"Val's Literary Caricatures" Hangs Out a Shingle

I just had the most scathingly brilliant idea!

Because I don't have enough activities to keep me busy, enough appointments on my calendar, enough goodies to fill my plate, because I have not yet been able to bite off more than I can chew, because my eyes are never bigger than my fingers...I have created a new business sideline.

I'm going to be a literary caricature artist!

Here's how it will work. I'll travel the country, setting up a booth at town picnics, county fairs, regional food festivals, renaissance fairs, hillbilly shindigs, and LARP-ings. That's right. And for one thin ten-dollar bill, I will craft a knee-slappin' paragraph exaggerating your most unappealing physical features or personality traits. A literary caricature! Who could turn that down? And, because it's better to give than to receive, I will offer my services online. Think how a loved one's face will light up when you present them with an original Val literary caricature! No more need to wrack your brain for a gift idea on Boss's Day, Secretary's Day, your mother-in-law's birthday, or special anniversaries. Just fill me in on a person's idiosyncrasies, and I'll do the rest.

What can ten dollars buy these days, anyway? Twelve-and-a-half 80-cent 44 oz. Diet Cokes? Twenty-one first-class stamps, with enough left over for an 80-cent Diet Coke if you can borrow six cents? Ten McDonald's grilled onion cheddar burgers? Even Val can tell you that a literary caricature would be a healthier alternative. In fact, you might lose weight. From laughing your butt off!

Don't have a thin ten? I'm willing to barter. Just about anything reasonable will do. However, I must draw the line. No apple cores, kites, dead rats (even with strings to swing them), marbles, blue bottle-glass, tadpoles, kittens with one eye, brass doorknobs, knife handles, orange peels, or dilapidated window sashes. I will not be mocked.

Val's Literary Caricatures. Framing and gift-wrapping available.

I'll leave you with a sample:

Gertrude was a stern, statuesque woman, upon whose head no pigeon dared to perch. Her lazy eye was the icing upon the cake of a face that only Picasso could love. Her breasts hung like plumb-bobs answering to separate sources of gravity. That they partially obscured her ample muffin-top was of no consequence to Gertrude. Her jutting buttocks swayed to and fro as she walked, eliciting cat-calls and wolf-whistles from construction workers and mild-mannered accountants alike. "Hey, baby! I wish I had that swing on my back porch!" Gertrude smiled inwardly, not outwardly, due in no small part to her lamprey-like teeth and large-mouth-bass jaw. Beauty is only skin deep, she thought, as she rubbed salve onto her psoriasis.