It’s been a while since I posted an update around here. Keep an eye out for the “History of the United Colonies” series of posts to resume soon— I took a break from it at what seemed the natural stopping point of the Colonies’ declaration of independence, but it will be continuing soon.
In the meantime, here’s the latest archive of my ongoing Twitter series, “Dialog Unlikely To Be Used.” I suggest reading in small doses.
Dialog Unlikely To Be Used
- “Surrender now, you have no hope of winning! Our army outnumbers yours 95,467 to 95,466!”
- Sport Unlikely To Be In The Olympics: Cross-country Lawn Mowing.
- Sport Unlikely To Be In The Olympics: Synchronized Tax Accounting.
- Sport Unlikely To Be In The Olympics: Power Napping.
- Sport Unlikely To Be In The Olympics: Peat-bog Volleyball.
- Sport Unlikely To Be In The Olympics: Land Swimming (Butterfly).
- Sport Unlikely To Be In The Olympics: 0.1 meter sprint.
- Sport Unlikely To Be In The Olympics: Platypus Dressage.
- Sport Unlikely To Be In The Olympics: Jello Polo.
- Sport Unlikely To Be In The Olympics: Long-distance Waiting.
- Sport Unlikely To Be In The Olympics: Duct Tape Rolling
- Sport Unlikely To Be In The Olympics: The Marshmallow Throw.
- Sport Unlikely To Be In The Olympics: Full contact Kick Knitting.
- Event unlikely to be a part of the Olympic Closing Ceremonies: The Parade of Medium-Sized Lizards.
- “O Mary darling, your blandness is so ordinary, so wonderfully nondescript!”
- “You best watch yerself— that’s Mad-Dog Bart, the fastest unicycle in the West.”
- “At last, I have succeeded where all before me have failed— I have trained sea cucumbers to perform the ballet!”
- “The real tragedy of this murder, Monsieur Poirot, is that if only the victim had survived, he’d be alive today.”
- “Don’t you hate it when everything seems to be going great, then out of the blue someone tie-dyes your linguini?”
- “We can’t just give up, Doctor, the patient still has a chance! Many have survived worse cases of belly button lint than this!”
- “Stranger, I’m the law in these here parts, and round here we don’t hold with folding napkins that way.”
- “Captain, I’ve found the trouble with the warp engines: someone forgot to feed the hamsters.”
- “I want a divorce, John. I put up with the affairs— but now, you’ve misaligned the magnets on little Timmy’s particle accelerator!”
- “No, Frodo, putting the Ring into an E-Z-Bake Oven will not do the trick.”
- “Watch for the omens! The moon will darken! A sheep will bear spotted lambs! The microwave will cook popcorn slower than usual!”
- “O Great Sage of the Mountain, share with us your ancient wisdom— do these Brussels Sprouts seem overcooked to you?”
- “In all my years as a doctor, I’ve never seen a case of fatal eyelash detonation before.”
- “O Great Sage of the Mountain, give us your wisdom— what is the correct pronunciation of xanthocyanopia?”
- “Will, making the hero a Prince of Denmark instead of a miniature pig was a good idea, but maybe you should also change his name?”
- “Weigh anchor! Hoist every inch of sail! We must reach Gibraltar before the Spanish fleet, or we’ll miss the mahjong tournament!”
- “I am Sir Lancelot of Camelot, and I am on a quest to discover whether a plaid shirt will go with my armor.”
- “Cap’n I cannae change the laws of physics! Warp drive is not actually possible according to General Relativity!”
- “You fool, Jenkins! You’ve activated the fusion reactor without properly adjusting the saddle!”
- “It’s so good to see you again! It’s been such a long time, five of my teeth fell out!”
- “O Mary darling, how can I live without you? Only with enough food, water and oxygen.”
- “Let us now honor the valiant fallen, who gave their lives defending the Kingdom against the Snugglemuffin menace!”
- “Recall the old advice: feed a cold, starve a fever. Ice a sprain, stretch a cramp, insult a hangnail, perform Rigoletto for a…”
- “In my day, school focused on the Three Rs— Readin’, Ritin’, and Reactor Control System Software Design.”
