Happy Saturday, dearest reader.  It’s time to sling some lexical filth into your booze-addled brains.  Today’s word is scrofulous, a term so gloriously grotesque it could make a vulture gag on its own carrion.  Let’s tear into it in our usual style: like a pack of rabid jackals on a three-day bender.

1. Of, relating to, or affected with scrofula, that old-timey tuberculous nightmare where your lymph nodes swell up like rotten fruit.
2. Having a diseased, run-down appearance, like you’ve been living in a dumpster behind a dive bar.
3. Morally contaminated, the kind of soul-rot that makes you want to shower with whiskey and self-loathing.

This gem slinks from the Middle English scrofules, rooted in the Latin scrofulae, meaning “swellings” or “little sows” (because those neck lumps looked like piglets to some medieval quack).  It’s tied to scrofa, Latin for “sow,” which is fitting, given the word’s grubby, wallowing vibe.  It’s like the linguistic gods knew it would one day describe the kind of people who drink boxed wine straight from the spout.  By the 15th century, it was slathered onto anything diseased or morally bankrupt, and it’s been festering in the language ever since.

The bar was a pulsating boil of humanity, smelling like sweat, stale beer, and urinal cakes.  I was  being my usual amazing self, three whiskeys deep, my notebook splayed open like a gutted fish, when this really ratty bastard, I mean we’re talking scrofulous, staggered in – face like a roadmap of shitty decisions, eyes like piss-holes in the snow, his soul so rank you could smell the moral decay over the cigarette haze.  He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him.  He had a Michael Scott vibe to him, if Michael Scott quit bathing and shaving and did a lot of cocaine.  He lurched toward the bar, barking for a double of something cheap enough to strip paint, and when the bartender – a woman with arms like a longshoreman and a stare that could castrate – told him to fuck off, he tried to charm her with a grin that showed teeth like a row of condemned tenements.  “You know I’m good for it,” this loser pleaded.  “Please…they’re closing in!  My whole family’s about to go to prison…all of our friends!  ‘Seditious treason,’ they’re saying!  Whatever the fuck that is.  Please!  I’m begging you!  Give me a drink!”
“Hunter, I told you to fuck OFF!” hollered the bartender, who then slugged a mouthful of whiskey, spit it all over this nebbish, pulled out her lighter, and lit him on fire.  The whole place erupted in laughter, a raw, hyena howl, as he ran out into the night, trailing a stench of failure and cheap, flaming whiskey.  I scribbled it all down, my pen moving like a switchblade, knowing this was the kind of night that’d leave scars. 

Now go forth, sexy reader, and wield “scrofulous” like a shotgun in your next ballroom rant.  Drop it in a sentence, scare the squares, and raise a glass to the glorious rot of language.

N.P.: “As Alive As You Need Me To Be” – Nine Inch Nails

What it is, dear reader.  I’m four whiskey’s in, scribbling this on a napkin in a bar that smells like regret and motor oil.  So let’s get to it.

Abecedarium is a word both pretentious enough to elevate your cocktail party small talk right past the threshold of the tolerable and yet charming enough to avoid being immediately escorted to the patio to smoke alone.  Using it won’t make you friends, but it will make your friends feel stupid, which, frankly, is its own reward.

An “abecedarium” is an alphabetically ordered list, typically used for teaching purposes.  Think kindergarten flashcards but set in Latin, so they’re basically the literary equivalent of drinking scotch in a leather chair.

Or – less commonly – a person who is just learning; in other words, a novice, the kind  of wide-eyed rookie who trips over their own ambition and thinks its progress.  Yes, you can call someone an abecedarium if they still need the training wheels on their intellectual bicycle.  Try it next time your friend can’t find the “any” key on their keyboard.  If someone accuses you of being an “abecedarium,” they’re either pointing out your obsession with ABCs or trying to start an elaborate bar fight in the guise of a Scrabble challenge.

The word comes to us from Latin, obviously – abecedarium comes from “ABCD,” the sound you make when you lose your train of thought mid-sentence and try to fake confidence.  The Romans, masters of turning fleeting brain farts into academic formality, slapped on the suffix
“-arium,” because everything sounds fancier with a suffix that implies archives, libraries, or conspiracy rooms.

