Alternate Ending—Rated… uh, I’m not really sure. PG?
38—Romeo and Juliet
In this alternate ending to Shakespeare’s classic play, Romeo and Juliet have staged an elaborate ruse and are not really dead at all. Instead, they moved to Viagra Beach and grew old together. To give credit where it’s due, Bill Shakespeare wrote most of this.
ROMEO: …and the buccaneer saith: ‘Mine octopus shall playeth one such musical instrument after the next. Yea. Be they lyre, harpsichord or flugelhorn… One hundred doubloons to the first knave who bringeth forth an instrument he cannot but charm the sweetness from — like a bee charms honey from a rose by any other name.’ Twas well and good, til one codger did arrive with bagpipes…
JULIET: Butt soft! What wind from under covers breaks? Romeo, Romeo, why fart thou, Romeo?
ROMEO: To pee or not to pee? My fly is up, but my thoughts remain below. I go, and it is done. I suffer the slings and arrows of she who pulleth mine finger…
JULIET: Ay vey… Thou art the sphincter of my discontent. ‘Twas but the unkindest cut of all… Out, damned smell! I’ll be sick to-day for this morn’s wafting. A plague o’ both your holes!
ROMEO: Farting is such sweet sorrow… Now is the winter of my incontinence.
JULIET: O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain… Beware the hides of farts! What a piece of work is man! Shall I not, then, be stifled in the eiderdown, to whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in? Fie on thy own bagpipes!
ROMEO: All the world’s a potty… Floridians, Romans, countrymen, lend me some toilet paper…. The lady doth protest too much, ‘me stinks…’
JULIET: Something is rotten and is not, I fear, in the state of Denmark but ‘tis you in its stead… (Stage whispers: I follow him to serve my turn upon him.)
ROMEO: Asses are made to bear, and so are you to mine… To air is human, to forgive divine.
JULIET: Save your rhymes for future times, and Popes like Alexander; get thee to a potty! So all that bedsheet’s not mold. Thy slow burner doth not fade away… Nay, naught forthwith enough!
ROMEO: To sleep, perchance to shutteth up — oy, where’s the plug? I am constipated as the northern star; of whose true-fix’d and resting quality eludes the firmament in this fellow. Shall we on without apology? I cannot bound a pinch: Under love’s heavy burden do I stink.
JULIET: How now? A dead rat?
ROMEO (Aside: Is this a dagger which I see before me? Was ever woman in this humour woo’d? Was ever woman in this fragrance won? Only by the thumbing of my prick, something wicked this way comes, methinks. O unhappy dagger! This is thy sheath; there rust, and let lie while like a hell-broth boil and bubble inside.)
JULIET (Also aside: With palindrome, I say aside, aside say I, that he’s bad, ‘tis true, ‘tis true ‘tis pity, and pity ‘tis ‘tis true. True, ‘tis ‘tis pity, and pity ‘tis true ‘tis true, bad he’s that I say aside, aside say I…) Love looks not with the nose but with watery eyes. The man that hath foul music in himself, nor is not mov’d with concord of sweet laxative, is unfit for reason, stratagems, and sweet cheeses.
ROMEO: Be not afraid of flatulence: some are born flatulent, some achieve flatulence, and some have flatulence thrust upon ‘em. Blow, blow, thou winter wind. Thou art not so unkind as man’s ingratitude. Let every nose negotiate for itself and trust no agent. What’s gone and what’s passed should be passed with relief. This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine.
JULIET: The course of true love never did run smooth. We should be woo’d and were not made to woo. Woo-who? Lord, what fools these mortals be. We that are true lovers run into strange vapors; but as all is mortal in nature, so is all nature in love mortal folly. My soliloquy ne’er ripped so foul, Romeo, O Romeo, as thou.
ROMEO: What noise is here? Fie, you slug-a-bed! O lamentable day! Stench lies on me like an untimely frost! O, I would have thee judicious use of flatulence depurates. You lay the dagger on my paté. I’ll re you, I’ll fa you; do you note me? And do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti you, too. Which brings us back to…
JULIET: What is the matter? (Aside: I give pause, forthwith to continue…) Canneth giveth and naught taketh?
ROMEO: (Aside: Says she, so trippingly off the tainted tongue.) Naught! How now, brown sow? Aesop was never so grim…
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ROMEO and JULIET: Nevermore now!
(Exit FRIAR LAURENCE and PARIS, with Musicians)
(Rip needle from record album.) Then they really did kill each other, simultaneously, by smotheration of scents over-foul.
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PRINCE (Offstage): A glomming crapulence this morning with it brings; The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head: Go hence, or have more scents of these bad things; Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished: For never was a story of more Whoa! than this of Juliet and her Romeo.
The Endeth.
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Too late now, I replied. Sorry Bill.