- “Don’t touch the red wire or the bomb will go off. Instead, lightly stroke the blue wire and say it’s a good wire, a happy wire.”
- “This is it, Alpha Squad, we’re out of time. We’ve got to retake the enemy stronghold BEFORE the Hollandaise sauce breaks!”
- “This is the proof, Smythe! We’ve uncovered the fabled Temple of Pino-Palo! It’s the only explanation for the logo on the T-shirt!”
- Rejected lines from Shakespeare: “Cry havoc, and let slip the tree sloths of war!”
- Rejected lines from Shakespeare: “Alas, poor Yorick! I dated his sister that one time, Horatio.”
- Rejected lines from Shakespeare: “The quality of mercy is not strained… instead it is pureed, then spread over a dinner roll.”
- Rejected lines from Shakespeare: “Friends, Romans, countrymen, listen up for a sec, would ya? This is gonna be good.”
- Rejected lines from Shakespeare: “But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? Is’t halogen or LED? Useth a dimmer switch?”
- “Coming up next, the latest hit from the accordion-and-bagpipe quartet that’s been sweeping the pop charts!”
- “I figured out why we can’t access the strategic assets display: it’s in the Situation Room, and we’re here in the kitchen.”
- “General, my orders are to take hill Sierra— but this ‘platoon’ you’ve assigned me is just a cardboard box full of ferrets.”
- “Order in the court! Mr Prosecutor, for the last time I’m instructing you to stop breaking the court reporter’s crayons!”
- “Horses? Nah, that’s just Hollywood Westerns. Now that you’re a cowboy here at the Circle-Double-T ranch, you’ll need a unicycle.”
- “The name’s Lancelot. Sir Lancelot of Camelot. I’m a cop.”
- “I’m the law in this here town, stranger, and ’round here we don’t hold with pre-IPO limited partnership investment schemes.”
- “This is an emergency! Is there a horologist in the house?”
- “See Spot. See Spot run. Run, Spot, run. See Spot reify metaphysical concepts without a proper cognitive frame.”
- “After 30 years of research I’ve finally translated the forbidden scroll of the Mayas! It says ‘Eggs, milk, bread, lettuce…'”
- “O Mary darling, being with you is almost as joyful as dissecting a preserved nudibranch!”
- “So you see, Inspector, I cannot have done it— when the crime was committed, my top hat was still at the haberdasher’s shop!”
- “A diabolical plan— the killer replaced the victim’s cold cream with yogurt and then, without warning, released the gerbils!”
- “Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there lived in a splendid castle a handsome prince who had a thyroid condition.”
- “It’s over between us. I love you, but I can never forgive… the kumquat incident.”
- “Foolish mortals, you cannot destroy me! Your most powerful weapons do no more than give me an itchy rash in my left armpit!”
- “It’s no use, we’ll have to switch to the auxiliary ferrets.”
- “I remember my Grandpa’s last words to me. ‘Where’s my shoes, doggone it? Who took my shoes?’ I’ve tried to live by that wisdom!”
- “I came, I saw, I— hang on, was that the Rubicon? I thought it was— oh bother, I’ve gone and made a mess now, haven’t I?”
- “Behold, from the ashes a hero will arise
and will lead the people
to better investment strategies
on a risk/reward basis.” - “Yes, Inspector, it was me! It was me hiding in the cupboard with a poisoned dart when Lord Melbury returned from mime class!”
- “But for that to work, wouldn’t we have to dye the chickens pink first?”
- “I’m sorry, I tried and tried but it’s just impossible to dissolve a grand piano in apple cider vinegar.”
- “Aye, when a man looks into the abyss, it changes him, changes him right to the core. It changed me. Into an otter.”
- “I am Lord Vorgax the Destroyer, and I’m gonna, like, totally conquer the world and stuff!”
- “You fool! These blueberries are out of alignment!”
- “I alone have succeeded where others failed! Any fool can catch a cold, but only I have trained one to perform tricks!”
- “Success! I! now! control! all! the! world’s! exclamation! points!!!!!!!!!!!!”
- “Mommy! The new floor wax is here! The new floor wax is here!”