So I’m in this shithole cantina in Tijuana, 2017, my liver screaming for mercy and my notebook a graveyard of half-baked poems.  The bartender, a grizzled idiot named Rico with a scar like a topographic map of hell, is pouring mezcal so cheap it could strip paint.  I’m dealing with this kid – call him Diego, a virgin if there ever was one, fresh off the bus from some nowhere pueblo, clutching a dog-eared copy of On The Road like it’s the goddamn Bible.  Diego’s got that novice glow, all earnestness and bad tattoos, yammering about how he’s gonna write the Great American Novel despite never finishing high school.  I’m half-drunk, half-amused, and I say, “Kid, you’re so green you make limes jealous. You don’t write the Great Anything till life kicks your teeth in…don’t worry…it’ll happen.”  He blinks, all doe-eyed, and orders us another round of this piss, thinking he can outdrink me.  Mistake.  Two hours later, he’s reciting his “poetry” – some godawful drivel about cacti and freedom – while I’m carving limericks into the bar with a switchblade.  Diego pukes on his shoes, passes out, and I’m left with his book, now sticky with mezcal and moronic verse.  I flip it open, write “Learn to live first, you dumbass” on the title page, sign it, and leave it next to his face.  Rico laughs, says I’m cruel.  I say I’m honest.  That abecedarium’s got a long road ahead, and I ain’t his Sherpa. 

Now go read, write, or burn something, you literary reprobates, or I’ll personally spike your coffee with iambic pentameter.

N.P.: “Uptown Funk” – Saints of Sin

A word so deceptively small and flippant it practically trips off the tongue, shedding responsibility like an unrepentant twit fleeing the consequences of a late-night bar tab.  At its core, “piffle” is a glorious noun (or occasionally a verb, if you’re feeling ballsy) that encapsulates nonsense, drivel, inane chatter – the auditory equivalent of someone smacking their gums over a lukewarm soda from a gas station in Reno.  A perfect linguistic tool when “horseshit” feels too crass (imagine that, I know) and “nonsense” lacks punch.

“Piffle” emerged straight out of the Victorian word machine, evidently.  It first slithered onto the scene in the late 19th century, likely as a child of onomatopoeic creativity – a linguistic fart noise, if you will, destined to embody foolish talk.  The Brits, drunk on empire and possibly gin, picked it up and ran with it.  It was once a polite way to call somebody’s bluff or dismiss their absurdity without looking too gauche (or drunk).  That said, there’s no definitive origin story – but isn’t that fitting for a term that basically means “pointless chatter”?  It came from somewhere or nowhere, just like half the things you think about in the shower.

Imagine it’s three in the morning, and you’re nursing what can only be described as the unholy spawn of caffeine overdose and existential dread while loitering in a 24-hour diner that smells vaguely of bleach and broken dreams.  Enter Boochie – your friend, nemesis, and someone who will definitely get you arrested someday.  Boochie slams down a mug of coffee as black as Satan’s eyeliner and starts in on one of his infamous “plans.”

“Listen,” he says, eyes darting like a ferret who’s just found out he’s one lottery ticket away from Easy Street.  “This time, it’s foolproof.  We invest in an alpaca farm in Costa Rica.  It’s sustainable.  It’s organic.  It’s sexy, dammit.”
You blink.  Twice.  Your brain struggles to process the sheer audacity of the nonsense pouring out of his mouth.  Finally, somewhere between pity and rage, you find the words. 

“Boochie, my dude,” you say, tapping a cigarette against an ashtray for dramatic effect, “that has got to be the biggest pile of piffle I’ve heard since your artisanal bong startup went under in ’22.”

And really, what more is there to say?  Boochie sulks.  You order pie.  The waitress gives you both a look that says she’s heard it all before, and the night rolls on, a relentless blur of terrible decisions and half-baked philosophies. 

“Piffle” is your friend when you need to dismiss absurdity with just the right mix of disdain and panache.  Unlike words like “hogwash” or balderdash,” which sound like they belong to some Dickensian dandy, “piffle” walks the line between sarcasm and outright dismissal.  Use it wisely – or don’t.  The world’s a mess anyway.

N.P.: “Night Fever” – Bee Gees

Sciurine (adjective) – Pertaining to, characteristic of, or resembling squirrels.  Think bushy tails, frenetic energy, and the kind of manic focus that only a rodent with a nut-based retirement plan can muster.

From the Latin sciurus, meaning “squirrel,” which itself traces back to the Greek skiuoros (skia = shadow, oura = tail) because apparently ancient Greeks thought squirrels were just little guys who lived in the shade of their own tails.  Cute, right?  Also mildly existential.

