Tony Deyal
BEFORE THE cinema came to the little Trinidad village in which I grew up, the expression, or even exclamation, "Draw!" made us reach for our pencils and paint brushes and not for guns as is now the norm. "Stick-em-up" did not exist although games like 'Police and Thief' and 'Rescue' did. Then when Hopalong Cassidy, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Randolph Scott and others transformed our daydreams and dialect, "Stick-em-up!" or "This is a stick-up" could only mean one thing. Hold your hands high. The carpet might have said that to the floor, adding, "I've got you covered" but "Stick-em-up" became our game of choice with cap guns adding the realism that pointed index fingers lacked.
It was the days of Keen's Oxford Blue and Elmer's Glue. The blue was supposed to make your clothes white, something that remains even now a mystery to me but one taken for granted by innumerable housewives for whom it was an indispensable ingredient to the washtub water. Elmer's Glue was also a mystery since it featured a cow as did Klim Milk. I could not make the connection with the cow until much later when I learned that "boil down" was not only something that West Indians did to breadfruit but something that was done to animals that had outlived their usefulness. In other words, they came to a sticky end.
While many people might think it is much aglue about nothing, there is another deeper mystery, one that has perplexed people much smarter than me. In making my small brown paper kites, called 'chickiechongs', perhaps from the Chinese influence in Trinidad and lacking money to buy Mr. Elmer's expensive adhesive, I used a mixture of flour and water. While this might have been the root of the saying 'flour thicker than water', the result was glue strong enough to hold the spine of the kite, the flexible fibrous vertebrae of the coconut leaf, in place. However, if you cook it, you get a bake and if you add eggs and butter you get a cake. Where has the glue gone? I am well and truly stuck.
EX-GIRLFRIEND'S RAGE
But not as tightly as the man whose ex-girlfriend glued his penis to his belly. This is a stick-up that even the Wild Wild West couldn't match. The woman, the aptly named Gail O'Toole, had to pay the man, Kenneth Slaby, US$46,200 in compensation.
According to a news report, "Slaby's lawsuit said the two broke up in 1999 after dating for 10 months, and he began dating someone else. After he broke up with his other girlfriend, Slaby said, O'Toole invited him over to her home on May 7, 2000, where he fell asleep. He said he woke up to find that O'Toole had used Super Glue to stick his genitals to his abdomen, glued his buttocks together and spelled out a profanity on his back in nail polish. Slaby said O'Toole told him that her actions were payback for their break-up, and he had to walk a mile to a gas station to call for help.
"He pressed charges and O'Toole pleaded guilty to misdemeanour assault and spent six months on probation."
Ms. O'Toole's lawyer denied that his client was trying to make a point, or even attempting to make it stick. He contended that the incident was nothing more than part of the couple's adventurous consensual sex. The whole thing is unbelievably tacky.
The inventor of superglue, Dr. Harry Coover, admitted, "That could be very dangerous, of course. There's even cases in college where they put it on toilet seats and they had to take the toilet seat off and take the guy to the hospital and had to provide some advice on how to remove it."
PRANK
There was such a case outside of college. In fact, it supposedly happened in Home Depot, the handyman's (or woman's) store. Bob Dougherty sued Home Depot last month claiming a prank left him glued to a toilet seat. He alleges that paramedics unbolted the toilet seat, which separated from his skin, leaving abrasions. Dougherty buttressed his case by claiming he suffered pain, humiliation and financial loss. He wants US$3 million from Home Depot. However, a witness has come forward to say that Dougherty had made a similar claim more than a year ago in the town where they both live. Dougherty's lawyer has rebutted the accusation.
The holding power of superglue has given rise to many jokes including this one: A little boy came down for breakfast one morning and asked his grandma, "Where's Mom and Dad?" And she replied, "They're up in bed." The little boy started to giggle and ate his breakfast and went out to play. At lunchtime, he asked the same question, got the same answer, giggled again and left.
Then the little boy came in for dinner and once again asked his grandma "Where's Mom and Dad?" His grandmother said, "They're still up in bed." When the boy started giggling again, the annoyed grandma asked why he was doing it. He replied, "Last night daddy came into my bedroom and asked me for the Vaseline and I gave him superglue."
Tony Deyal was last seen pondering another mystery. If superglue is so sticky, why
doesn't it stick to the inside of the container?