- “Eureka, Jenkins! After thirty years of research I have finally invented a generator powered solely by belly button lint!”
- “Roman Legions! The entire world has trembled before you! Now put on your propeller beanies and teach these barbarians a lesson!”
- “Every day during harvest, my Pa an’ me would be up before dawn, to feed the goats an’ pick the ripe carrots off the carrot trees.”
- “I can prove the painting’s a forgery! Da Vinci had no access to the color of paint used here, in shading Wile E. Coyote’s fur.”
- “No, I will not eat your grand piano.”
- “To defuse the bomb, you must first cut the red wire, and then reassure the blue wire you’re not ignoring it on purpose.”
- “We’re in trouble, Sergeant. The enemy is closing in, and these ammo boxes are full of buttercream frosting.”
- “This town ain’t big enuff fer the two of us, Sheriff. Not ‘less you put yer supertanker somewhere else.”
- “The sound of the hail striking the window was, he realized, exactly like that of a hundred slugs hurled against a red brick wall.”
- “Welcome, good Sir Knight, to King Arthur’s court of Camelot! Prithee park thy Volvo in the lot over there to the left.”
- “My colleagues never laughed at me or called me mad! Never! But one day revenge will be mine!”
- “Eureka, Jenkins! My latest discovery will be of moderate interest to around 10% of my colleagues!”
- “Me Thog, mighty hunter! Thog hunt many mammoth! Thog fight many saber-tooth tiger! Thog best at multivariate statistics!”
- “You cannot stop me, 007— soon I will control the world’s entire supply of wicker footstools!”
- “Oh, just get over it already, lots of people have that number of nostrils.”
- Poetry Unlikely To Be Recited:
“I shot an arrow into the air
It fell to Earth I knew not where
Until the lawsuit.” - Poetry Unlikely To Be Recited:
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
But not a Texas summer
Because of the humidity.” - Poetry Unlikely To Be Recited:
“I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a slime mold
I mean tree. Yeah, that works better.” - “Eureka! After decades of research I have finally determined why people love chocolate so much! It’s because it tastes good!”
- “O Mary darling, the mere sight of you increases dopamine receptor activity in my neural cortex by 10%!”
- “I realize you only wanted to help, but I said I needed to meet with the Mayor, not the mare. How are we going to clean my office?”
- Recipe Unlikey To Be Served On Thanksgiving: Old-Fashioned Cheesy Weasel Soufflé
- “This is the work of the notorious assassin, Hans Lafitte! Yes, I see Hans’ hands in it plain as day, but Lafitte will know defeat!”
- “Cap’n, I’ve found the trouble with the warp drive: the yogurt was expired.”
- “Sergeant, our assignment is to take hill Alpha at any cost— even if it means breaking out the pinking shears.”
- “Every good private eye knows that when you’re doing covert surveillance on a suspect, it’s important to do your clown makeup well.”
- “The Mummy’s Curse? Don’t be superstitious, Smythe, there’s no such thing! Just tell it to stop tickling you, and get back to work.”
- “We’re in trouble, Sergeant. The enemy is closing in from all sides, and this pickle brine’s too salty.”
- “O Mary darling, I— oh, sorry, thought you were someone else. No, that’s okay, I can pick up all the ball bearings myself.”
- “You fool, you’ve doomed us all! This is NOT paté!”
- “Only one thing will break the enemy lines— Alpha Team, start playing late Baroque chamber music. Beta Team, load the anchovies.”
- “O Mary darling, your perfume attracts even trained cadaver-sniffing dogs!”
- “No, Inspector Lestrade, you have overlooked the fact that toenail clippers cannot fell a mature oak tree!”
- “Sergeant, we’re in trouble. The enemy’s closing in from all sides, and our mimes are out of makeup.”
- “I love you, but it can never work out between us: we’re too perfect together for there to be any dramatic conflict.”
- “You fool, that’s the wrong button! Instead of deactivating the Legion of Evil’s doomsday weapon, you’ve released the clowns!”
- “Ah’m the Sheriff in these here parts, and Ah aim to catch these rustlers afore they steal one more Hummel figurine.”