I’m bummed out today, dear reader.  Bummed Out!  ::sigh::  Where should I start?
Whenever I kill something, I typically prefer for it to have been on purpose.  You know, with dark intention and malice aforethought.  ”Twas not always thus: in my late teens I used to kill just…er, never mind that for now.  That is probably best left for the book.  Suffice it to say, over the decades, I have developed a better appreciation for life and the right for non-Jayson things to exist than I used to have.  As a result, I am very careful to protect most critters in my world, so long as we are able to coexist.  Mostly meaning that as long as they stay out of my house, we’re good.  Faithful followers here have heard me talk with great affection about Bath Salts the squirrel, who, along with her adorable family, have a nest under the eaves of the Safe House.  There are multiple and surprisingly large lizards living in, on, and about my central AC unit.  I watch them climb up the walls, chasing the direct sunlight throughout the day.  I am down with the critters.  Which is why, dear reader, I’m so bummed today.

Earlier this morning, I was driving skillfully, even expertly through downtown Fecal Creek, obeying the posted speed limit and all relevant traffic laws, when an evidently suicidally depressed yet hyperactive and manic squirrel ran into the street in front of my car, which was going exactly 33mph, down an otherwise untrafficked road.  Had the squirrel simply maintained his speed and direction across the street, everything would have been fine…not even a near miss.  But no.  This sciurine shithead stops exactly in the middle of my lane, front legs rather splayed as if ready for action, and stares at the grill of my car.  I hit the brakes, natch, and, if this thing had a brain any larger than a crouton, would have allowed ample time for it to pick a direction and haul ass, totally unmolested.  Which, it seemed, to do, for a second.  It decided to reverse course, and head back to the side of the street from whence it came.  I instantly turned the wheel slightly, to the opposite side of the road Mr. Squirrel is heading.  But then, a split second later, it does a 180, and runs back in its original direction.  So, again, with the compassion of St. Francis, I turn the wheel slightly in the other direction, planning on missing the squirrel entirely.  But just as it’s about to disappear under the front of my car, it changes directions again, appearing to very intentionally dive under the car.  Despite my braking, what happened next was an apparently unavoidable double-thud as I drive over this goddamn thing.  It was horrible, and I felt like a nazi the rest of the afternoon.  I was guilty of involuntary squirrelocide. 

But then, somehow, things got even worse.  I went to get the mail, and on my second step out the door, I stepped on a baby frog, flattening it damply and instantly.  In and of itself, this accidental act was no big deal…there are literally thousands of these little fuckers jumping around the yard, and usually, despite the frogs having significantly smaller brains than the squirrels, they jump quickly out of your way when you walk down the sidewalk.  So what the hell was wrong with this one?  We’ll never know.  But that was the second unintentional critter kill of the day.  I still had writing to do, so I couldn’t let myself get too depressed about any of it.  In the end, I remembered that I am nothing more than an enforcement agent of Darwinism, taking out the trash. 

Still…I really would prefer my killings be on purpose. 

N.P.: “Captain Love” – The Winery Dogs

Chiropteran (kai-ROP-ter-an):  Any member of the order Chiroptera, the winged mammals more scandalously known as bats.  These critters range from the adorably snack-sized fruit bats to the nightmare-fuel megabats that might make off with your steak if you’re picnicking too close to the equator.

Derived from the Greek works cheir (hand) and pteron (wing), chiropteran describes the bat’s uniquely unsettling wing structure, which, upon closer inspection, can evoke the terrifying realization that you’re essentially staring at a flying skeleton hand.  Congratulations, dear reader, you know have one more trivia fact to ruin cocktail parties with.

The thing about Sheila – the one thing, the starting point, the narrative axis around which all her small-town notoriety would eventually orbit – was that she had, since moving to Fecal Creek, been the sort of upstanding neighbor who inexplicably prompted suspicion.  Not for anything actionable, of course.  Her lawn was mowed (by HOA standards, which is to say: with the frequency and fervor of a contract killer erasing forensic traces), her recycling bin was a Platonic ideal of sustainable virtue, and her invitations to potlucks were legendary in the way only a three-bean salad that doubles as an existential dare could be. 

So when she started walking her neurotic  schnauzer, Milton, at exactly 2:04 a.m. every night – yes, every night, like clockwork, like something out of a pharmaceutical ad for insomnia with a side effect of paranoia – the Fecal Creek gossip-mongers began to stir.  At first, there was mere whispering about the “strange glimmer” of her porch light and how her eyes “caught the moon weirdly, in a way you don’t see much outside Victorian novels.” 

