Patum Peperium: Dirty Harrys

(This post was inspired by a request from either Irish Elk or Old Dominion Tory or Fiendish Lout. One of them recently asked me to start telling the tales of running into the rich and famous while 3 sheets to the wind...)

This week was a big week in the life of Roger Kimball's future daughter-in-law. She was required to read a book out loud to her entire class. Now, because she is Roger Kimball's future daughter-in-law, I take any reading of hers most seriously as it must come up to his standards. I am working hard towards a most happy match. I only hope The Rog is doing the same on his side of the deal, but I digress. Since RKFDIL got her brain from her father's side of the family she is well up to The Rog's reading standards. Being girls, she and I had a lengthly discussion about her criteria for the book she was going to read. It had to be a story that would make her classmates laugh.

So, one day after school, RKFDIL, Little Bertie and I went to the library to pick out a book. She wanted to go to the bookstore and I said "No." She asked "Why?" "Because we are not the kind of people who go out and buy a book just because you are assigned to read one. We are the kind of people who use the library." I replied. Fortunately, the children love going to the library and cries of rebellion did not ring out. Then, in the library parking lot the three of us witnessed a septegenarian lady in a brand new grey Mustang GT run into a parked car. Instead of going inside and alerting the owner of the parked car to what she had done, the septegenarian chose to flee the scene of her crime. The kids became so enchanted by my rant that if-we-can't-even-trust-little-old-ladies-to-follow-the-laws-of-this-land-then-civilization-is-cooked, they forgot all about the bookstore and ran inside the library.

Little Bertie occupied himself with the puzzles while RKFDIL and I poured through the books looking for a funny one. This was a huge undertaking as most new children's books are not funny. They are educational. Or worse that that, sentimental. More than that, all their drawings are usually over-rendered. So, naturally I tend towards choosing the old books of both my and my mother's childhoods like Herbert The Lion or The Story About Ping. But we've read those books so many times that RKFDIL wasn't interested in reading them to her class. We dug through the stacks and nothing was really striking her fancy. She's a girl who is, if she doesn't choose the veil, will marry an intelligent man so her standards are already high. Due to the encroaching dinner hour, I made an executive decision and said "Trust me on these." We checked out Petunia and Veronica for her and The Caboose That Got Loose for our railroad fancier, Little Bertie.

As we were driving out of the library parking lot, RKFDIL was still talking about her desire for a funny book. I said, "Why don't you read Lyle, Lyle Crocodile? The kids will love him and the illustrations are so wonderful." It was then that it hit me. No, it wasn't the the septegenarian sociopath in the brand new grey Mustang GT tooling back through the parking to do in another poor unsuspecting soul's automobile but it was Dirty Harry that hit me!

"RKFDIL, you can read Harry the Dirty Dog to your class! She said,"Yes Mommy! I want to read Harry. He's so funny." With that I turned out of the parking lot and on to the road. She said, "Mommy, where are we going? We need to go back in the library and get Harry." "No we don't." I replied. "Where are we going?" she asked. "To the bookstore." I flatly stated. Little Bertie, suddenly coming to life piped up with, "Hey, I thought we weren't the type of people who go to the bookstore to just to buy books to read at school." "We're not. But we are the type of people who go to the bookstore to buy Harry the Dirty Dog books and guess what Little Bertie, I'm buying you one too." "Yeah, I get a book too. I get a book too..." Little Bertie started singing.

To be continued...

Mrs. P