretched man,
And since, I never dare to write
As funny as I can.