"A Tale Of Two Nitwits"
It was the best of times,
and then some crap happened.
Everybody loved Father FitzMother, the old Irish priest.
When his high voice sang out “Top o’ the mornin to ya”
it would put a smile on a constipated leprechaun.
Then one day folks noticed
he said it when nobody was around.
He said it to squirrels.
He said it to doorknobs.
A brutal killer admitted his crimes in the confessional,
and the aged priest gave him a “Top o’ the mornin’ to ya”.
The criminal flew into a rage
and the good father was rushed to the ER
with a clay pipe lodged in his lower intestine.
They gave him a strong anesthetic,
not for pain,
but to shut him up.
It was like having a crazy parrot.
No longer able to fulfill his priestly duties,
he turned to crime
He would toss his manic “Top o’ the mornin’ to ya”
at strangers on the street.
They would smile back while he picked their pockets.
He was arrested and sent to the nut camp,
where he was diagnosed
as having a rare and stupid form of Tourette’s Syndrome.
He was released as “harmless, but annoying”.
He was homeless for a while,
but the other homeless people would leap into dumpsters
when he approached.
Harriet Freehorn was a seventy-nine year old widow,
and a former parishioner of Father F..
She was also deaf as a yak in heat...
a deaf yak.
Harriet thought her ex priest was just being affectionate
when he was picking her pockets.
She couldn’t hear what he was saying.
To make a long story dumber,
they moved in together,
her hearing was miraculously restored,
and the first words she heard were these:
“Top o’ the mornin’ to ya”.
She thought it was cute
for about twenty minutes,
and then she beat him to death with a stuffed owl.
As he was dying,
he opened his eyes,
and with his last breath,
whispered “Oh, crap”.
Copyright © June 27, 2003, Jack Blanchard. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.
