Prize Giving Day

Madame's Nightshirt
Mrs. Peperium

It's Prize Giving Day at the Piddle North, I mean North Piddle School for young and occasionally Catholic girls and boys. And do you know what? I, for outstanding performance in the parking lot, am being given an award. Yes-sir-ee! I grabbed the Worse Driving award. It's a new award, created especially for me and I've heard that odds are I shall be the title holder for at least a decade. And I'm not talking a decade of the Rosary either. More than winning the prize for outstanding performance in the parking lot, I am being made an example of what not to emmulate for all the rest of the occasionally Catholic parents of Piddle North, I mean North Piddle School for young and occasionally Catholic boys and girls.

My momentous win recalled to mind of a very pleasant August day about 22 summers ago when I and a group of friends had been invited for tennis and cocktails on the island next door by some highly attractive and currently unattached gentlemen. That would be the afternoon I won an award for outstanding perfomance on a open road while managing to lose a man I had nibbling on my hook. That weekend, like many, many other weekends, I had brought a party of bright young things from Boston up to my grandmother's house in Maine. My party was rather large and it required taking two cars to the island next door for tennis and cocktails with the highly attractive and currently unattached gentlemen. The smokers in my party all piled into one speedy German-made automobile so they could make a pit stop at the General Store. A roommate of mine (I always had at least 2 at any given time) and I took my grandmother's top-of-the-line Volare. Only my grandmother would have owned a top-of-the-line Volare, but as usual I digress. This top-of-the-line Volare led a very charmed existence. It drove from Cambridge to Maine and back again. While in Maine it drove into town for the weekly shopping. This was it. Nothing more unless maybe the very occasional visit to Connecticut or to see cousins on the Cape. As a result the Volare had to be 7 or 8 years old and it had maybe 12,000 miles on it, give or take 4. Because my grandmother never drove it, she never had it serviced. Seriously. She refused to have it serviced and it was a Chrylser product from the late '70's. Say no more as those with memories as to why the Big Three really got to be the Small 3. The brakes on the Volare, because my grandmother was such a leadfoot (she'd pass 3 cars at once-no joke), were shot. So now you get the idea that my roommate and I were driving a deathtrap over to play tennis followed by cocktails on the lawn with some highly-attractive and currently unattached gentlemen.

So, being young and currently unattached girls we had glammed ourselves up in our tennis togs, applied just the right amount of make-up and were heading down the main road at a clip towards the bridge. At this point I was still driving on that island at a good clip because I had yet to get pulled over for speeding while going from one cocktail party to another by the sheriff's deputy who had earlier spied me sunbathing on my grandmother's veranda roof and decided he wanted to ask me out. Handing a girl a $80 ticket after asking her her weight is hardly the way to go about asking said girl out and then showing up for brunch and signing her grandmother's guestbook (dating all the way back to the 1940's) as her arresting officer just finished off any chance you had with her no matter how much she admired your revolver the table (yes, the sheriff's deputy came in uniform, packing heat, to brunch with my grandmother - I've got not only the photos but the negatives as well.), but as usual I am digressing so back to the story. My roommate and I were chatting. She picked something up on the seat and asked "What's this?"

I took my eyes off the road but not my foot off the gas pedal and looked at what she was holding up. It was a very fancy hairclip. "Oh, Hugh bought that last night for me in Freeport at the Ralph Lauren outlet store." (Hugh was one of the guys up from Boston with us.)

"Hugh bought you this? For your hair?" she asked.

"Yes." I responded still looking at the hair clip and not at the road.

"Why did he do that?"

"He said it would look pretty at a Black Tie this Fall with my hair in a chignon."

"He did?"

"Yeah, he did."

"What does this mean?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean."

We never discussed what this meant because just at that very moment we had cleared the crest of a hill only to find ourselves staring at a complete standstill of traffic down below us and about 20 feet in front of us due to the ferry boat's imminent arrival. As I said, the brakes on my grandmother's deathtrap were shot, and I had to slam them on downhill to avoid hitting the car full of elderly people in front of us and driving them inot the half of dozen cars in front of them. I hit the brakes and while they did let out an enormous squeal, they did not stop the deathtrap from going headlong into the carload of elderly people. My roommate screamed, threw Hugh's hairclip up in the air and ducked. I did the only thing I could do : I wrenched the steering wheel hard to the left and before we knew what had happened next, the deathtrap had come to a complete stop in the drainage ditch. I looked at my roommate and saw she wasn't injured so I asked her a very important question,

"Hey, where's my hairclip?"

"You almost killed us!"

"No I didn't. My grandmother's brakes almost did."

"Get us out of here! Hugh and Spence will be over that hill any moment and we'll never live it down."

As if just on cue, Hugh and Spence (and the rest of the party) cleared the hill in Spence's German-made sportscar to see my grandmother's deathtrap holding up traffic as I attempted to back it out of the drainage ditch with my roommate covering her face in shame. Both Hugh and Spence wore expressions of shock. Then Spence started laughing. Hugh never did. In fact when we got to the island next door, and just before we began our first match, he took a time out to yell at me for be so irresponsible. I kept maintaining it wasn't my fault. He kept telling me it was. So I did the only thing I could do. I switched partners and played with Spence that afternoon.

So it turned out Hugh's gift of a hairclip meant nothing at all. That was certainly a heck of a way for a girl to find that out, let me tell you.

