Underheard: Old Friends You Just Met

From the desk of Broderick Mitchell -- 

I found myself in bed at 2 a.m. last week, trying to tell the further adventures of those two dead boys getting up to fight. While I remember bits and pieces of the great speeches, prologues, and preambles forced upon me in high school, I have no problem reciting this lovely little ditty at the kick of a hat:

One bright day in the middle of the night,

Two dead boys got up to fight.

Back to back, they faced each other,

Drew their swords and shot each other.

The deaf policeman heard the noise,

Came and shot the two dead boys.

If you don't believe this lie is true,

Ask the blind man, he saw it too. 

I wondered who originally wrote this - more so, if it even had a source - and found some history from the Blind Pig and the Acorn blog:

"As to the history of "One Fine Day…" it appears to have evolved from tangle-worded couplets that have been popular in Miracle Plays and the folklore and folksongs of the British Isles since the Middle Ages. Tiddy, in his book The Mummers' Play [1923, Oxford, Oxford University Press], cites the earliest known example of this type of humour as appearing in the manuscript of Land of Cockaigne about 1305 [Tiddy 1923, p. 116] and a 15th century manuscript in the Bodleian Library [MS Engl. poet. e. 1: c.1480] includes four lines that are directly related to our rhyme.

In one form or another, the modern version of Two Dead Boys, including many of the orphan pieces found below, has been collected from children in playgrounds since the middle of the 19th century. A detailed study with examples collected throughout the British Isles since the turn of the 20th century can be found in Iona and Peter Opie's The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren [1959, Oxford. Oxford University Press, pp. 24-29]." 

What follows is the most fully formed version of what I could remember when I finally got out of bed:

Their short fight lasted more than an hour,

And ended inside a one-story tower

Where deaf ...

 

The boys' old friends they had just met

Drove into town in their private jet

They wanted, firsthand, to hear the sight

And learn how what was left was right.

I jotted down other notes, too, but nowhere as complete, including a "cold summer camp," someone who "shed tears dry as the rain," and how "silently they spoke their thoughts."

I don't know what I ate before bed, but I should stop.

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I could cite any commercial, and someone would have a reason why they detest it. Take those Vabysmo commercials, for example. A patient appears to be in the middle of their eye exam when they start talking to no one in particular. Suddenly, they leap up and approach a wall, magically opening an eye-shaped portal in the exam room to another location. Once the patient walks through, it's time for laughs, good times, and appreciating how quickly the medication affects the body.

What I find silly is the ophthalmologist's reaction - or really, the lack thereof. First, the doctor doesn't react to the patient getting up from the check-up. If I blink when I'm not asked to by my eye doctor, he grumbles and says he has to start over. Second, keep an eye (heh) on the doctor once the patient escapes. One commercial shows the doctor calmly standing and turning away. Why is the sudden ability to open a gateway to a tropical island of no interest? And why can't the doctor come, too? I don't expect these things to mirror life one hundred percent, but not reacting is not how anyone would typically respond in this situation. Their lack of response takes me out of this dumb little consumer-driven world they've cobbled together. 

Ah! What if ophthalmologists can't see the eye-shaped portal in the pharmaceutical commercial cinematic universe? Do their patients suddenly vanish in a (ahem) blink of the eye?

Do we need a pharmaceutical commercial cinematic universe? Discuss.

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I saw someone with an invisible dog leash toy over the Fourth of July weekend. I didn't know they still made those. That, or that's a really old dog.