The Milliner Oblast Common

The shamb’l leg man knew a boy who ran away with the Barnaby & Baxley circus. He was a small boy. A small boy who’s parents (mamma and da) perished in a fire. He was a small orphaned boy. He wore woolen britches cinched round his waist with box-twine and a safety-pin. On his feet (on his feet) he wore (shoed) hobnail workman’s boots double-stitched with Cooper’s wire and trackman’s tacks. The boy’s job in the circus was to make sure that the very, very fat lady with the beard was well-fed and in her booth by one o’clock sharp, her beard trimmed and waxed and her moocow muumuu fastened neatly round her belly. The very, very fat bearded lady was born in Dnipropetrovs'ka Oblast in a small city called Dnepropetrovsk. She grew up on the banks of the Də-ˈnü-bē in a Da-ˈnyü-bē-ən family with a great grandfather who lived to see the rise and fall of the Dō-nau ˈIs-tər. Of course this made her no less fat, simply adding to her propensity for obesity and hirsuteness. As she couldn’t swim, or hold her breath or fit into a swimming suit, living near the Də-ˈnü-bē was of little consequence. Her father made her wear flour-sacs he haggled from the milliner, a stout Da-ˈnyü-bē-ən by the name of Oblast Common with uneven eyebrows and a patchwork smile. The flour-sacs itched and rubbed against her skin leaving red welts and corrugations on her legs, arms, belly and bosom. Her father called the flour-sac dresses moocows, his daughter’s blight for being fat as a Da-ˈnyü-bē-ən cow.

When she was a girl the very, very fat lady stole the town registry with all the townspeople’s given-names registered in it, which were the following, beginning with the feminine names: Catalÿn, Caterina, Catha, Cathalin, Catharina, Catherine, Cathus, Catus, Chata, Chrÿstina, Cristina, Crÿstina, Erse, Ersebet, Ersebeth, Ersebett, Eufrusina, Eufrusine, Eva, Frusina, Frwssina, Helena, Ilko, Ilona, Irisko, Jlona, Judith, [Julia], Lucia, Magda, Magdalena, Magdalna, Magdollna, Magdolna, Magdona, Magolna, Margareta, Margaretha, Margarethe, Margarÿtha, Margit, Margital, Margith, Margyth, Sófi, Sofia, Sofÿa, Sofya, Sophi, Sophia, Theresia, Susanna, Swsanna, Szuszana, Ursola, Ursula,Vrsula, Yllona, Zuzanna, Zwzanna, Ade, Agatha, Agota, Agotha, Anastasia, Anna, Annaka, Anne, Annoka, Annos, Antonija, [Apollónia], Barbala, Barbara, Beatrix, Borbala, Borbara, Borbolya, Borka, Cata, Catalin. Péter, István, Gergely, Balázs, Benedek, László, Pál, Mihály, Miklós, Tamás, Antal, Mátyás, Bálint, András, Ferenc, Jakab, György, István, Máté, Imre, Ambrus, Márton, János. She realized that there were far more feminine names in the registry than there were masculine names, and that most of the feminine names belonged to woman as fat as or fatter than she was.