Oh hunchback mama please ring my bell some

Oh hunchback mama please ring my bell some dark and moonless night. I've got a chemistry set and Tesla coils and I'll make you feel

sparks off my fly-wheel. Just pull my levers and turn my crank and we can set the place on fire! Be my hunchbacked one-eyed one I love, and I will be your mad baby! Root-a-toot!

But everyone just let Grandpa be. He'd gone totally sideways after Alec Tribec shaved his mustache. He started drinking sherry out of the bottle screaming root-a-too! My sister

would watch Jeopardy online at 7, and then with Grandpa at 7:30. "What is 'Toot Too Root' by The Gaylords?" she said correctly. She'd also predicted A.T.'s six references to Canada

and annoyingly affected pronunciations of words like croissant. If only the announcer had such problems, she'd be able to tell if it was Trebek or Trevek. After decades of viewing

Mexican words in writing, she decided to pass a law enabling the semi-phonetic spelling of all linguistically dissociated words. To sum up, "phonetic" was safe. "José" was not.

The only stumbling block was that nobody could understand the law. Gosh dang! Who needs more language professors more then the Mexicans!

At least that's how I explained my choice of Spanish literature as a major to my conservative parents. But when I started to tilt at imaginary windmills during

their inquisition, I thought perhaps I should also inform them about my plans to go to Amsterdam for a semester of study abroad. I craved new ideas, new cultures, and fast women.