CORT  DISTORT

(With sincere apologies to one of my top two favorite characters)

"Disgusting!" Herod roared, holding up the collar with the offending dark

ring around the, well, collar. "Have you never heard of BLEACH?"

Completely dejected, he left the saloon, walking uncaring into yet another of the

desert town's frequent downpours. How he'd hoped...how desperately...that this time,

this ONE time they might have had decaffeinated teabags. But...it was not to be.

"HOW big?" Herod asked, not really believing what Cort had told him about Ellen's hips.

He could not, he just could NOT resist a peek. Lawdamercy, he'd never seen a woman with

THAT on her behind before!"

"No, Ellen," he gasped, "I will NOT finish my peas."

"Look, Cort," Herod said grumpily, his fingers searching for a way under his tightly-belted coat.

"If you fork over the calamine for this damned poison ivy I got from Ellen last night after dinner,

I'll  have Ratsy only break ONE hand."

"Look," he said, growing a bit impatient at Ellen's constant urging him to go faster, "when I find my
cat's eye shooter, THEN I'll come upstairs. Sheesh!"

"PLEASE! NOOO!" he begged, shameless in his despair, his very horror that Ellen might do...it...again.

"YOU there!" he said, his voice low, menacing. "I don't think this page was such a good idea for Libris."

Damn, but Herod's little game of bobbing for apples in whiskey really stung the eyes!

"Come OUT!" he ordered, but the kitten only moved back further under the bed.

He was beginning to get a strange feeling that doing his tap routine atop the chair might not win

the contest after all.

Only Herod would be so diabolical. In the middle of filming his "GOT MILK?" commercial,

Cort discovered the glass contained only water. What would he do for a white moustache NOW?

"What's this?" he asked blankly, not having expected something quite so large in his Cracker Jack box.

"Look," he said, backing up as far as he could get against the wall, "I can explain. "

It was no use. He'd never hit high C again. Not after the hanging.

Would it work? Would it really enable him to remember Ellen's bra size long enough

for him to make it to the mall?

Drat!  He was in a hurry and the cab he was hailing had pulled over for Ellen instead.

Had to be those skin-tight leather pants.  Cabbies could never resist those.

Cort was sorry, truly he was. But the shoe store didn't carry his size

In the evenings, he earned his keep by hauling leather pouches to the mill. He was too tired to care

what they contained. He was only glad they didn't leak.

"All right," he gasped. "I give up. I'll get a hair cut."

"Hold it right there, Mister," he said, the eye in the back of his head carefully covered by

perfectly-shaped hair.

He'd told her he was sorry, hadn't he? But Ellen kept on shouting.

"You see these hard water stains?" he spat angrily. He'd told Herod, more than once he had,

not to kill the Culligan Man.

Damn, damn, damn! If he didn't find his contacts, how would he EVER be able to

see the clock?

All day he'd waited patiently, hanging around the salad bar, waiting for them to

refill the cauliflower container. 

"She's not makin' any MORE of these, is she?"

BACK TO LIBRISCROWE

BACK TO OREGANO, A MANGLED MAXIMUS TALE

BACK TO HATNAPPERS, A TORTURED TERRY TALE

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