Dipped

‘Dipped’

Before the plague

unleashed it’s sickle

our lives were pickle, 

multicolor stipple,

salt and sweet and sour,

a changing relish every hour.

And now our lives -

homogenized,

All our days

are mayonnaise.  

But sirens slather us in loss,

injustice burns like pepper sauce,

our mouths are spiced in rage, dissent.

Pain remains our condiment.

• Jason Messinger 6/22/2020

Roses are Dread

Valentine

Roses are dread.
Violets are rue.
Orchids are panic.
Tulips; untrue.

Flowers are horrors.
Jewelry, malign. 
Cards are all sorrow.
But Chocolates? Sublime.

“Twelve Months- a meditation on aging” - by Autocorrect

“Twelve Months- a meditation on aging” 

- by Autocorrect 

Janitorial

Febrifuge

Marred

Apraxia

Mayo

Junky

Julep

Aughts

Septoplasty

Octogenarian

Novocaine

Decimate

On Birthdays - From a Vile Old Queen's Guide to Etiquette And Proper Living

On Birthdays

No celebration displays more overblown enthusiasm for what is, in fact, the slimmest of accomplishments. In general, birthdays are simply an excuse to eat cake.

Only a handful of birthdays have real significance; the 13^th for Jews, the 15^th for Hispanic girls, the 16^th for girls of a certain class, and the 18^th for Americans who believe that their political vote actually matters. Appropriate gifts are cash (Bar and Bat Mitzvahs), a crucifix (Quinceañera), jewelry or a car (Sweet Sixteen), and one’s restraint from destroying their naive foolish hopes (Enfranchisement.) 

The two most important birthdays, of course, are when one reaches Legal Drinking Age, and Age of Consent, the gifts for which are self-evident. 

While A Vile Old Queen discourages gifts for anyone else whose only achievement is that they survived yet another year, there are times when one must provide a gift, if only to enjoy the cake. 

Here then is AVOQ’s recommended list of age appropriate gifts. Remember that the gift wrap should match the ribbon, and the transparency of the tape should reflect the opacity of your genuine regard.

Birthday         Gift     

1 – 8               Candy (for child)

                        Sedatives (for parents)

9 – 12             Amusing Wig (for boys)

                        Attractive Wig (for girls)

                        Strong Drink (for parents)           

13 – 17            Boarding School (for own child)

                        Prophylactics (for other’s child)

18 – 20           Bail (for own child)

Request of dealer’s phone # (other’s)

21                    Invitation to leave home (own child)

                        Invitation to come home (other’s)

22 – 29          Good Fellatio (boys)

                        Fancy Dinner (girls)

30 – 49          Nice Wine and Good Drugs (friends)

                        Cheap Wine and Bad Drugs (foes)

50 – 59          Plastic Surgeon Referral

60 – 69          Pharmaceutical Tips

70 – 79          Candy (for senior)

                        Sedatives (for adult child caregiver)

80+                Stripper (for senior)

                        Iron Clad Will (for adult child)

                        Cash with Big Tip (for stripper)

- From A Vile Old Queen’s Guide To Etiquette And Proper Living

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On Slacks - from "A Vile Old Queen's Guide to Etiquette and Proper Living"

"With men’s slacks, the more expensive they are, the more fasteners are sewn in. An inexpensive pair of jeans have a button and a zipper, while a true gentleman’s slacks will add from two to four additional buttons, and at least one hook and eye system ‘just in case’. 

A similarly redundancy can be found in costly woman’s brassieres. The lesson is that casualness in the ability to strip is inversely proportionate to wealth. Remember that the next time you are inebriated."


- From A Vile Old Queen’s Guide To Etiquette And Proper Living

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In honor of Valentine's Day

The Sweet Smith

There was a place where a sweet smith lived, who made sweets for children and adults. He made sweets as yellow as sunshine, and as dark as earth. Sweets as finely carved as insects, and as crudely shaped as rocks. Some were small like raindrops, others large as millstones. Some were as thin as a spider’s web, others as brittle as a wasp nest. But all were as sweet as the honey bee’s home, as sweet as your first secret kiss, as sweet as a baby’s ten toes. The sweet smith delighted everyone with his creations, but especially himself.

Now in this same place was a woman who knew all the names of everything, and all the words ever written, and all the ways that this becomes that, and that becomes this. But one thing always eluded the woman, one thing she could not learn. What was inside her own heart? At last the woman decided that perhaps someone else could see what eluded her, so she found the sweet smith and gave him a request. "Make me a sweet that is filled the same as my own heart."

The sweet smith looked in his recipe books, and searched through his shelves. He went a great distance for the things he needed, and spent a long time perfecting his plan. At last he made the sweet, and called the woman in.

"Here it is," said the sweet smith. "Here is the sweet, filled the same as your own heart."

"Ah," said the woman who picked it up, then put it down, then turned around and left.

"Wait," cried the sweet smith, "don’t you want to taste?"

"You eat it," smiled the woman, walking away.


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On the Wearing of Bolo Ties

On The Wearing of Bolo Ties

A Bolo Tie is not a necktie, it is a shoelace with delusions of grandeur. Unless one has at least 500 head of cattle, or sells turquoise jewelry for a living, one should avoid this affectation.

- From A Vile Old Queen’s Guide To Etiquette And Proper Living

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On Dealing With Unwanted Guests

When dealing with unwanted Party Guests, there is only one sure method to make them depart - offer them Raclette Cheese.

Here is the recipe for success:
 
1) Announce gaily that you have a special treat you are going to serve. Try not to smirk at the expectant smiles of your inebriated
guests.
 
2) Unwrap the Raclette Cheese. It will smell impossibly bad, like the toes of a filthy hobo, or a long unattended infection. Let the
cheese rest on the counter, while your more delicate guests begin to find their coats.

3) Prepare the condiments for the cheese; cubed bread, gherkin pickles, small boiled potatoes. The more adventurous eaters will now draw closer to you - and the fatal blow.
 
4) Melt the cheese over low heat in a saucepan. The previously condensed malodorous stench will be unbound from the cheese, and expand in the air like a chemical weapon of biblical proportions. Do not worry about guests who are soiling your bedroom in furtive encounters, or are looting your medicine cabinet behind a locked door, the stench will reach even the farthest reaches of one’s home.
 
5) Exchange your hurried good-byes with the remaining guests, who all suddenly realized that they left an iron on, or a baby sitter unpaid, or had just received an urgent call from an ill relative and just had to leave.
 
6) Minutes later, with everyone gone, go back to the kitchen, where the cheese has now released its toxic smell and turned into an
appetizing treat both unctuous and quite delicious. Enjoy the sublime vindication of eating it all by yourself.


- From A Vile Old Queen’s Guide To Etiquette And Proper Living

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A Vile Old Queen's Guide To Etiquette And Proper Living - available now!

 

A Vile Old Queen offers the most nuanced advice on proper manners, correct grammar, personal hygiene, social obligations, and how to maintain one's social position at the best parties. 

Dedicated to the Vile Old Queens 

of a bygone yesteryear

That's you, Darling

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• From Your Favorite Bachelor Uncle - "If don't you find this funny, you must be dead!" 
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A Vile Old Queen’s Guide To Etiquette And Proper Living

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