- “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid. Remember, we’ll always have Lubbock.”
- “It’s parrots! Soylent Green is parrots!”
- “Luke, I am your second cousin, once removed, on your mother’s second husband’s grandmother’s side.”
- “I love you but it can never work out between us so long as your pet sea cucumber doesn’t like me.”
- “My name is Captain Nemo, and I alone discovered the secret that powers my underwater porch swing!”
- “Yes, Frodo, this is the legendary Paperclip of Power, forged by the Dark Lord Sauron to hold all of his recipe cards together.”
- “You fool! You touched the tree sloth, run for your life!”
- “For over a thousand years the Jedi milliners were the guardians of stylish and tasteful hats in the old Republic.”
- “All right, we hit the beaches at Normandy in one hour, in the teeth of fierce opposition. Start making your balloon animals now.”
- Christmas Special Unlikely To Be On TV: “Tiny Tim Gets A Tax Audit.”
- Christmas Special Unlikely To Be On TV: “Christmas With the Dung Beetles”
- Christmas Special Unlikely To Be On TV: “The Day The Elves Get Their Tetanus Shots”
- Christmas Special Unlikely To Be On TV: “Santa’s Magical Colonoscopy.”
- Christmas Special Unlikely To Be On TV: “Vorgax the Destroyer’s Happy Holiday Planet Roast”
- Christmas Special Unlikely To Be On TV: “Blinky the Elf and the Tainted Eggnog”
- Christmas Special Unlikely To Be On TV: “The Story of Santa’s Socks & Underwear Shop”
- “O Mary darling, no one’s toenail clippings crunch so delightfully underfoot as yours!”
- “General, we’re looking for more aggressive battle plans than TP’ing the enemy commander’s house.”
- “It’s a dire situation… the aliens are landing their flying saucers in every city, and their jokes are terrible!”
- “I’m sorry, I can’t change how I feel. And right now I feel that I am a giant carrot covered in marshmallow fluff.”
- “Those fools, when will they ever learn? How often must we warn them not to make skyscraper foundations out of vanilla pudding?”
- “I recall my Grandpa’s last words to me. ‘My boy,’ he said, ‘fish do not have eyelids.’ I try to live my life by his wisdom!”
- “Woe! Woe! Not all the treasures of the world can amend this grievous loss! I spent hours building that sofa cushion fort!”
- “My blood curdled as I saw, peering through the window, the terrifying face of my enemy… the hummingbird had found me!”
- “I’m warning you— cross me again, and I will unzip your otter costume but good!”
- “Cauliflower? Igor you fool, I said my creature needed brains! ‘Kind of looks the same’ doesn’t count!”
- “I say my new life support system design would have worked, if only those astronauts hadn’t insisted on breathing oxygen!”
- “But Dr Jekyll, isn’t that likely to interfere with your weekly knitting symposium?”
- “My colleagues laughed at me, called me mad. Mad! But I’ve proved them wrong— I’ve cured male pattern baldness in sea cucumbers!”
- “O hear now my song, composed in honor of brave Sir Albard who rode his battle tricycle against the terrible dragon Scythax!”
- “When the dame slinked into my office I knew she was trouble. Said she needed a private eye. Someone stole her electron microscope.”
- “Okay we’re gonna need every ranch hand fer the roundup— y’all got your zen rock gardens in good shape?”
- “Dagnabbit, the weasels have got into the pickle barrel agin! Now what’re we gonna serve at the Debutante Ball?”
- “Eureka, Jenkins! I have discovered an inexhaustible source of energy powered by nothing but belly button lint!”
- “I say, Smythe, when we asked you to bring cricket balls, we thought you understood we were talking about the game.”
- “You never loved me! Never supported me! Never painted yourself green and played bagpipes with me!”
- “And if you refuse to answer, we have ways of making you talk— Boris here is a ventriloquist!”
- “I guess my dislike goes back to childhood, when my parents would tell me I couldn’t leave the table until I ate *all* the piano.”
- “What ho forsooth, good Sir Knight, wherefore hast thou forsaken to prenominate thy twiggen’d ocelot?”
- “Eureka, Jenkins! I have invented the nuclear powered toothpick!”
