Ronald

Rodger,

I'm fat, ugly and unemployed. I'm so lonely I just can't take it anymore. I've got nothing going for me. How do I begin to change things?

--Ronald


Dear Ronald,

As a young lad in Londontown, I didst in the course of my regular carousing and merry-making oft enjoy the company of a man called Ronald Pumfrey. He wast a good and jolly fellow, and much sought by the menfolk of Shoreditch as a drinking companion, being possessed as he was of a gift for the relating of tales at once suspenseful and bawdy, humorous and tearful. His good humor and wicked jest wast more infectious than the syphilis that didst in 1615 render mad a goodly portion of the vicars and alterboys in Fleet Street. His jibes and raconteuring were of such quality that he couldst in the course of an evening avail himself of a square meal and many pints of good ale--and make payment for naught. Those men who were about him didst fairly clamour to settle of his debts at night's end.

The charity and goodwill Mr. Pumfrey didst enjoy was quite a boon unto him, and most ironical in that he needed it not. For sooth, he wast the most successful pimp of Shoreditch, and didst have in his stable two-score comely whores who couldst in but a week's time line his purse with much of three pounds. I didst see with mine own eyes how the whores didst fight amongst themselves and jostle to be but close to him. To a wench they didst wish of life solely to be his ladywife, and failing that, to have him ride them most strenuously for as long a duration as wouldst not render him dead. Merry, he paid them not a penny, but still they didst happily shag every Tom, Dick or Harry who didst pass by, only that they might stay within his good graces.

Perhaps that which wast most remarkable concerning Mr. Pumfrey wast the very appearance of his personage. Firstly, he wast quite short. I should be much surprised if he couldst hunker upon the toilet for a goodly shit and have not this toes dangle high above the floor. He also was much bloated and corpulent, and foul odors didst issue without every orifice of his person. But one eyebrow he didst possess, and it runneth in a most crooked and inconsistent track from just above one ear to near that portion of the opposite side of his face where his hair didst begin to grow. His visage haveth great craters caused by cowpox, and of teeth he had but three. And yet never I saw a man more confident in his demeanor, more full of respect for his own person.

In short, he wast not laid low by that which God hath failed to bestow upon. He tooketh the few gifts he didst but have and turned them into bounty.

I relateth this tale because the outstanding personage within in wast called Ronald, as art thou. However, there endeth the similarities. I counsel thee to commit suicide.