Royalty

Sometimes I have a hard time explaining things to my Falloonian elders. Perhaps the most difficult is why American homo sapiens would worship a figure like the one Big Dope calls “The Galilean,” but then vote for this Donald Trump to be president of an important country.

I’ve quit trying on that one.

There’s another. It involves American homo sapiens as well. Notice I said, American homo sapiens. I may need to ask your help, dear readers.

It involves this group of what I can only use the American term “deadbeats” to describe. They are known as the “British Royal Family.”

They don’t work.

They don't earn.

They don’t govern.

They don’t, apparently, think before they act.

Well, that last problem may not be confined to British gentry.

Anyway, now one couple among them claims they are going to “step back” from British royalty.

“Say what?” Oh, excuse me, I sometimes slip into American idioms. Don’t know why I did just then.

Anyway. What do they mean by “step back”?

The husband is not going to give up his taxpayer-funded allowance.

He’s not going to get a job.

He’s not going to change his name.

He’s not going to put them into a witness-protection type program.

Sounds like all they intend to do is move somewhere away from parental guidance.

I might can see why the British put up with the antics. It’s an old habit on their part. Of course they are free, as I understand it, to chop off a few heads if things get out of hand.

I can even see why some American homo sapiens find it a bit interesting. It sorta reminds one of cute kitten posts on social media.

What I can’t understand is the obsessive news coverage of their goings and comings, this and the other siblings in this family.

I'm talking about day-to-day coverage, sometimes minute-to-minute coverage.

 In American newspapers.

Aren’t there any cute kitten stories to write about?

Terms

Big Dope plays these strange games with me on Sunday mornings. He makes me practice your language. He says he has words that aren’t in my Galactic Universal Translator. He gives me words and challenges me to translate. I think he makes them up. What do you think?

The first word he gave me this morning was “Remakeacide.”

What? He gave me a hint. “It’s a first-cousin to ‘Serialcide.’”

I gave up. He says, “It’s when you stink up the memory of a great movie.” How many versions of ‘A Star is Born’ have they made, none ever measuring to the first notch of the original 1937 film with Janet Gaynor and Fredric March?”

I had no idea what he was talking about.

“The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” he said. Lon Chaney must be turning in his grave. And Steve Martin as Inspector Jacques Clouseau? Mattie Ross as a sexy little cute sprite?”

“Do you have another one?” I was getting bored.

He said, “How about ‘overadverbilization,?’” he said. “I’m seriously considering this as board game.”

I got that one. It’s something he does all the time.

He frowned. “Let’s move to politics.”

“Must we?” I forgot to tell you. I was shaped as Gomer Pyle at the time.

“Whopperizing,” he said. He smiled.

“Are you serious?”

“I’m the most serious person in the history of America,” he said. “There’s never been anyone more serious than me. Everybody in the world loves me because I’m so serious. I’ve been elected to the Serious Person Hall of Fame. I never lie. What do you think about that?”

“Well gollee,” I said. “I may just trust my GUT.”

299. Confusion

“So why do they call them debates if they don’t debate one another?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why do they call it ‘collateral damage’ when they mean killing innocent people?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why do they call it a sport when one side has a weapon and the other doesn’t?”

“Why are you torturing me?” We were in the shop and I was using a hand plane to flatten the surface of a piece of wood too large to go through my power planer. The work was exasperating enough without the inquisitive teenager that C.W. loves to shift into when I’m really busy.

“Why,” I said, “don’t you do something useful and sweep up these shavings?”

“Will you pay me to?”

I just looked at him. “Why do they call them student athletes?” he said.

“Because they don’t call them cowboys,” I said.

“Why do they call it making love when so many women of your species don’t seem to like it at all?”

“Because they don’t call it making pies.”

“Shouldn’t they call it making babies?”

“What do they call in on Falloonia?”

“It’s a long word,” he said, “and you couldn’t pronounce it. In your language it roughly translates into ‘watching the sun set with one eye and a hopeful heart’ or something like that.”

I stopped. “It what?”

“As in,” he said, “when will this be over?”

Sometimes I can’t tell whether he is jacking me around or not. I resumed my planing.

“Here’s one,” he said, “Why do they call it getting it on when they mean getting it in?”

“Do you want my wife to hear you?”

“Sure,” he said. “Maybe she knows about loading cargo into a plane.”

“Are we going somewhere with all this?”

He thought for a moment. “Do you realize,” he said, “how confusing your language is for a visitor to your galaxy?”

“Not so,’ I said. “We have two-year-olds that pick it up without effort.”

He ignored the insult. “So you allow them to reach adulthood using ‘fat-chance’ and ‘slim-chance’ interchangeably?

At this precise moment I gouged the wood and let loose a stream of imprecations, ending with one in Vietnamese that vaguely has some relation or other to one’s mother.

“That’s another thing,” he said. “What about things like …” and he uttered a phrase involving … well I can't say what it involved, other that the act of a flying leap.

“Don’t let my wife hear you saying that.” I said.

“Where do you think I learned it?”

That did it. I laid my planer aside. “Come on,” I said. “You need leadership.”

The best thing about your language, or so
 it seems to me, is its comedic value. - C.W.

“You lead,” he said, “like someone with lead in their pockets.”

I groaned.

“I enjoyed this informal exchange of ideas by spoken words,” he said.

“This conversation,” I said, ‘has cost me a fine piece of wood. And you need to adjust your Galactic Universal translator.”

“I trust my GUT,” he said. “I’ll put it up against yours anytime.”

I groaned and walked away.

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