- “Surely Shirley is so silly, Sally, saying Sean sternly stuns stoats specially swiftly.”
- “General, the Martian invaders have seized complete control of Bud’s Roadside Alligator Farm!”
- “No one in the world can stop me now! Soon I will control every petting zoo in the Tri-County Area!”
- “An enemy platoon has holed up inside the rubber band factory. Be careful when you attack— those things can really sting.”
- “Attention, Earthlings! I am Vorgax the Destroyer! Do you have a cup of sugar I can borrow?”
- “Now hold on thar, Stranger, ain’t no need to get riled up. Lotta folks have small crowds at their poetry readin’s.”
- “No no no, I said follow the YELLOW brick road! Now you’re stuck heading for the Emerald Truck Stop, and that’s no help at all.”
- “Dr Jekyll, the Evil Serum went badly. Are you sure brewing a Private Eye Serum is the way to help find my stolen jewels?”
- “O Mary darling, I love you more than all the stars in the sky, except the ones in galaxy NGC1068.”
- “Certainly not, it would be both improper and impolite for me to imply any such thing about your grand piano and your otter.”
- “Igor you fool! Are you telling me instead of the genius I sent you for, I gave my creature the toenails of a murderer?”
- “Oh, when will they learn, never forget to put the ketchup on the reactor cooling system?”
- “It is time! Unleash the mimes!”
- “I cannae change the laws of physics, Cap’n. We just can’t get to warp seven in a dugout canoe.”
- “You want to talk about a dysfunctional family? I was 17 before I knew normal people didn’t keep watermelons in their doghouses.”
- “Star light, star bright,
First star I see tonight,
I wish I may, I wish I might—
Hang on, that’s an airplane.” - “No, General, when I ordered you to take your division and give the enemy a good shellacking, I meant it in the metaphorical sense.”
- “Eureka, Jenkins! After thirty years of painstaking research, I have finally invented the bacon-flavored electron microscope!”
- “I waffle over whether waffles waffle over whether waffles waffle.”
- “Ah, fair maiden, tis an honor to carry thy token into battle. But perhaps, thy kerchief would be better than this chuck roast?”
- “I recall my Grandpa’s last words to me: ‘My boy, strive to be insouciant and terpsichorean in all your badinage.’ Such wisdom!”
- “It is a dark time for the Rebellion. The Empire has just won an important victory in the Galactic Pictionary Tournament.”
- “No no no, for the last time, THIS button fires the electro-death ray at Flash Gordon’s ship. That one phones my mother!”
- “I agree it’s an ingenious battle plan, General, but where are we going to get that much silly putty?”
- “I don’t think so, no. There’s just no future in ocelot spleens.”
- “O Mary darling, this Valentine’s Day allow me to demonstrate my love for you by diving into this vat of vegetable shortening!”
- “Quick! This is an emergency! Does anyone have a Pulse-Amplitude Modulating Oscillator?”
- “Yeah, I’m kinda busy right now, what with the enemy counterattacking in force and all, can’t YOU take the dog for a walk?”
- “Igor, I sent you to steal a brain for my creature. This is a box of gravel with the word ‘brain’ written on it in crayon.”
- “To defuse the bomb, you must cut the blue wire. But— and this is very important— do NOT squeeze the clown’s nose and yell ‘BEEP!'”
- “Mrs Smith, we’ve consulted every specialist in the hospital on your husband’s case, and they all agree: he is very boring.”
- “No! Not that way! You’re going the wrong way! Turn back! The penguins are that way!”
- “In Moria, the Dwarves delved too greedily and too deep, and awakened the sleeping evil known as… the Ticklemuffin.”
- “I feel a great disturbance in the Force… as if a million mimes suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silent.”
- “General, it is my sad duty to report to you that the entire 8th Division has gotten lost on the way to the supermarket.”
- “Once my master plan is complete, I will control every artificial eyelash factory in the world!”
- “But soft, what through yon portal doth withal dismiss and becalm, wherefore ’tis e’en mostly forsooth?”
- “No, General, I don’t think the German Panzer brigade will be distracted if you tell them their shoes are untied.”