Words like “oddball” and “eccentric” gave way to phrases like “creature of the night.”  Then came the Nextdoor thread.  There were accusations (unsubstantiated, frequently typo-ridden), hashtags (#Batwoman or, bafflingly, #BananaMan), even a poem posted by someone calling themselves “Concerned4Christ.”  It all crescendoed one evening when, as Sheila ambled around the block in sweatpants, rain boots, and a T-shirt that read “I Am Not a Morning Person,” a black blur (local wildlife?  suburban nightmare?) swooped beneath the buttery glow of a streetlamp and right into the whirring blades of suspicion.

That blur – wingspan like patent-leather gloves, little body jerking erratically like a cursed wind-up toy – was, of course, a thoroughly mundane chiropteran, though you’d never know it from what happened next.  Lila Eisenberg, the Creek’s undisputed Czarina of Gossip, shrieked so magnificently that birds in three time zones checked their watches. 

Rumor that Sheila was either harboring – if not actively mothering – nocturnal “familiars” was officially launched, and nothing would ever be the same.  The sheer choreography of horror on the neighbors’ faces whenever she waved good morning (which was never actually morning) from her mailbox was a thing to behold.  When Halloween rolled around, Milton wore a hot-dog costume, Sheila carried a thermos labeled “Definitely Just Coffee,” and not a single kid braved her sidewalk for candy. 

Sheila, knowing exactly what was up and deriving a savage delight from the spectacle, started adding plastic bats to her lawn décor.  All treats, no tricks, yet somehow she became legend – the guardian of Fecal Creek’s midnight, the matron saint of insomnia, and the reason the three-bean salad as, from then on, always left untouched. 

N.P.: “King Volcano” – Bauhaus

Rara avis in terris (noun phrase): Latin for “a rare bird in the land,” used metaphorically to describe an extraordinary or unusual person or thing, the kind of phenomenon that doesn’t just defy expectation but detonates it.  Someone or something so unique that they’re effectively a cosmic statistical error, like seeing a double rainbow while getting hit by lightning and winning the lottery all at once.

As mentioned supra, this phrase comes straight from Latin, baby, because antiquity had a flair for the dramatic.  The phrase hearkens back to Juvenal’s Satires (6.165, for you grad students who actually like footnotes), where it was used to lament the improbability of finding a woman simultaneously beautiful, rich, faithful, and talented.  Essentially, “rara avis in terris” became shorthand for spotting a unicorn in rush-hour-traffic.  Over time, it expanded to mean any anomaly that made you stop, gawk, and question your place in the universe for a hot second.  Yes, it’s pretentious.  Yes, it’s amazing.

On of the more white trash denizens of Fecal Creek was Paulie “Numbers” Karpinski, who was known for punching above his weight in all areas of his life.  Legend had it that he had won $150K in the lottery a dozen years ago, and had, since the moment he won, considered himself a professional gambler, and also “well-to-do,” even though his lottery winnings had been completely burned through years ago.  It was all he could do to scrape a couple bucks together to buy half-a-dozen scratchers every Friday night.  And this Friday night, just like the 50 previous Friday nights, Paulie didn’t win shit. 

Nevertheless, Paulie still considered himself a professional gambler, and professional gamblers have an appreciation for odds.  Which is why, when he stumbled into Le Seraphin, a new French bistro incongruously tethered to the edge of a Wal-Mart parking lot, he figured his luck could only go up. 

Le Seraphim was absurd on principle.  It had chandeliers decked out like Liberace’s fever dream.  Waiters in suits that probably cost more than Paulie’s car flitted from table to table like tuxedoed dragonflies.  The menu was one of those single-sheet masterpieces where the fonts did more heavy lifting than the food descriptions, except for the prices written in what might as well have been micro-aggressive hieroglyphics. 

Paulie, being Paulie, didn’t care.  He dumped his ass into the nearest chair and ordered the first thing he saw, a $175 steak tartare described as having been “massaged” to perfection. 

