Lip Gloss Larry and the Splade

Everything sounds better lately with a cigar-chomping, 1930s studio exec accent. Fer instance, note this example from my Brofriend, whose name I was attempting to come up with: “You're not famous till you have a name kid. Now get the hell out of my office.” Or [to secretary]: "Pick up my dry-cleaning then put my wife on hold and tell my girlfriend to can it."

On the train in to work today, a man came in, swayed up and down the car, his light jeans tucked into his sneakers, with an odd square patch cut from his pant leg on his thigh. He swayed on back my way and plopped down on the floor against the center pole. Then he slid entirely down, onto his back. All the while, he babbled in a frisky Eartha Kitt-style voice. Like hers, but with a falsetto (if such a thing is possible). In his hand was a nearly empty tube of lip gloss, cherry red, which he slathered back and forth on his lips while he said things like, “So I called my drug dealer, Harvey…” and “Why do all the good people die?”

What alarmed me was the paper medical bracelet on his wrist. Not to mention the lolling back and forth he did as he applied his lip gloss and babbled. As per usual, nobody got up, nobody laughed, nobody acted as if there was a drug-addled maniac doing anything remotely bizarre in their midst.

Onward and upward.

Did you know that thing that is a spork but with a serrated edge like a knife is called a “splade”?