Debby Does Corning

"I am still of opinion that only two topics can be of the least interest to a serious and studious mood - sex and the dead."

-William Butler Yeats

That the caption to this morning's post riffs off the title of one of the most famous X-rated films of the 1970s tells you your author's mind wanders into the gutter occasionally. Or, given that I never actually saw the movie, that my sense of humor never advanced beyond about the eighth grade.

Poor Peg. Married to an old fighter pilot. There will always be an adolescent hiding behind these crow's feet and the white beard.

Debby has in fact arrived here in the Southern Tier. We first encountered the rain as we drove down the hill from the condo a little before five this morning, Peg curled up in the passenger seat beside me trying to steal a few minutes of sleep during the hourlong trip. I love being on the road that time of day, the world asleep except for the lights in the kitchens of the dairy farmhouses, the hills in outline, all silent and still until we reach the interstate at Cohocton to follow the river valley southeast to where the Cohocton River and the Canisteo combine to form the Chemung, which flows through the middle of Corning.

This morning felt a little edgier than most, with the rain picking up to a torrent and I-390 busy with semis weaving in the winds that are all that remains of the hurricane that arrived in Perry Monday morning. I drove a little slower than usual, maybe because I'd spent a chunk of yesterday dissecting a crash case in which a guy died in a head-on collision with a dump truck. Finally we arrived home, and it's been raining in sheets ever since. It's a day that cries out for a book and a nap, but there are bills to pay so that won't happen.

Like much of the planet, I've enjoyed the coverage of the French pole vaulter's five seconds of fame during the Paris Olympics this week. Did you miss that one? It seems this young man was manifestly a little better endowed than most of us, in his skin-tight onesie. His approach to the bar appeared flawless, his vault precise. But then his great gift proved his great undoing, and his package knocked down the bar and ended his dreams of a medal.

This was the very moment.

The poor guy has been the butt of a rather predictable body of jokes, from late night TV to the inevitable internet memes. Here's one of the tamer offerings.

All that said, I've been a little disappointed in the T-shirt industry for not capturing the moment in something we can buy and wear to the grocery store. I mean, a diligent internet search just now yielded this rather lame design.

As humor goes, that's a rather blunt instrument, even for my inner middle-schooler.

I've given it some thought this rainy Friday morning, and think I have a design. Not everyone will get it, but those who do will take one look at my chest and burst out laughing the next time I'm in a grocery store in France, or maybe Quebec. Here it is:

J'étais ce sauteur à la perche français

So, at the top is the national symbol of France, the Gallic cock, because of course it is. I'm not even making that up--the design is from the football jersey of the French national team. And if your French is as bad as mine, I'll help you with the translation: "I Am The French Pole-Vaulter".

Who's to say you're not? It'd be a great conversation starter at a church picnic or your kid's kindergarten open house.

Okay, enough off-color putzing around. I have some things on the burner that I'd like to wrap up before P gets home, so she gets a full, undistracted stream of this adolescent foolishness. Happy Friday.