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April 02, 2008 |
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A Pox on Your Business
FOUND by Alicia Toldi
in San Mateo, California
I found this outside a closed boutique in West Hollywood.
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We collect FOUND stuff: love letters, birthday cards, kids' homework,
to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, telephone bills, doodles -
anything that gives a glimpse into someone
else's life. Anything goes...
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Have to wonder if the "meaness" thus indicated had anything to do with picking apart spelling errors. I, however, shall refrain, lest they put a plague on my house.
That "&" sign is very interesting, though - it looks like some sort of planetary glyph.
I like the hierarchy of emphases: 1 underscore for "pox"; 2 underscores for "shame"; but a big whopping 3 underscores for "meaness."
And I guess the last words are "you business" but they could be "you lousiness" couldn't they? That would fit the tenor of the note.
The ampersand looks like it was made with one continuous pen stroke - and makes my wrist hurt just thinking about it, rather like whiplash in the wrist.
@Librarian, I read "business" first, too, but believe it to be "lousiness" due to context. I don't think the note had anything to do with the closed boutique, but it does make one wonder who and what honked-off the writer.
I thought it was a pox on you lousiness, which sounds good to me too. A pox is like a boil, or a pustule right? Very gross. That's a good hex to put on someone. If you try hard enough it will work.
Like someone said yesterday, "the safest thing to do is use a condom", or you might get a pox on your "business."
Isn't pox plural for pock?
A pock on your business.
Pox on your business. (Not "a pox".)
Do curses really work in a written note? Don't you need to add some witchcraft or voodoo?
Carry on.
If it was business that the writer was referring to than that would be one hideous pox...
I thought it was a pox on your lousiness, too.
I think the tense is right, tho, 'a pox on you' is a common olde worlde curse. I think, anyway, i could be wrong.
I read “you Lousiness,” as being used in the same context as “you Cad,” “you Fiend,” or “you Dankish Doghearted Codpiece!” The recipient of this note is Lousiness personified. It doesn’t get anymore Lousy: They might as well legally change their name. Poxy Lousiness… Paints a vivid picture don’t it?
Monkeywrench, that could be your stripper name.
Meanness and cruelty? Lousiness?
What was the boutique selling?
Diseased animals fed on unrefrigerated leftovers?
Dead deer with parasites?
Deceased parrots?
Maybe the writer left the note while the business was still functioning, and the curse worked.
Jonathan, you don't have cookies, either?
I see a WeHo rent boy getting thrown out of a fancy boutique trying to steal a large fancy fuzzy coat. He is ridiculed by everyone nearby and runs off to his black ju-ju practicing pimp's grandmother for a conjuring in the likes that street has never seen. And although he's told to keep his intentions secret, he can't help but to declare the meanness he's put on them. Tsk Tsk, conjure under the radar scorn rent boy.
@Mona: I'm not sure whether to laugh or be offended by that suggestion...
@Monkeywrench, well I snorted my ice water through my nose and all over my keyboard and the cat.
@Mona and Jonathan, since I appear to work in a cookie-friendly environment, I'd happily share with you - if only it were possible.
Monkeywrench, given the choice, i usually choose laugh. Being offended only makes you feel bad, not the offender, usually. And i meant it humourously.
I want your cookies, Freonz.
@Freonz: Good enough for me. *commences to giggle*
(I second the cookie offer: For some reason all my coworkers placed orders for Girl Scout cookies and then went on diets as soon as the shipments arrived. 15 boxes are slowly going stale even as I type this.)
@Mona and Monkeywrench, I suppose it would torque off your IT depeartment if we started fooling around with your browser setting and allowed cookies for Found. I don't take cookies from everywhere; I'm just not that kinda girl.
If I got this note, I'd walk around saying "meaness penis" all day.
Okay, so I had to go to urbandictionary.com and look up we-ho..
so for those of you similarly challenged, it's short for West Hollywood, which is densely populated with Gay Boiis.
As for Rent Boy, the first def. on urban dictionary reads thusly: A man who sells himself for money...or crack. whichever the case may be. Rent boys are often involved with peedy potter. (oh great. another lookup on URban dictionary.. and this, apparently, is: Someone who downloads images from the internet on his/her speedy peedy connection, and then proceeds to take the incestuous, underage, pornographic images into his/her high school.)
Take what you need and leave the rest.
This new generation is an amazing entity.
I got cookies!! Apparantly, if I sign in at the bottom, it works, but at the top it doesn't???
Anywho, I love this theme that's developing - "boo to you," "curse you & your family," "a pox on you." Medieval insults are off the beaten path and therefore much more effective than the common "Eff you and the horse you rode in on."
