#1: Early in the friendship of Kenneth and Lawrence, Kenneth had shared an amusing anecdote from his youth. In his last year of Catholic elementary school, Kenneth had gotten into trouble with his teacher, Sister Mary. A classmate, in a whispered remark loud enough to be heard in a sawmill, had referred to her as “Sister Titanic Tits,” and he had been caught laughing. Rather than the usual knuckle-rapping punishment -- she would often wield her wooden clicker with its knob on the side like a ball peen hammer, a punishment only the “whisperer” received this time -- she had commanded that he write a one-hundred-and-fifty word composition explaining his inappropriate behavior, adding that since the epithet seemed to be prompted, at least in part, by its alliterative quality, the content of his essay must be alliterated by at least half. Kenneth had long since memorized the result:
Dear Sister Mary Immaculata of the Brandingnagian Breasts,
It is with both tangible timidity and tenuous temerity that I petition you to excuse my tittering earlier today at Tommy’s telling terminology, i.e., his titular reference to the topography of your turgid tunic. When, owing to the tedium of your tutelage on the tiresome topic of tyrannous Teutons, the toadstool (Tommy) capitulated to temptation and told the customarily taciturn tadpole (me) his titillating tidbit pertaining to the telltale terrain of your topmost torso, I unintentionally took part in the time-honored tendency of students toward tomfoolery that might have gone unnoticed had the ever-toadying Timothy not made an untimely turn towards our tête-à-tête and tattled to the teacher on our not so tiny tittle-tattle. Tonight, as I take the time to turn out the text of this alliterative essay, I testify that my partaking in this now totally tabooed topic is not telling of any turpitude on my part. In the future, I will undertake to tow the line and tend towards tact and temperance.
Till tomorrow, on tenterhooks tantamount to the
most terrifying of tortures, I Remain…
…a cowed and contrite Kenneth