The Torrid Romance with a Tragic Ending
Don't show off against gravity
Oh good! A bedtime story! It begins with a giant ape who fell for a dame. She didn’t fall for him at first until she realized he could be her meal ticket. To what? Stardom and lots of dough. Really? They teamed up and made it big on Broadway. They were on everybody’s invitation list. All the glitterati listed in Manhattan’s Social Register competed for invitations to their glamorous parties except for one thing – BYOB. Bring Your Own Beer – how tacky! No. Bring Your Own Bananas. Everywhere they went to get bananas they heard “Yes, we have no bananas.”
But the setting was part of the draw, not just the glamorous hosts. Where was that? On top of the Empire State Building. What? That’s where the ape and his squeeze set up housekeeping. That’s ridiculous! You’d think so. But while King Kong was swatting at World War One biplanes in the movie Ann Darrow was smitten by the image of this mighty male warrior. She looked terrified. Yes, but she was also starting to think about curtains.
The moral of “King Kong” was “beauty and the beast?” Hollywood baloney. The beauty didn’t bring down the beast. The real moral of the story is it’s OK to show off swatting at World War One surplus but not showing off against gravity.
And don’t leave home without your vine
Not exactly the moral of our story but pretty close. The ape and the dame were attacked again? Nothing like that. The friendly real estate appraiser asked for their help measuring their property. The ape tried to measure height by timing how long it took to make it from the top down to the sidewalk. By elevator? By swinging to the bottom without a vine. He forgot that he wasn’t ruling the jungle from the top of a tree anymore.
How awful! Yes. But his arm candy was timing the fall and the appraiser got what he wanted. Ten seconds = exactly 1250’. So it wasn’t all bad. And the moral of this story is. . . ? Don’t take any calls from the real estate appraiser. Surely this torrid romance with a tragic ending means more than that! Don’t leave home without your vine.