It’s Drew Time!
A few weeks ago, I was wandering the streets of downtown Culpeper, destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical, naked, looking for an angry fix, when I stumbled upon a store called Le Monkey House.
(In actuality, I was killing time before a high school track meet and was fully clothed, but Ginsberg sounded more dashing than the truth of the moment.)
The tagline for Le Monkey House is “Carefully curated things for fun people.” I may not be a lot of things, but I like to think that I am “fun people,” so I entered.
Le Monkey House could nestle perfectly on the streets of downtown Fredericksburg and reminded me a bit of The Card Cellar, located at 915 Caroline Street, although trying to compare any store to The Card Cellar is a fool’s errand. It would be like comparing the banks of the Seine to the ball pit at Chuck-E-Cheese which Monet never bothered to paint.
But Le Monkey House is no Chuck-E-Cheese ball pit and offers a variety of interesting items including candles shaped into a middle finger (also sold at The Card Cellar) and has a literary bent which the failed English major in me appreciated. Among the items I purchased, with each earning an eye roll from my wife, were: a Kurt Vonnegut finger puppet magnet which joined Oscar Wilde and The Girl with The Pearl Earring on our refrigerator, a pencil with one of my favorite lines from S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders — “Stay Gold, Motherf****r” — and lastly, a book which I thought would be perfect for a humorist, How To Drag A Body and Other Safety Tips You Hope To Never Need by Judith Matloff.
There were a number of Matloff titles featured on the shelves across from bumper stickers extolling the virtues of reading like: “Read Books. Stay Kind. Be Weird” and “Read More Books, Give Less F**ks.”
Plus, the last time I had to drag a body it did not go well. My neighbor Tyrone, who played defensive line in college and is not a small human, had been out all day not catching fish and had gotten into some peach moonshine (legally procured) at a family gathering and came home and collapsed in his recliner with enough momentum to tip the recliner over backwards where he proceeded to fall fast asleep – dreaming of fish no doubt. Had I read Matloff’s guide sooner, my friend might not have slept all night in his overturned recliner.
The book was not what I expected. Matloff is actually sincere in offering help for natural disasters and explaining how to apply a tourniquet in downtown Fallujah to stem a femoral bleed until medics can arrive. Like the sticker said, I wanted to read more books, but I also wanted to give less f***s.
Since I dogeared pages in the book, I figured there was little chance of me getting my $28.00 back, so when life gave me this lemon of a book, I made lemon daiquiris to share with readers of the humor column.
(If you like beer and wine more than lemon daiquiris, come to the Summer Solstice Festival in downtown Fredericksburg on June 20th sponsored by downtown Fredericksburg. Beer and wine overlooking the picturesque Rappahannock River with friendly company. Tickets on sale now.)
In fairness, the book is not a “lemon” per se, it’s just not the book I expected given the title, nor did I expect to be barraged by embedded advertisements for products like Ecco-boots — “Unlike friends, the Ecco is always forgiving and reliable.” Sounds like someone needs better friends, and Ecco-boots have never held my head as I yawned in technicolor after too much legally (or illegally) gotten moonshine.
One disconnect I found in Matloff’s book is that she is a journalist who has covered stories around the world and now teaches a journalism class on safety at Columbia University, but relates anecdotes like she’s you and me trying to ford Hazel Run at Alum Springs Park without getting our flip flops wet. In a section on climate extremes, she writes:
“Each year, hikers and mountaineers suffer injuries or even death from falling ice or harsh cold. The biggest challenge for me when researching my book about mountains and conflict, which took me to eight ranges around the world, was not encountering guerrilla groups but dressing for dramatic swings in temperature.”
First, how much of an advance did she get from her publisher to explore eight mountain ranges? And second, this is a book people are picking up in downtown Culpeper. Hiking Old Rag should never result in falling ice, and if you’re thinking of summiting Everest and preparing with books from Le Monkey House, then I would be more than happy to take out a life insurance policy in your name with me as the sole beneficiary.
Also, if you’re thinking about climbing Everest, then you might want to mail your $15,000 check to the Nepalese government by overnight mail soon because openings are limited, and the fee goes up to $19,000 in 2025. (FXBG Advance Humor Column—Come for laughs but stay for updates on Everest climbing rates.)
Matloff, who does not appear to have a law degree or fly flags upside down at her house, also offers legal advice for lawyers who have to go to jail to spring their clients who have been involved in protests and gotten themselves arrested.
“Snacks are important as a lawyer in the event of arrest. Protesters can be stuck for hours in a police station or jail without being fed. And once they get food, it’s normally some soggy white bread with baloney, which is reason enough to organize an angry protest rally. As a precaution, I always eat a good meal before heading out. Then I make sure I nibble throughout the day, or evening, even if I’m not hungry.”
In the past, when I’ve made my one free call to my attorney after a long day of protesting injustice on an empty stomach, I never thought to ask her to bring Gummi bears or granola. Mostly because if I did, she would first run to the Card Cellar, purchase a candle of a middle finger and then leave it with the police officer in charge and ask that they give that message to her still incarcerated client.
She’d probably even light the wick free of charge and not count it against my annual retainer which, like the Everest climbing fee, is likely to go up in 2025 after she reads this column.
by Drew Gallagher
HUMORIST