@kc, that's odd since I can't sign in at the bottom but can at the top.
Re "Eff you and the horse..." I prefer "Eff you with the horse...". But Monty Python came to mind when you first mentioned medieval insults, something about mother's smelling of elderberries.
hey kc try this out for size:
http://www.william-shakespeare.org.uk/a1-shake
Mona, I leave my cookies at home. In my office I try to keep a low (or slim!) profile -- so I don't push my luck.
Thanks, Freon... I have my slice of Ryvita, and a wee flapjack I'm saving for the intermission.
Not to mention the Scotch and toast when I get home at midnight.
I've only just noticed the misspelling (or mispeling) of 'meaness'.
Thanks, Terrie -- that would be as in 'ppiness' a few days back??
Jonathan, i never thought of a flapjack as a food to eat during intermission. The maple syrup would get everywhere. Unless english flapjacks are different than canadian ones.
Freonz, thanks, you probably would torque them out. That would just make things difficult. Like Jonathan, i'll try to keep a low profile.
KC, Freonz.... some people are bottoms, some are tops. I'm neither, apparently.
Your father smells of elderberry!
Somebody's been using the Shakespearean Insulter: http://www.pangloss.com/seidel/Shaker/
"If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry."
(I tend to think that marriage, itself is a plague, but I'm just jaded and cynical.)
Thanks for the link, Pamplona! 'Tis hilarious!!
I read "business", also it's looks like "& cruelty" followed by a ____. As though the recipient could add another word if they wished to do so. But I assume it's just another of the endless underlines from "meaness"
Jonathan,
It's not pining, it's passed on. This parrot is no more. It has ceased to be. It's expired and gone to meet its maker. This is a late parrot. It's a stiff. Bereft of life, it rests in peace. If you hadn't nailed it to the perch, it would be pushing up the daisies. Its metabolic processes are now of interest only to historians! He's off the twig! He's kicked the bucket, he's shuffled off his mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible! THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!!!
"your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries, I fart in your general direction you son of a silly person"
Peepul of zee world, RELAX!!!
Just don't have sex with the parrot. It could get smoky.
I once saw a bird just fall off a power line and hit the ground. Not something you see alot of but I think that qualifies as "off the twig".
(Pox on you, Smokey Robinson, for making my use the dictionary...)
i just used this cool note on my mean nefew and it was so appropriate
or "meaness" could be feminine form of "meanie". as in chief blue meanie. non?
Methinks "a pox" is appropriate as there be so many poxes to put upon people of meaness (sic) and cruelty, from the benign to the fatal:
chicken pox
sheep pox
cow pox
small pox
And there are the lesser known poxes as well, all suitable as their own curses for their own circumstances:
beat pox
pox and bagels
jack in the pox
sleep in a pox (under the freeway)
Chicago white pox
Boston red pox
school of hard pox
Pick your poison. Pick your pox.
On second thought, don't pick your pox. It'll scar.
Business, or lousiness?
This nit picker picks "lousiness" (and his pox). There is something so old world if the note curses poxes and decries infestations of lice.
You're just plain lousi.
"UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN! Sickness and misery will follow you!! Vermin! UNCLEAN!!"
Its business. I know because I have lazy handwriting too and my letters don't always connect. When you start writing fast, your letters often look like something other than what you intended.
Let this be a warning to all my fellow workers of the retail industry - bad customer service just might mean a case of the pox. You only think its over when the pissed off customer storms out of your store.
that's an awesome ampersand.
(... AND I have a cookie-friendly environment! but this thang stopped recognizing me, and refuses 'til this day. hmph. tantrum over...)
It's the Business of Lousiness (I read 'lousiness' first too)
JASON! I'm tired of being patient!! (And you've added another Found-a-Day without even telling me about it!!) (I guess I fibbed; I'm still pouting at least!)
thx
Well, if I can't be RED, at least I can still be READ.
--[Low threshold of humour]
Thou infectious malmsey-nosed gudgeon!
OMG! I love insults that I can throw out & make people think.
"Avoid the pox. Jimmy Dugan" "That's good advice!"
Its written on graph paper.
The first three lines show some reason, but the fourth line just negates it all with a silly display of magical thinking.
@ So Clever:
You're as sly as a pox.
I really want it to say "lousiness", but judging by the way the first two letters are connected at the bottom, I think it is "business". Either way, it's certainly an archaic way to voice displeasure!
@Captain - Haha. Isn't pox a standard-issue dowry now?
@Mona - good luck with the cookies. (Perhaps a glass of warm milk next to the computer will tempt them to make an appearance...)
