(Ed. Note–Yes, the Judge keeps coming back–LA)

Versatur Circa Quid blinkers!

This week I examine the dipsomaniacal phantom known as the Tippleganger (aka, “Tips” for stumbling tongues). Until a dubious Feline named Rebecca Nurse “accidentally” toppled my gold gilt gavel on my pate from a luggage compartment in a train, which resulted in my infinite transformation, I’d never experienced ill health in my ninety-two years. I attribute that to my round the clock consumption of applejack (for medicinal purposes, mind you), two quarts a day from infancy on. I was born in 1810 (the last of twenty seven–the only to make adulthood), and the water in my home village of Hanged Crone contained so many amoebas that they were visible. My mother understood that applejack neither “moved” nor immediately killed you upon consumption. Therefore the Miracle of Me occurred, perhaps twenty-six instances later than it could have. (We did not know about microbiology, so, the elders–also jack imbibers–figured, naturally, that the moving slime was due to witchery and hanged the unpopular segment of the population.)

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Tipplegangers specialize in entering the alcohol weakened minds of the flagrantly fatuous for the purpose of the creation of Big Ideas that lead to “interesting” actions, acts whose attractions vanish upon completion. Tipplegangers prize what they call a heeding. The more heedings a Tip can accumulate the higher in esteem he is amongst his own kind. And yes Virginia, that is sexist language!

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Tipplegangers are usually pleased by their results, but really, where is the art equal to that of a phantom such as, say, a Quillemender? What degree of difficulty is accomplished when you convince a backwoods oaf, three days into “corn squeezins,” to strip naked and run inside a church on Sunday morn’ and shout “I’m here for the gang bang, Mister Jesus”? Nae, my underlings, that is poorman’s haunting and not up to the Quillish standard.

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“The mayor has announced that Saturday will be the first annual peasant shoot!”

There, my subordinates is subtle Quillemending; only the deletion of an H was needed to cause all kinds of turmoil. In my learned opinion (aka, factual) there is little subtlety in convincing a beer soaked dolt that singing “Endless Love” at three A.M. in the yard of the girl who placed a restraining order* on him earlier in the day is an excellent idea. He actually believed that life was an 80’s movie. And although I keep up on modern times, I plainly understand that people are just as idiotic now as they were then. Regardless, thanks to the dullard’s low tolerance for fermentation, that grave was already dug, the Tip simply rolled the corpse into it and claimed a heeding.

(*Whilst I sat on the bench, the only “restraining orders” involved stocks, rope and chains.)

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In summary, the next time you wake and immediately regret posting items such as wondering how Siamese Twins choose which one cleans their shared anus after defecation on your company’s workboard overnight, or similar gems likely to end your employment, rest assured you have heeded a Tippleganger. If a perfectly clean, soberly written, but poorly proofed missive is emended to read equally offensive, you have been blessed by the touch of the Quillemender. Perhaps the difference will not impress the HR department, but you will know.

Versatur Circa Quid!

The Judge