- by Owen Morton
Before we begin today, I would like to make it entirely plain and obvious that the only reason I used the word “skankiness” (which, unsurprisingly, has not been recognised by my favourite aspect of Microsoft Word, the spell checker) is because I couldn’t think of another word beginning with ‘s’ (which was needed for the amazingly efficacious and alluring alliterative effect, another example of which I have just demonstrated, though without resorting to made up words this time) which conveyed the impression of unpleasantness and being generally skanky, as it were. I would like to point out that “skankiness” and “skanky” are not words I employ on a regular basis, preferring the entirely more intelligent alternative of “skinkiness” and “skinky”. Hence, where a normal person might say, “Ah, that’s right skanky, like,” you would find me saying, “Ah, that’s right skinky, like.” Do you see the difference? It clearly shows me as the one who has the majority in the brain department, doesn’t it?
(As a fascinating side-note, this little diversion about “skinky” being an alternative to “skanky” is not based completely on me making it up right there and then. It actually originated in a psychology lesson many years ago – like so many things on this website, actually – when our teacher was presumably telling us about something that was quite skanky. Instead of succumbing to peer pressure and agreeing that it was, indeed, skanky, I decided that I would change the vowel in question and refer to the subject as “skinky”. This was, I would stress, entirely intentional and certainly not in any way me accidentally saying the wrong thing. Such stupid slips of the tongue do not occur to geniuses such as myself. And if you were one of the stupid people who took the piss out of me for saying “skinky” rather than “skanky”, well, I would just like to make it perfectly plain now that you attributed to me false motives and made fun of me for something which was, rather than me being stupid, actually an attempt at a radical overhaul of the vocabulary of the English language. So there.)
Anyway, I feel I may have succeeded in getting off the subject of this article before I ever got onto it. This used to be a trick I excelled at in the heyday of this website, though recently I don’t think I’ve really gone in for the stupid diversions very much. Do you remember all those articles back in 2002? I do. They were very rambling.
Anyway (again), let’s get onto the subject, which is, as advertised above, the Sharp Strawberries of Skankiness. Though we should probably refer to them as the Sharp Strawberries of Skinkiness, because to call them the Sharp Strawberries of Skankiness merely suggests pointless yielding to peer pressure, which is not something I do. Oh no. So, without further ado, I present:
That’s better.
Now, chances are that if you’ve read this much of this gibberish, it’s largely because you’re interested in finding out what the Sharp Strawberries of Skankiness are. Well, if that’s the case, you’re in the wrong place. (That rhymes, that does.) Here is where you’ll find out about the Sharp Strawberries of Skinkiness, oh yes you will. So here we go.
The Sharp Strawberries of Skinkiness were first encountered by my good self less than twelve hours ago. It was a most traumatic experience, and I think it could safely be said that this is going to be one of the saddest stories you’ll ever hear. If you tear up easily (that’s te-UR, two syllables, meaning to start to cry, rather than TEAR, one syllable, meaning to rip things up), I’d suggest you look away now. It’s an unpleasant story, but I feel compelled to tell the world and to warn everybody who can face it of the terrible dangers posed by the Sharp Strawberries of Skinkiness.
Well, to cut a long story short, today was Easter Sunday, as you possibly detected from the large quantities of chocolate probably deposited somewhere in your house. The Easter Bunny brought me a He-Man figure; how cool is the Easter Bunny?? Anyway, on Easter Sunday, we in our house tend to have a roast dinner. And for dessert, my mother decided that perhaps it would be nice to have some raspberries and some strawberries.
Little did my mother know that these were not ordinary strawberries. These were Sharp Strawberries of Skinkiness. She set me to work washing the Sharp Strawberries of Skinkiness, which I did quite admirably, I might add, and then I went about the task of pulling those green bits off the tops of the strawberries. But I didn’t realise that these were Sharp Strawberries of Skinkiness. I’m not sure quite how it happened, but one of the sharp edges of these Sharp Strawberries of Skinkiness caught me nastily and I slit my thumb open. It hurt.
I don’t think marketing strawberries on which people can cut themselves should be allowed. I think whoever sold these strawberries to my mother should be shot. Or even have his head cut off with one of his own Sharp Strawberries of Skinkiness.