Ungrounded Outlet

Hello, ladies! Are you tired of having a great boyfriend? Are you bored with always being satisfied in bed? Do you wish that you could be the attractive one when you go out? Are your friends jealous of your good fortune (and your good taste)?

Congratulations! You may have just stumbled upon the answer to all of these problems!

Yes, James Williams is single and on the market! James is a true American man. Indeed, he’s two hundred and sixty pounds of American, meeting or beating all major national statistics on obesity. But just because he’s 2.5 times the size of your last boyfriend, don’t think that he will be 2.5 times more useful around the house. Because he has proven useless at all traditional “man jobs”: everything from fixing leaky faucets to killing spiders has been too formidable a task for James at one time or another. You’ll need not fear being trapped in traditional gender roles as long as he’s around!

Perhaps you’ve grown weary of your boyfriend being the life of every party while you take a back seat. Those days are long over! Should James even manage to make it to a party, he’ll spend the entire time staring at the floor. The limelight will finally be yours!

And of course you like having your picture taken! James is rarely far from his camera and he will take shots of you in everyday situations from every angle and at every conceivable exposure setting. Don’t bother asking him to stop: he knows you don’t really mean it!

Don’t be fooled by this laundry-list of fantastic qualities, however. Nothing is perfect and neither is James. Should you choose to make him yours, you’ll need to deal with several unfortunate flaws:

If Jerry Springer has taught us anything, it’s that women love a good cat-fight over “their man”. You may noticed the long line of eager ladies at his door, but be assured that most of them just want to sell him magazine subscriptions. It’s a profitable method of fundraising.

While James has a good job with a decent income, he loves giving presents to those he cares for. You will often find yourself lavished with useless trinkets of affection and may become irate when James insists on paying for dinner.

James’ family is crazy in ways that are different from your family’s crazy. This may take some adjustments on your part.

Above, James used the first “crazy” as an adjective and the second as a noun just to confuse readers. He thinks jokes about syntax and grammar are hi-freaking-larious.

James uses words like “hi-freaking-larious” in completely non-ironic ways.

James is not nearly as funny as he thinks he is.

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As you have undoubtedly realized by now, James has a lot of options and must be very discriminating in selecting his special lady friend. To ensure quality, the following test will be administered to all applicants.

Test:

1) Complete the following sentences or phrases:

1a) “All your base…”

1b) “Help me Obi-wan Kinobi…”

1c) “We few, we happy few…”

1d) “Out. For. A. Walk. _____.”

2) How many lights are there?

3) From which movie did James take the phrase “special lady friend”?

4) Diagram the following sentence: “Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.”

5) Which well-known linguist famously noted the beauty of the phrase “cellar door”?

6) Where did the title for this post come from?

7) Would you seriously consider dating someone who can answer all these questions (and more!)?

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For your convenience, an answer key has been provided.

Answer key:

1a) “…are belong to us.”

1b) “…you’re my only hope.”

1c) “…we band of brothers.” “…we band of buggered.” is also acceptable.

1d) “Bitch.”

2) There are four lights.

3) The Big Lewbowski

4) See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Buffalosentencediagram.svg with a reasonably advanced browser.

5) J.R.R. Tolkien

6) Mahir

7) Yes. (Note: To ease James’ workload, this is the only answer that will be graded.)