Camelia, do you still have the welcome email? Maybe (if you haven't already). You could find the cookie and delete it and then try to go through the email again and set a new cookie?
Jonathan, I really want to say that I know this 'ppniness' to which you refer. And I fear that because I must have missed that one and I want to say "meaness penis" I must be messed up or something. Actually, I was reminded of "heinous penis" which doesn't rhyme, but it's pronounced like it. I think I heard that on a movie or something.
Or..I'm messed up.
Quick question from a new kid--why are some of you in red and others aren't?
Welcome, some girl in a dorm room! Some of us are in red because we've registered and are signed in. Some are in black because they're posting without signing in. Hope you'll stick around for the antics.
Cheers!!!
It is indeed "a pox on--", a fine old Elisabethan curse. Pox originally meant syphillis, however that is spelled. "A pox o' your throat, you blasphemous dog" is from Othello.
If the business is closed, the "pox" may have come upon it, indeed!
"Lord, have mercy on us." I can't do the lazarhouse cross on here, though--no graphics.
thanks, plutonium. I'll try that milk thing.
Clean-YES! Germs-NO!
Terrie -- here's the 'ppiness':
http://www.foundmagazine.com/comments/5959
wish I hadn't gone back there now. *shudder*
Ah. It has all become clear to me. I didn't read that far into the find. I read 3 or 4 lines and then decided that that person was not from Texas,that person was high and I don't want to read the ramblings of meth addicts because it drives me crazy enough just trying to figure out what they're talking about, when they talk to me (which is far, far too often).
Sorry, ppiness is good, but "meaness penis" is from own twisted head. But now I'm thinking of revising. "Meaness Ppiness" will be my new can't-stop-saying-(or at least thinking)-phrase.
Terrie-soo-Very,
You're probably right... and I do have my "welcome" email (tho' I too had to fetch it outta the 'junk' box)... and it WORKED at first!!
Jason has writ to me a few times (I still have those too), most recently thanking me for patience whilst this gets fixed - a WEEK ago or more... (yep, I'm still whining.)
I'm rather concerned about 'deleting' cookies (I'm not technically very hip), but my OtherBoards are simple & I could sign back up I'm sure...
Anyway -- re: Ampersands.. When I was a highschool kiddle:
1. I found that I was in LESS trouble if I was caught doodling, if I doodled words (balloon-style, whatever), because the teacher probably thought that their words were so-very inspiring that I couldn't stop myself fm doodling.
2. As far as printing & stuff goes, *I* thought the only character to write that you could have any personal-artistic-license was the ampersand. I think I copied someone else's style - but I did one backwards, all loopy.
--- and I guess I was the only one who thought that I could be creative with that (until the FOUND writer above), because I caught untold s*... uh... corrections over the years until I stopped doing that (or else I stopped writing notes that had ampersands in 'em).
The most common comment was "this ampersand is backwards!!"
Us grammar-cops can sure spot 'em, eh? even if it's punctuation!!
Camelia, I relate...I caught an enormous and unnecessary amount of flak in the small Midwestern town where I was raised, for crossing my sevens! Oh! The horror! You would have thought a crossed seven was the mark of the Beast at the very least! It was taken as a sign of total rebellion...which is what it was..but for a kid who was never allowed to wear jeans or sneakers, drive a car or listen to rock music because of "the elders'" beliefs, it was pretty small beer. I could have smoked, drank and chased the opposite sex, or at least got a tattoo...but no, I CROSSED my SEVENS!!
How dare I.
I still do, too.
Dear DormGal: The (chosen!) ones in red have registered & signed in (right above the name-location sign-in-thingy).
BabyB in D Garden:
In solidarity with BabyB -- I will return to crossing my sevens! (besides, if you write really fast sometimes a cross-less 'seven' gets confused with a 'one')
p.s. I *HATE* some of these math spam-protect questions! I had to re-sign in 'cause I had nooo clue!
Also, dorm girl, the names in red are links to that user's profile. it's not necessary to register, but if you do, whenever you post when you're signed in, your posts are updated on your profile. It's pretty cool.
Most of the time I'm too lazy to sign in, though.
I don't think people who spell meanness "meaneness" also use words like "lousiness".
Just came back to say THANKS to Terrie-So-Very... I finally got brave, and followed your advice.
I went into Cookie-Land -- and erased the block my 'puter had that was especially for this site!!
Now I've gotta be careful, 'cause I'm not always 100% A-nony-mouse.
(but no more stoopid questions! like "what number comes before...?"
haha.
funnyyyy.