A Skeleton Will Let Me In

The SunRoom Cabinet Today

    There is a cabinet that has stood in the sun-room within arm's reach of the dinner table ever since my girls were growing up. The cabinet holds a collection of reference books – so if, during conversation while eating a meal, we ever had a question come up that needed clarification or verification – I could grab the dictionary, or the book of familiar quotations, or a thesaurus, a mythology book, According to Hoyle, Lies My Teacher Told Me, and surprisingly many more selections considering the cabinet is really not so big – and the answer would be there, and our conversation would be enlightened.

     My favorite collection of books in the sun-room cabinet is by Richard Lederer. One of his titles is Anguished English – and that is what Mr. Lederer writes about – puns, malapropisms, accidental headlines – books-worth of anguished English he has amassed from students, advertisements, and newspapers. I guess I cannot give any examples because of copyright. But the girls and I had many good chuckles from these books over the years. Of course, it helps that our senses of humor have always been predisposed to the twisted.

    The word key always makes me think about anguished English. More specifically, skeleton keys make me wistful about this. One time many years ago on the radio, I heard a woman mention that she had been a real estate agent for a while; and one day when she was going to show a house, a colleague asked her if she needed a key to get in? And the realtor answered, “No thanks, a skeleton will let me in.”

     Now, we all know that what she meant was that some sort of master skeleton key would let her into the house. But when the realtor said, “No thanks, a skeleton will let me in,” all of a sudden she had a vision of a real skeleton waiting at the house to open the door!

     What an picture that makes!

     And ever since then, when I think of house keys, I think of skeleton keys, and when I think of skeleton keys, I think of a skeleton waiting to open the door like some dutiful Arthur Treacher.

     A skeleton will let me in.

     Today we do not need a cabinet of resource materials within arm's reach of the dinner-table Today almost every one of us has at palm's reach a cell phone with internet capabilities that holds the wealth of all that is known to humankind. And we are constantly accessing that info during conversation. How far we have come in such a few short years!

     So the sun-room reference cabinet is rarely accessed anymore. It could be moved to another room. Its contents could be replaced. But just the other day Mike reached in and pulled out the etymology book to look up the origin of something in the midst of table-time conversation.

     Not surprisingly, the cabinet is going to stay right where it is with all of its references intact.

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