"Yeah . . . I Didn't Get It" Says N. Syde Joake; Cap'n Neurotic Cheat Sheet , Book Monkey Edition

As suspected, after reading yesterday's post, Zinger brought up a few quotes that had slipped my mind; think I'll save those for my final, miscellaneous grab-bag post on the topic. For now, let's take a look at the things which usually only make sense to The Book Monkeys.

This list feels a bit anemic compared to the previous two, especially since I know the Book Monkeys are rife with inside jokes and running gags; heck, that's pretty much all my Infinite Monkey Press web-page* was based on. Perhaps it's just that the Book Monkeys tended to burn through our running gags quickly; perhaps the other things stuck longer in my mind because they occurred during my younger days; perhaps I'm just suffering from a failure of memory and as soon as I post this my brain will be flooded with a ton of things to add to a follow-up post; or perhaps most of them were just too situation-specific to carry on beyond the group. After all, always exclaiming "poppets!" in a Boston accent when puppets are in view doesn't really translate well without the requisite backstory . . . of course, neither does speaking in a British accent and insisting on calling it a "Boston" accent. Trust me, you had to be there for that one. And, as entertaining as it always was to find different ways to torment Bubblegum Tate by calling Jen from Dawson's Creek a "ho," it's not exactly something that loans itself to everyday conversation.

Quick digression: my favorite "Jen's a ho" gag was when Michelle Williams did a Christmas themed photo-shoot dressed as Mrs. Clause; we took the image, photoshopped it a tad, and made it the front desk computer wallpaper right before Tate's shift, so that as soon as he sat down he was confronted with a pic of Christmas Jen with a word balloon proclaiming she was a Ho Ho Ho.

Good times, good times.

All right, think that's enough filler; on with the other stuff.

You Lie! You lie all the time!: This is a quote from The Bad Seed, which many of the Book Monkeys got together to watch at one of The Mag's "Dinner and a Movie" nights.

The Hunge Many moons ago, Rebel Monkey sent a message about being consumed by hunger, but a typo turned it into "hunge" instead; deciding she liked it, The Hunge became part of our own brand of Book Monkey lEEt speak.

LCPH Our own addition to the ranks of LOL, ROFL, ROFL, etc. This one stands for "Laughing Cervical Pillow Hard." Yes, there's a story behind that.

RCoS Another Rebel Monkey coinage, this stood for Random Change of Subject, a clarifying acronym that was often necessary during our online chats to warn the other participant "okay, veering off into strange waters now."

People are no damn good. This one is Rose Hips the Enforcer's standard answer for why people screw you over.

You can't do that! If I had a nickel for every time I heard The Mag say this in incredulous tones; sometimes it's in response to people's behavior, sometimes it's in response to stupid plot points, sometimes it's in response to people spelling "light" as "lite". I admit that I rarely say this phrase, but I do often hear The Mag's voice in my head during appropriate situations; it was practically drowning out the horror that was Sound of Thunder.

Hola! While waiting in line for La Vibora at Six Flags last year, we witnessed a teenage girl trying to "communicate" with a group of Hispanics in line next to her; basically, she turned to one of them and just kept saying "Hola!" over and over again in the most bubbled-headed voice I've ever heard this side of Melody on Josie and the Pussycats until they finally got tired of ignoring her and grudgingly acknowledged her. We just stood in slack-jawed wonder at her condescension as she talked down to them, almost as if by deigning to grace them with her attention she were reaching out to the "little people." Anyway, for the rest of our S.X.S.F. trip "Hola!" became a sort of "Duh! Hello!" phrase for us.

Ready Randy? Ready Joan. This quote comes from the "Tabula Rasa" episode of Buffy where all the Scooby gang lose their memories, and Spike and Buffy decide that their names are Randy and Joan; for quite a while after seeing this ep, any inquiries into my preparedness from The Mag was phrased as "Ready Randy?", to which I would immediately reply "Ready Joan." Yes, we're geeks, deal with it.

*For the record, the Incredibly Curious Duo was all Rebel Monkey's doing in order to torment Kookamama who was always griping about our inside jokes; the rest of the insanity I claim for my own.