- Statistic Unlikely To Be Useful: The number of ducks in the continental US with spots on their bills that look like Abraham Lincoln.
- Statistic Unlikely To Be Useful: Percentage of left-handed people who can do the polka.
- Statistic Unlikely To Be Useful: Number of hairs on the left front leg of an average platypus.
- Statistic Unlikely To Be Useful: Average height of Belgian harmonica players.
- Statistic Unlikely To Be Useful: Frequency with which the word “banquet” is used in normal conversation.
- “I put it to you that YOU are the murderer— yes, it was you in the penguin costume that night at the ball-bearing factory!”
- “Oh no! Oh no! He’s got the frog! Did you hear me? He’s GOT THE FROG!”
- “No, I’m sorry, we’re not accepting any new subplots right now. Perhaps you could try the novel down the street?”
- “O Mary darling, my multivariate personality analysis suggests we have a 93.2% compatibility rating!”
- “The real tragedy of this murder, Inspector, is that the victim had only just finished wallpapering his particle accelerator.”
- “Surely this must be the most important spiral-cut ham in the history of the world!”
- “Eureka, Jenkins! After decades of painstaking research, I have invented the left-handed fish spatula!”
- “They laughed at me, called me mad— mad! But the last laugh will be mine, when I succeed in teaching okra to play the bongos!”
- “Sheriff, yew gotta catch them cattle rustlers. They’re keepin the neighbors awake all hours makin that rustlin noise.”
- “O Mary darling, I remember the day I first cast eyes upon you, and you screamed ‘Ew! Ew!’ and threw them back to me.”
- “Well sure, with hindsight I can see that my all-anchovy marching band was a bad idea.”
- “O Mary darling—
M is for the many ways I love you
A is for all the ways you enchant me
R is for Raleigh, NC, for no reason I can adequately explain
Y is for… um… something.” - “Somehow we’ve got to get through to him— if he flips that omelet, we’re all doomed!”
- “My fault, I should have explained that. In most cars, R means ‘reverse.’ You had no way of knowing in this one it means ‘rooster.'”
- “Thirty seconds to the launch of humanity’s first faster-than-light spacecraft… everyone start blowing on your bubble-wands now!”
- “Earth to Rocketship XQ3, urgent! We’ve detected a meteor swarm in your path! You must do the hokey-pokey and turn yourself about!”
- “Goldurnit, Sheriff, this here’s my only line of dialog in this story, and tain’t nothin’ in tarnation’s gonna make me cut it sh—”
- “Fighter planes! Artillery! Bombs! Nothing works! There’s only one thing that will stop the Martian invaders— wicker!”
- “Captain’s log, stardate 8383.4: despite diverting all warp power into the shields, that darn cat got inside again.”
- “Sometimes I lie awake at night, haunted by the thought that my olive pit collection will never be enough.”
- “I recall my Grandpa’s last words to me. ‘My boy, waffles are actually deep-fried in the film of oil on the iron.’ Such wisdom!”
- “General, the enemy has seized all facilities for cream cheese production! Our troops have to start knitting as soon as possible!”
- “Well, your qualifications for the position of chief surgeon are impressive, doctor, but your bagpipe solo was inadequate.”
- “It seemed so right— how could we know that letting the mullet hairstyle fall out of fashion would one day doom the Earth?”
- “I’m so sorry… I don’t know what to say, I really don’t. Though I’m pretty sure ‘Plurtzwiggle boggle baggle’ isn’t right…”
- “Your qualifications for the position of chief surgeon are outstanding, doctor, but this is a radio station. We’re looking for a DJ.”
- “My Lord, the Vikings have completely surrounded the castle! We are besieged! Who will attend our Luau now?”
- “You see, when I said books were the most powerful weapons ever invented, I didn’t mean for you to throw them at the enemy.”
- “O Mary darling, I love you dearly, will you marry me?”
(Yes, for April Fool’s day I present Dialog *Likely* To Be Used) - “I am Count Dracula, and I vant to suck your lymph!”
- “I am Count Dracula, and if you have decaf, that’d be great.”
- “I am Count Dracula, and I vant to suck that lollypop.”
