A consonant goes into a bar and sits down next to a vowel. "Hi!" he says. "Have you ever been here before?"

"Of cursive," she replies. "I come here, like, all the time."

He has never metaphor, but he can tell from her accent (which is kind acute) that she is a Vowelly Girl. He looks her over. She's short and has a nice simile. *She sure is a cipher sore i's!* thinks the consonantal dude. He remains stationery, enveloped by her charm. *And what an uppercase!*

His initial reaction is so pronounced, he doesn't know what to say. He is, at present, tense. "You've a lovely set of...teeth," he sputters. "Do you Crush with breast...I mean, do you brush with Crest?"

"Gag me with a spoonerism! Your mind is in the guttural, fer sure."

Admiring her figure of speech, he falls into a fantasy. He pictures a perfect wedding: They exchange wedding vowels. The minister says, "I now pronouns you man and wife." They kiss each other on the ellipses. "I love you, noun forever," he whispers. In a word, they are wed.

The conjugation is in tiers.

He awakens from his daydream and proposes a dance.

After a slight parse, she declines.

"Then would you like a beer? Alcohol the bartender--"

"I bitter not," she says, falling silent. Ferment there, she looks like she's going to bee(sic).

"Are you okay?" he asks.

"I'm, like, under a lot of stress. I've got a yeast inflection."

"I knew something was brewing." He calls the bartender. "Listen, bud, my beer is warm." The bartender takes the bottle and empties it into the sink. The dude watches as his hops go down the drain.

"Let's go outside," he says to her. "I'd like to have a word with you."

Are you prepositioning me?"

"I won't be indirect. You are the object of my preposition."

"You're, like, *such* a boldfaced character!" she says, baring her clause.

"I see your point. But I'm font of you. C'mon, let's go."

"Do I have to SPELL it out to you? You're not my type, so get off my case!"

Reluctantly, he decides to letter B. "Now my evening lies in runes," he laments. "I'm practically comma-tose."

"You'll get over it. You're just going through a phrase," she says.

"That's one way to express it," he says, suppressing an expletive.

He leaves, hoping to have letter luck next time.

--Gary Roma; from "SPELL/Binder" Sep/Oct 1995, p.8 (for a considerably expanded, updated version click here)