Je n’ai pas la plume de ma tante

...or, for that matter, de ma mère, mon père, ma soeur, mon frère, or even mon oncle. But I can still write a post, thanks to my trusty old computer and an ergonomically correct keyboard that I bought at a neighbor’s garage sale for ten dollars. It was still encased in its original sealed plastic wrapping, and it cost its original owner $39.00 American. I bought it to lessen the likelihood of my acquiring carpal tunnel syndrome. So far it has been doing its job well.

Why do people buy things and then never use them?

Recently I bought a pair of gray trousers that still had the original tags on them at a consignment shop for $5.00 (original price: $34.00). There was a lot of brand-new clothing in that store along with stuff the proprietors want customers to think has been “gently used” but some of which appeared to have been worn by every member of that huge family on 19 Kids and Counting. I don’t know what exactly it is that The Learning Channel and Mr. and Mrs. Jim Bob (Michelle) Duggar want us to learn from 19 Kids and Counting unless it is “Do as I say, don’t do as I do,” a teaching my father also tried to pass along to me, with little success. I believe a good case could be made that TLC wants us to learn the same lesson from programs like Hoarders and Sister Wives and Toddlers and Tiaras and My Strange Addiction and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

Oh, wait, that last one isn’t on The Learning Channel. It was a horror movie starring the very-long-in-the-tooth actresses Joan Crawford and Bette Davis some years back. I lost my head.

Just like Marie Antoinette, who was executed by guillotine on October 16, 1793. Lest we forget, so was one Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre nine months later on July 28, 1794.

I am rambling.

As Gomer Pyle used to say, “Surprise, surprise!”

Don’t get me wrong. I am all for liberté, égalité, fraternité and all that. But I am very glad on this August 25, 2011 -- some 222 years, 1 month, and 11 days after the storming of the Bastille -- that l’ètat, ce n'est-ce pas moi.

I am gladder still that this film clip (3:04) exists.

If this post makes no sense at all, chalk it up to the guns heat of August.

Here is a picture of Robespierre in drag Marie Antoinette and friend on a bad day a couple of ladies you might recognize.