Sunday Funnies

I'm reading this terrific book called Red Sky at Morning by Richard Bradford which keeps making me laugh, so I thought I'd find a good section for you. Let's see...ah, here's a good one, featuring our smart-assed teenage protagonist Josh and his two friends Marcia and Steenie:

"Nuts," Marcia said. "I want another lousy malt, and if I get one my lousy face will break out and I'll put another lousy inch on my lousy hips, and I'll look even more like Sophie Tucker than I do now."

"That's ridiculous," Steenie said. "You're the most beautiful girl west of the Allegheny River. Josh and I are both blinded by your beauty. It's like going out and having a malt with Notre Dame Cathedral."

"You make Betty Grable look like a sack of oyster shells."

"You have hair like the mane on a clean lion, not that I ever saw a clean lion."

"You could drive whole regiments mad with your looks. Picasso is dying to paint you, with two noses and seven eyes."

"Natalie Kalmus wants to do you in Technicolor."

"Jose Iturbi wants to play the Minute Waltz in fifty-seven seconds, just for you."

"If your ankles weren't just a little thick, Gary Cooper would...."

"What's that about my ankles?"

"Well," Steenie said, "they're not what you'd call gross, but maybe a half-inch less wouldn't hurt."

"Marcia," I said, "believe me. I think your ankles are fine. You're perfection just the way you are, and maybe a couple of inches more up on top there would do the trick."

"What's the matter with up on top here?"

"Matter? Nothing's the matter. It's delightful, what there is of it, and I guess it's enough."

"Technically speaking," said Steenie. "Medically speaking."