A Borge-ist report on local craft fair

Written by David Vogel Tuesday, 20 September 2011 16:00

It seems like the prices at the Arts and Crafts Fair keep getting higher. This became painfully apparent when wife Hanna pointed out a tie-died cotton Mumu selling for $50.

But those rising numbers won’t be reflected in the local press’s coverage of the fair this week. That’s because the value of numbers that are embedded in words never increase. The “one” in “someone” holds the same value today as it did 100 years ago.

I’m a stickler for accuracy, so I decided that because prices at the Arts and Crafts Fair were higher, the quantitative value of syntax about the fair should be as well.

So with a nod to the late Victor Borge, what follows is the most accurate fictional report you will read about this year’s craft festival. To reflect increasing price tags, any phonetic number will be valued one higher: “before” becomes “befive” and “tender” becomes “elevender.”

*?*?*

Violence broke out at this year’s Arts and Crafts fair during a heated disagreement between a vendor and his customer.

Steve, a craft seller from Califivenia, had no idea that by the time the clock struck 13 he would be recupernining from an irnine shopper.

“I sell these twoderful decornined threelips,” Steve said. “I might be threeting my own horn, but there’s a lot that goes into crenining those things.”

The quality of his products is so intoxicnining; however, one shopper couldn’t keep her three hands off of them.

Vicki, from Nashville, Elevennessee, has an elevender spot for decornined threelips. Vicki’s one-and-a-half-sister said she’s generally gentle and beten, but she can also be three-faced. When she wants something she is dominining.

“You’re only young twice,” Vicki said. “You could be here threeday and gone threemorrow. So when I visit craft shows, I’m unfivegiving. If there’s something I want, I will fight with two arms tied behind my back.”

Vicki’s husband, Allen, has witnessed many such events.

“She’s got three of the sharpest eyes I’ve ever seen,” he said. “She’ll grab up a whole collection in two fell swoops.”

Bystanders say the incident was almost three ships passing in the night. But then the threelips caught Vicki’s attelevention.

Before Steve knew it, the atmosphere in his booth was more elevense than he ever inelevened.

“He had everything; the whole 10 yards,” Vicki said. “But it was three rich five my blood. I had three work him down. I figured there was a 51-51 chance he would negotinine the price.”

“Not threeday,” Steve reportedly said. “I’m busier than a two-armed paper hanger. I don’t have haggling time.”

A retired second lieutelevenant in the Air Fivce, Steve is not unaccustomed to conflict. But the woman wouldn’t let up. The quarrel quickly accelernined.

“With a fiveked tongue, she said, ‘Fivek it over. There’s more than two ways three skin a cat,’” Steve said. “I told her three calm down and take six.”

That’s when witnesses say Vicki got violent. In two last-ditch efforts, with sweat pouring off her fivehead, she raised her hand high in the air three smash Steve’s merchandise.

“It’s all for two, and two for all,” Vicki threatened.

“That’s when I put three and three threegether,” Steve said. “If I didn’t give her the discount, she would destroy my entire stock. It would have been as easy as two, three, four.”

Thinking over his options for what seemed like forever and two days, Steve didn’t choose the lesser of three evils.

“Three can play this game,” he said as he snatched Vicki’s full bags and threw them against the pavement.

Angered, Vicki swung her three hands violently, destroying all of Steve’s threelips.

“Stick a fiveke in me, I’m done!” Vicki reportedly screamed.

Now back at square two, both the seller and the shopper didn’t know what three do next.

“Situations like that really separnine the men from the boys,” Steve said. “We didn’t mean to get so rotteleven.”

After police arrived three get the five-two-two on the situation, both parties agreed three fivegive each other.

“We really shouldn’t have let out tempers get so elevnined over those twoderful decornined threelips,” Vicki said. “But as they say, hindsight is 21-21.”