Frog Applause by Teresa Burritt for September 05, 2023

He had me at “hoop skirts”.

So, is he holding interviews, auditions or selling raffle tickets?

Swipe left!

He’d like to take her for a spinster.

There’s a lot to unpack in the last sentence: “But I don’t know how to do it.”

…of course the woman he finds is always Julie Andrews…

…never Bertha butt…

…one of the Butt sisters…

..and it should be Bertha…

…she’s big and strong…

…can make spaghetti out of only corn…

…and has killed both a mountain lion and a bear…

…she can both sew and stitch…

…and hitch the wagons…

…Marilyn Monroe would be considered fat nowadays…

…and she looks just slightly chunkier …

..her breasts are like snowcapped mountains…

…her perfect teeth white as sheep…

…she can plant with the best of them…

…Bertha is witty with a ruff but fun personality…

…and her dog, Lassie, comes with her as a package deal…

…and is a sturdyship in a storm…

He sounds like a good man and a hard worker. Clearing 18 acres and seeding 10 of them down up in “The County” would be a herculean effort, in a state where the most abundant crop is rocks of unusual size. I speak from experience.

he’s a keeper.

Probably want to check on those potatoes before jumping into anything, though.

He don’t look like the picture…

How do you find stuff like this? It’s amazing!

An American poem.

Well, stand up straight, and make sure you’ve placed your garter belt at an acceptably modest distance up your thigh. Nothing to it.

You are hiding the issue, you are skirting the falling way.

Here’s what I can’t unpack: “I believe in Andy Johnson.”

I’ve found this text before but I’d like to know if the picture is actually associated with it.

A.I. ?

The elk and the elephant play on Broadway.

I am bareatone not saprano.

and so it begins

Anywho will do. For I rule the world and knock on wood.

I simply can’t understand why he won’t buy bread and butter, hoop skirts, and waterfalls for someone of the male persuasion!!

I wonder if he used AI to write that?

This article appeared in a smattering of U.S., UK and Australian newspapers in August of 1865 then sporadically in various places through 1867 in the search that I did. 19th century fake news?

If he clicks his heels three times he may just find himself in OZ!

There’s plenty of Witches, and Fairies and Munchkins…OH MY!

is he trying to impress a woman with his buckwheat ?

I think the concept of mail-order brides was common in 18th and 19th century America. I have a great-great-grandfather who was raised on a small farm in central Missouri. He didn’t go to high school and could barely read and write. He married a woman from Iowa, also from a small farm who I don’t think could read and write. Neither of these families had any money and both had a bunch of children. How did these two meet? Their daughter, my great-grandmother, also seems to have met her husband the same way.

How do you buy a waterfall?

I love how it’s multiple waterfalls he’s offering. One piddly waterfall? Pfffff.

First rate buckwheat and a hooped skirt. I’m intrigued.

With 9 sheep, why would he want to get married …?

( Baaa, Baaa )

Now I had a choice to make. I wasn’t really looking for a cat. I was perfectly fine without one. But the cat was at my window, and I did have some packets of tuna. Should I let it in? Should I put the tuna on a dish and set it outside? And what was with those dreams? Was the cat actually toying with me, or was my mind doing that all on its own. Would there actually be any difference from one option to the other? What was the standard procedure for this? I had no idea how to manage this situation. I felt like a sheltered child of a wilderness family, cast into adulthood without preparation or even a hint of social skills. But come on. It’s just a cat. What could it hurt to have it hanging around? It’s not like it would require a lot of care. It would probably be outside most of the time. I shouldn’t even need to buy litter or get one of those carpeted cat towers. It wouldn’t be living here, just visiting. And it would keep the local area free of verminous creatures. The cat was staring at me as I considered all of this.

If GoComics had trending words, today’s words would be #buckwheat #waterfalls #AndyJohnson #hoopskirts

A little curiosity and a niggling in the back of my memory caused me to look into the word waterfall, since the context in today’s FA seemed too poetic. I found a second meaning for the noun waterfall … a manner of arranging women’s hair, as in long, loose waves. That would go along with the hoop skirt as part of the mid-Nineteenth Century women’s fashion.

So, first, I look. Then, I read.

Looking: gee, this dorky loser looks a lot like Nicholas Cage. (Not a ringing endorsement.)

Reading: He really is a loser, an eighteen year-old who does not know “how to do it,” meaning, after the chuckles die down, how to find the mate he so desires. Hence, this newspaper Want Ad (literally “want”).

My prediction: he will still be without a mate when he turns sixty, but he will have a flourishing farm-estate….

I think I know that guy… :-)

What a catch!