But the highlight of the evening wasn’t the raw meat appetizer masquerading as culinary enlightenment.  It was the woman three tables over, who Paulie swore – even while drunk and prone to hotboxing his own imagination – was some kind of divine mistake.  Her hair was the color of every bad decision he’d made at sunset, and her body was what Botticelli would’ve dreamed up if he weren’t so distracted by goddamn seashells.  She laughed like she’d invented oxygen.  Her dress looked like something sewn directly onto her skin by a team of sacrilegious angels.  She was, without question, a rara avis in terris, the rarest of rare birds in the landfill of mediocrity that was Paulie’s life. 

Unfortunately, Paulie being Paulie meant his idea of “charming” involved a lot of slurred metaphors and overly familiar hand gestures.  He sauntered toward her table with the grace of a hedgehog juggling chainsaws. 

“Hey there,” he said, leaning in as if conspiratorial proximity would make him seem suave rather than mildly rabid.  “Are you Google? ‘Cause you’ve got everything I’m searching for.”

Her smile froze, the way someone’s smile does when they’re mentally flipping coins between fight or flight.  Without missing a beat, she turned to the towering French waiter by her side and said, in clipped, elegant syllables, “Jean-Luc, I believe this gentleman is lost.  Would you kindly…redirect him?”

Paulie didn’t hear the rest because Jean-Luc had grabbed his elbow with the precision of someone who hadn’t just earned a tip tonight but had earned all the tips, forever.  Paulie found himself rehomed curbside faster than you could say hors d’oeuvres.

He watched her through the window as she tossed back a glass of wine so red it looked like arterial punctuation.  Paulie muttered something half-hearted about “class warfare” and called an Uber, deciding then and there that rare birds weren’t for him. 

“Back to the bar on 7th,” he told the driver.  And as he leaned back into the ripped leather seat, he decided that steak tartare tasted like chalk dipped in regret anyway. 

N.P.: “Head Spin – Signals Mix” – Collide

Triskaidekaphobia (noun): The irrational fear of the number 13.  Though it may sound like something invented to spice up Scrabble night, this phobia is alarmingly real and has been blamed for everything from mysteriously absent 13th floors in hotels to the collective existential dread that surfaces whenever Friday the 13th looms on the calendar.

This Frankenstein’s monster of a word is stitched together from Greek origins.  Tris (three), kai (and), deka (ten), and phobos (fear) were patched together to create a term that is frankly way too long to be yelled in a panic.

N.P.: “J.B. Witchdance” – Masters of Reality

Oomska (noun): An undefined, usually intangible something that’s funky, messy, or generally in a state of chaotic absurdity.  Originating as a sort of nonsense placeholder word, it evokes the linguistic vibe of an odd, gooey clutter that defies categorization.

The word “oomska” seems to exist in the shadowy, anarchistic corner of the language reserved for pure whimsy.  With no traceable root in Indo-European traditions or otherwise, it’s suspected to be a syntactical UFO, possibly birthed in literary or comedic obscurity by minds too caffeinated for their own good.  Whoever coined it likely did so with the philosophical hand-waving of someone avoiding an actual explanation with flair.

If you’ve never tried explaining to a Border Patrol officer why you’re transporting a cooler full of what looks like radioactive gazpacho across state lines, I can tell you right now there is no winning version of this interaction.
“So you’re saying…it’s soup?” the officer asked, each syllable soaked in the kind of skepticism reserved for conspiracy theorists and people who pronounce “bagel” wrong.
“It’s more of a…prototype?” I ventured.  A shaky move at best.  I couldn’t tell him it was food-colored cocaine base, so I decided to take a hippy tack.  His eyes flicked to the cooler and narrowed like he was trying to Mission Impossible his way into its contents using pure suspicion.
“And this ‘prototype’ contains…?”
I figured telling him this toxic brew was homemade kombucha, but whether your describing kombucha or cocaine base straight from Mexico, there’s a point where your explanation tips from reasonable into the grammatical equivalent of jazz improv.  I could feel that moment approaching like a very fast tank.
“It’s part fermented culture, part nutrient blend.  Honestly?  It’s kind of an oomska situation.”
He blinked. “A what-now?”
My brain scrambled for a respectable synonym.  None came.
“Look, it’s organic, non-toxic, possibly probiotic.  You know, like quinoa but…wetter.”  I was praying he didn’t ask me to consume the stuff.
The officer stared, visibly weighing the costs of harassing me further versus enduring whatever hellish scent lived inside the cooler.  After an excruciating beat, he waved me through with the universal expression for, “I don’t get paid enough for this kind of weird.”
I have no idea what ultimately convinced him.  Maybe it was the aura of unhinged sincerity, maybe the word “oomska” had successfully short-circuited his skepticism, or maybe he just didn’t want to get “kombucha” dribbles on his boots.  Whatever the case, I drove away victorious, hauling my cargo of questionable liquids and hubris into the sunrise.
Which is why, to this day, I firmly believe some messes can only be described with freshly invented vocabulary.  Oomska.  It explains everything and nothing at once.