- “Every morning Pa and me would be up at the crack of dawn, picking ripe sardines off the sardine trees.”
- “Here’s why it didn’t work! This isn’t the procedure for repairing the life support systems, it’s a chocolate chip cookie recipe!”
- “Thank you for coming to the funeral. Here’s your kazoo.”
- “Sorry, sweetheart, it’s too late. They’re starting the accordion solo and I’ve forgotten how to dance.”
- “As you can see from these skid marks, the car was doing over 85 mph when it hit the mosquito.”
- “Sometimes I get nostalgic for the old days, when Mom would bake an apple pie, and Dad would staple pickles to the ceiling…”
- “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? One that is hot and muggy, with lots of mosquitoes?”
- “Eureka, Jenkins, after decades of research I have created the first time-travel equipped orange juicer!”
- “We can’t afford a mistake— beyond doubt, this is the second greatest crisis in the entire history of shoelace design!”
- “No no no, you have to put the wombat in the box BEFORE reconnecting the carrot inducer!”
- “Hold on thar, pardner, I’m the Sheriff in these parts and we don’t hold with usin stereotactic neurosurgery fer callosotomies.”
- “This year, we’ve upgraded to the XP-37 high-performance stealth bunny, able to carry out Operation:Egg-Drop in half the time.”
- “I, and I alone have succeeded where others failed— I have accelerated fingernail growth by a factor of 1.3 percent!”
- “We might have known they don’t like being pickled. Still, no one expected the Great Cucumber Rebellion until it was upon us.”
- “Er, no, wrong part. I asked for an ARQ-137 modulating processor unit with integrated capacitor. This is a coconut.”
- “This is the new Godzillometer, capable of assessing earthquake damage to a margin of three milli-Mothras.”
- “General! General! An enemy commando force has attacked the supply depot and stolen all our marshmallow peeps!”
- “The police have you surrounded, Mugsy, there’s no way out. Now put down the eyelash curler and come out with your hands up.”
- “You fool! You’ve mixed the vitamin pills in with the ball bearings!”
- “There was nothing we could do! The tortoise herd stampeded, and we could only watch as they charged over the edge, 8 hours later.”
- “Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! I will marry you! Oh, you’ve made me so happy I could steamroll an asphalt road!”
- “Earthlings! I am Vorgax the Destroyer, ruler of the Krynoid Empire! We found this stray puppy without a collar, is it yours?”
- “This is the greatest medical discovery since the artificial heart— never again will anyone suffer life without their nose hairs!”
- “Bad news, we didn’t get FDA approval. Something about laboratory rats— we shouldn’t have trusted them to write the formula.”
- “We’ve conducted thousands of trials with laboratory rats, and we’ve proved conclusively that they are terrible litigators.”
- “Yes, your research was important, but you were supposed to do the experiments on the laboratory rats, not vice-versa.”
- “The health department closed us down. Something about rats— apparently we shouldn’t have used them as ingredients.”
- “At long last I have succeeded! I, and I alone, have discovered the secret of bringing felt tip pens to life!”
- “So, my old nemesis, we meet again— but this time the creme brulee has no anchovies in it!”
- “And that was the day I realized the deadly secret behind shirt sleeve buttons.”
- “Our telescopes have confirmed it— that’s not an asteroid hurtling toward Earth, it’s a Boston cream pie.”
- “No! Not THAT kumquat!”
- “Drink this, it’ll calm your nerves. We all need it, after seeing a Brussels sprout like that.”
- “Why, this is certainly the most stupendous scientific discovery in the last ninety minutes!”
- “We have to call out additional units… this is the worst mass asparagus detonation since ’76!”
- “Bad news, Pa, them goats got into the garden agin, an’ this time they’re doin’ scenes from Euripides.”
- “There’s no escaping the mummy’s curse, Smythe. We should never have obeyed when we saw the hieroglyphics read ‘Pull my finger!.'”
- “Mr Fezzelthwaite, you inept poltroon! You have once again spread too much mayonnaise on the ledgers!”
Look for the daily #DUTBU to continue on my Twitter feed (@keithgoodnight), since I obviously don’t know when to stop.
