316. Confusion

C.W. walked in to where I was writing and plopped into a chair. I looked up and saw what appeared to be one of those pundits they bring on television news to explain the inexplicable. He was dressed as a Lt. Colonel of the Army, so I guessed he was supposed to be “our military affairs” expert. Yes, they often forget that a Lt. Colonel (Ret.) is someone who never made it “to the Boardroom” as they say. Anyway …

“What do people mean,” he said, “when they refer to “Bible-humping?”

“Say what?”

“Bible-humping,” he said. “Are they referring to the antics of King David, or maybe those randy Corinthians?”

“Say what?”

“I read your Bible,” he said. “Maybe they were talking about King Solomon. Now there was a dude that liked women.” He thought. “Or maybe pomegranates, or breasts, or both. Whichever way, he had a real case of it.”

“Bible-humping?”

His head snapped with a slight motion as if he hated to leave an image. “That’s what I said.”

I hit “Control-S” on my computer and leaned back. A mental door opened and a thought emerged. “Do you,” I said, “by any chance mean “Bible-thumping?’”

He had been on the verge of saying something, but this stopped him cold. He thought. "It’s her again,” he said, his eyes reverting to a cold gleam.

“You’ve been listening to your Galactic Universal Translator, haven’t you?”

“My GUT is fine,” he said, “but someone has been hacking into the updates they forward from my home planet.”

“Oh,” I said, knowing it came out sounding a little weak.

“How do you stay married to her?” he said.

“Well,” I said, “for one thing I don’t come to the door, when she’s alone, in the shape of one of her old boyfriends.”

“She shouldn’t have kept his picture and showed it to me,” he said.

“She showed you the picture of one of her old boyfriends?”

He shrugged. “Sort of.”

“What do you mean, sort of?”

“I, uh, more or less came across it.”

“Were you going through her stuff again?”

“Collecting valuable data," he said. “That’s all I was doing … research.”

“You weren’t wearing her things, were you? We’ve talked about that.”

“Know what she said?” he asked, ignoring me.

I persevered. “Were you?”

“She said, ‘Now you can see what I could have had and compare it to what I got,’ and she took it away from me and held it to her, pomegranates, I mean her breasts.”

Have I ever mentioned the fact that sometimes C.W. lies when it suits his purpose?

“I doubt that,” I said.

“Suit yourself,” he said. “Now about this ‘Bible-thumping’ thing. What do they mean?”

“It’s a saying,” I said, “that refers to the act of using Biblical references to justify questionable actions or beliefs.”

“Like it’s okay for a king to send his best friend to be killed in battle so he can get the friend’s wife alone and …”

“It can refer to any number of things, such as slavery, that people use their interpretation of the Bible to justify.” I said, interrupting him.

“Like electing scoundrels to public office?”

“That too,” I said.

He stood and assumed a look of panic.

“I’ve got to go,” he said.

“I … will go up to the palm tree, I will take hold of the

 boughs  thereof: now also thy breasts shall be as clusters

 of the vine, and the smell of thy nose like apples ..."

If this refers to, “the glorious and splendid clothing

 worn  by the saintly,” then I’m confused, - C.W.

“Where?”

“To check my GUT.”

“It does make one a little nauseated to think about it, doesn’t it?”

“Not that,” he said. “It’s my translator.”

“What about it?”

“I don’t think she was finished,”

“What makes you say that?”

His eyes rolled upward as if he may have been mentally scrolling a list. Then he looked straight at me and said, “There’s no such thing, is there,” he said, “as a holy-stroller?”