A Selection from the Memoirs of Leopold LaPied, Page 2

  Part of the problem seems to be that no one is certain if the dissertation paper (by Jaynaim Pas) implies that Chaucer actually became LaPied, or that LaPied actually became Chaucer, or that LaPied stayed LaPied, and Chaucer slipped into the Thames, or something. The juries for both writers are not only still out, they don’t expect to be back, and are eating top dollar off the room service menu where they remain sequestered – they’ll call down when they’re good and ready, thank you.

  As to a main bone of contention – whether LaPied and Chaucer actually called each other “Geoff” and “Leo” – the recent truce is holding, although the LaPied camp believes that the drink was deliberately spilled on Canard’s dress tuxedo, while the Suttleridge-Quakyheels camp believes that the thrown pie could not possibly be accidental, no matter how slippery floor and fingers were supposed to be.

  As for Professor M. Bain-Occuper, he seems to have a very, very, very large, highly literate, and unusually well-placed family line, given the extensive list of amazing manuscripts, notes, doodles, recipes, and postcards he still continues to find year after year.

  Apparently, there’s a Bain-Occuper everywhere.

  Updated August 2014 Afterword

  It would seem that certain books cannot even be given away for free, so I decided to put all the commentary stuff up front and end with the actual document, rather than putting it so far up front that everybody bails. It’s not my fault that Leopold LaPied was an artist, not a comedian.