Comments

[dareboy]

Mrs.P., that was so perfect to me ask the superior rafinade lady about your view on perfect man~women relationship?
Perhaps i regret not to born in Oxford but my small room in Moscow, (quite light painted room) waiting for guests i afraid who doesn't know the differences of rococco & victorians, should i learn it for somebody?

lol PS. sorry i'm too young beeing your friend

[Mrs. Peperium]

Dear Dareboy,

I believe you have asked me what, in my mind, is the perfect male-female relationship. If so, then I shall be delighted to answer this.

This might come as an enormous surprise to the male readers in our audience but I do not believe that the perfect male-female relationship is one that is based on money, as in the male actually purchases the female for a certain amount of time (sometime for life) for services rendered.

A man of large wallet that actually wants to buy a woman to suit his needs (whatever they may be) will find out soon enough he has not enough money. Look no further than Prince Charles of England to understand what I mean. Prince Charles fell in love with an old Royal tart (Camilla) from a family that had long been in the Royal tart business. Now Camilla the old tart, had realised life for Royal Tarts in the late 20th Century was not as good as it had been in the late Nineteenth Century so she had to claw harder, much harder, to get the perks of sleeping with the Royal Dunce, Prince Charles. She convinced him to buy a wife. Yes, she had Prince Charles buy a Royal bride. A Royal Bride of good English lineage that was not a Royal bride that Prince Charles would love. His love was to remain for Camilla forever. But more importantly, Prince Charles was to purchase a Royal bride that his people would love. And one that would give his people good-looking children -- boy did that ever come a cropper or what? Prince William, with his receding hairline looks like more and more Eleanor Roosevelt as each year advances and Harry has distinct fetal alcohol traits but as usual I digress.

Anyhoo, once the purchased Royal bride, this would be the late Princecess of Wales, the demented Diana, became wise to Camilla's plans --which we all understand happened on Prince Charles and Diana's honeymoon, she refused to play ball - in the marital relations arena that is. Oh she held up the he-will-not-love-but-his-people-will-love-her bit very nicely and so when she was smashed up in the French tunnel with a leading Muslim coke addict, England nearly crumbled and all of Holland was out of tulips for 3 weeks because they were sent to all the florists in England where once there were sold by the bunch to be tossed on the streets by the wailing and crawling English people.

(Attention visiting monarchists to PP, are you sure you really want to associate with the English? History will not be kind to you, if you continue to do so...I understand Cheri Blair is about to publish her memoirs of wearing white to meet the Pope. Ask Father M. about what an enormous social gaffe that was, if you need to. Trust me, it was far worse than the music at the D.C. Papal Mass no matter what Father Neuhaus says otherwise.)

Anyway, back to the Queen of Hearts, the pancaked, demented and now dead Diana, the Queen of Tarts, Princess Camilla and the none-the-wiser Prince Charles. Prince Charles is now referred most affectionately by me as Prince None-the-Wiser because he took a tart and made her his Queen. When he broke the few remaining by-laws of the Church of England to do so, the tart wouldn't even take his name. But then, on one should be surprised because everyone had known for 35 years Camilla was nothing more than a tart. And it goes against the long-held rules of society that tarts can ever be anything more than tarts.

So now fast forward 3 years and guess what? My royal insiders have been telling me that the tart Princess Camilla no longer likes being in the company of Prince None-the-Wiser. Indeed, she and he now travel separately. He goes Green while she goes Mean, in the company of other men they say.

So Prince None-the-Wiser has performed a most noble deed for the men of today. He has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that not only cannot the eldest son of the world's richest woman, HRH Queen Elizabeth II, buy one woman. He can't buy two.

Anyway, according to Mrs. P and, more importantly, Miss Jane Austen, the perfect male-female is one based on friendship. A mutual esteem for those inherent qualities that cannot be purchased. And then, on the appointed day that friendship marches down the aisle of Church to invite God into the friendship (this would be the wedding day) and from that day on God superintends the friendship keeping both parties in line.

One need not be born in Oxford to have this kind of relationship. In fact, considering the C of E bishop Oxford had running the joint for the last 30 years, it is a definite edge to have not been born or have come into contact with Oxford.

[dareboy]

M.P., it was the very open and kind of you to tell the story of the Royal family, perhaps in some details I mean the princes Diana death it’s tragic but as history teach us God loves the persons who got clear conscience and true heart. Princes of heart was the case I believe can’t suffer to long with a cynics near the royal family. the tragedy has happened both to Diana’s children and most of the people over United Kingdom, and as far as I know prince Harry who came to Iraq with a wishing to help the military operation also deserve the respect. Personally in my humble opinion Harry is very much alike his mother.
Let me introduce the things you talked about Camilla as a fault of prince-non-the wiser, but his Highness also the man, but the man with a royal genealogy. I do shy to speak more on this thread cause my own genealogy is belong to Christian church and being as a none~ of being wise, the first thought I got ’bout the people around me, instead of royal family mine never treat me the way each of gentlemen here got.
To your attention I would introduce a friend of mine who lives in United Kingdom http://www.briancollier.co.uk/ who are my spiritual friend and invited me to Brighton, Sussex a couple years ago.
I also would thank you again for your answer, so Jane Austin would my next book to read, this time I only finished the F.Sagan “a little sun in a cold water”.

[Mrs. Peperium]

Dareboy,

Thank you for introducing me to your friend. He's a very talented man. I think you'll find a big difference between Sagan and Austen, but that does not mean you can't enjoy both. Jane Austen understood life, men and women plus she could write very well about all three. She is the rarest of creatures.