Lost in the night sky

August 24 2020

FRIENDO'S ADVICE

We all have problems in our lives, spanning from the existential to the very mundane, and Friendo, the featureless sexless life-size puppet we use in many of our productions thinks friendo can help.

So we've compiled some of these deep questions in a column we're calling with no creativity whatsoever, "FRIENDO'S ADVICE".

Friendo,

I write to you today for advice, nothing more and nothing less. In my life I have wandered from the path and now find myself lost. When I look to the night sky I no longer see a map, only a jumble of stars that resemble nothing.

So here is the question I pose to you. On a recent shipping adventure I met a young couple on their honeymoon, they were sweet and delicate things who were riding down to Trinidad and Tabago for a week of joliment after their nuptials. We had a laugh and a good time playing shuffleboard, hopscotch and other deck games. But now once we have parted ways my feelings of joy have been replaced by feelings of jealousy, you see my wife and I never had a honeymoon. We married very young and at the time I was an up and coming writer who just landed a job at  the New York Gazette, getting the time off was impossible. So we had a wedding and before you know it thirty years of marriage have passed.

But things have changed since I was a youth and although longer in the tooth, I now find myself in a financial place that I could easily afford a honeymoon. Should I go for it? Or has the mark of time passed us by?

Lost in the night sky

Croton-on-Hudson, New York

Dear Lost,

YES. Yes, human! This is finally, finally my type of question. It has everything - high sea adventures, joliment, nuptials, and hopscotch on the deck of a ship.

To answer your question about your conscious coupling, let us ruminate upon the famed conscious couple Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra VII Philopator, the last active ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt. You might be asking yourself, but Friendo, what lesson about honeymoons can we glean from Cleopatra and Marc Antony? A Roman general who fell upon his own sword during a brutal siege of his pleasure palace, and an inventive young queen who saved her honor from the brutality and cruelty of Roman aristocracy by ordering her own death via poison asp hidden in a basket of figs, the very symbol of Egypt and a moving tribute to her homeland? Well, Cleopatra and Marc Antony lived a brief but sumptuous life - they laid upon silken pillows and drank sweet wines from gilded and bejeweled goblets while scantily-clad servants fanned them with palm leaves and cooled their brows with fine scented oils. You could say that Marc Antony and Cleopatra frankly did nothing but honeymoon!!!!

And thus, the most important lesson we can learn from these ill-fated lovers is to always, always be mindful of the ever-present danger of poisonous snakes. Stay vigilant! Always use a walking stick to tap the path ahead of you, wear over-the-ankle boots and thick socks, and try to avoid dense brush where you might accidentally step on a sheltering snake. And if you order a basket of figs, for God's sake be clear with your devoted handmaidens that you wish it to be snakeless.

I hope that helps, human! Until next time.

Friendo

Do you have a question you'd like to ask the featureless sexless life-size puppet we use in many of our productions?  Indeed, Friendo wishes to advise you.

Please write to spitnvigor@gmail.com.