N.P.: “Blues and Cocaine (feat. Michale Graves)” – Me And That Man

Sounder (noun): A group or herd of swine.  Yes, pigs.  Not the kind of word you’d toss around at a suburban Chili’s while the server microwaves your queso (which is where I am and what’s going on as I’m writing this), but a term with just enough feral heft to make you feel briefly alive in this fluorescent hellscape we call modernity.  A sounder, per the dusty tomes of lexicography, refers to a collective of wild boars – those tusked, bristly agents of chaos rooting through the underbrush, snorting and shoving with zero regard for decorum.

Etymologically, it’s Old English, from sundor, meaning “apart” or “special group,” which got mangled through Middle English into this delightfully specific collective noun, mostly for pigs that’d sooner gore you than pose for your Instagram.  But language, being the slippery beast it is, lets us repurpose it for other herds of the uncivilized – say, the teeming masses at a shopping mall on a Saturday.

The mall smells like stale pretzels and despair, which is to say it’s exactly how I remembered it.  My therapist suggested I browse a public space as some sort of exposure therapy for my alleged “antagonistic worldview.”  Her words, not mine.  I got here, parked 300 feet away from the entrance because the parking garage is less “convenient structure” and more “Pit of American Gladiator Doom,” and stepped inside to witness that special kind of chaos only retail capitalism can birth.

The escalators were broken, naturally, which meant the central artery of this shiny consumer mausoleum had coagulated into an angry vein of foot traffic.  Children squealed, parents shouted, teens scrolled, and boomers yelled at the phantom of customer service, all moving with the unified chaos of a sounder tearing into a discount trough.  I paused by the fountain.  Some sad kid had tossed a giant pretzel into the water, and it bobbed there in existential resignation, soggy and forgotten, like me on every date I’ve been forced to endure. 

I braved the first store, and it was everything I expected (awful).  A labyrinth of racks, blaring pop music that felt like punishment for having ears, and mannequins with faces so dead-eyed they made me nostalgic for the comforting judgement of Victorian portraits.  A sales associate hounded me until I muttered something vague about “just looking” and fled, leaving her with my bad vibes and zero commission. 

Somewhere between the perfume-spritz hellscape and the food court littered with ketchup-streaked sadness, I realized I had made a grave mistake.  Therapy?  Overrated.  Public spaces?  Designed to break the human spirit.  I should’ve just stuck to online shopping and left the sounder to their pasture of artificial light and clearance bins. 

By the time I navigated out of Sears (yes, it still exists, and no, I don’t know why), my dysanthropy had solidified to the tensile strength of anti-tank steel.  If people are going to herd together like pigs, is it too much to ask for mud pits and apple cores to complete the aesthetic? 

Needless to say, that’s the last time I’m listening to advice involving either “immersion” or “society.”

N.P.: “Return of the Mack” – Mark Morrison

To immure means to enclose or confine someone or something within walls, often in a literal sense, like being bricked up in a dungeon, but it can also lean metaphorical – think trapping someone in a situation they can’t escape.  It’s got a deliciously dramatic vibe, perfect for tales of gothic intrigue or self-imposed isolation.

The word immure comes from the Latin in- (meaning “in” (duh)) and murus (meaning “wall”), so it literally means “to wall in.”  It slipped into English via Old French emmurer around the late 16th century, carrying a medieval flavor of castle keeps and secret chambers.  Picture a monk scribbling by candlelight, deciding someone’s fate with a quill and a stone wall – that’s the energy immure brings.

Brother Thaddeus, the monastery’s most insufferable know-it-all, had a peculiar habit of correcting everyone’s Latin chants – mid-verse, no less.  One frosty evening, the monks, fed up with his sanctimonious droning, decided to immure him in the abbey’s oldest wine cellar with nothing but a crust of bread and a particularly judgmental rat for company.  By morning, Thaddeus was chanting apologies through the keyhole, promising to keep his pedantry to himself if they’d only let him out to finish his turnip stew. 

N.P.: “Set It Free” – Buckcherry