Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Adjectives Fail Me



I just don't know what to say. This is a clipping from the old scrapbook that I bought while antiquing in Reno. I'll transcribe it for you. I really don't know what to say. I'll let you decide.

A GAY DECEIVER FALLS INTO TRAP

For some years various ladies of Los Banos and vicinity have been annoyed from time to time by advances from a would be "masher." He has been, and might continue to be, a useful and influential citizen, but on account of this habit, his inordinate vanity, and the firm belief that his attentions are acceptable to old and young, married and unmarried alike, he has injured his reputation and destroyed his influence for good in this community.

A few days ago a lady whom he approached determined to ridicule him and let him "see himself as others see him," or rather to let "others see him as he sees himself." She staged a play that any moving picture would have been glad to secure and perhaps did secure, a la Fatty Arbuckle.

She admitted him softly at the door into a darkened room as per agreement at 7:30 p.m. sharp, stepped aside, and he was received into the arms of a Kimono-clad young man! A moment later, when the lady switched on the lights - behold the "masher" hugging the lady's substitute, who was ducking his head around to avoid the attempted kisses!! Somebody called out "Break" when Mr. Masher fell back paralyzed, gazed a moment at the young man and laughing lady, glanced around the room at the masked assembled audience, backed out of the door and disappeared into the night, followed by jeers and laughter of the witnesses within and without.

~unsigned, undated. However, another clipping on the same page is dated 1911~

4 comments:

  1. Los Banos doesn't mess around with issues of un-requited lust.

    ReplyDelete
  2. hahahaha. Zach, your comment is as funny as the story.

    ReplyDelete