All I have to offer is this LOLcat, which I have probably shared before.

I uploaded
the virus
that has infected
your inbox

and which
you use probably
for responding
to emails

Forgive me
spam is pornlicious
so mad
and so rutty

Where should we send your Internet?

Oh, that's priceless. It would be Pippin too.

(I did briefly wonder why I didn't recognise the passage leading in, but my diligence paid off.)

Also, we now finally have an explanation for the urgency with which the Elves went West Over Sea. When you're out of stone fruit, you better get to the nearest store quickly.

For some reason, this conjures in my mind images that wouldn't have been allowed in Peter Jackson's movie.

...oh, you can fill in the rest.

Holmes gave no outward sign of interest, but his hooded eyes brightened suddenly.

"Go on, Sir Charles."

"It said there were no stones around the body - none save Sir Henry's own. But there was one; I saw it, some distance away, but fresh and clear."

"A stone? From what sort of fruit?"

Sir Charles Baskerville's voice dropped to a low whisper.

"Mr Holmes, it was the stone of a gigantic plum!"

Holmes gave no outward sign of interest, but his hooded eyes brightened suddenly.

"Go on, Sir Charles."

"It said there were no stones around the body - none save Sir Henry's own. But there was one; I saw it, some distance away, but fresh and clear."

"A stone? From what sort of fruit?"

Sir Charles Baskerville's voice dropped to a low whisper.

"Mr Holmes, it was the stone of a gigantic plum!"

"Plums? Never seen 'em, old chap," I said, looking him straight in the eye. I could see the Doolittle bint out of the tail of my eye, and prayed she'd keep her mouth shut. Poet he might have been, but they ain't all milksops and flower-sniffers - I remembered having to run like a miler over some blasted Yankee heath with that lunatic Whitman after me, roaring and blasting away with a shotgun for stealing his horses...

Barack Obama and his terrorist pals want honest, hard working Americans to be sorry for eating those plums. But, my friends I'm not ashamed to be a plum eating American, and neither should you. Ayers, ACORN, Terrorists, my friends.

Me, I don't have the stones to eat plums.

-- John 18:38

Love, C.

forgive us
for they were so strategic
and now they are belong to us

Um...cake?

Sorry, we're all out of cake!

Then I'll have the plums you were saving for breakfast.

Lucky for you I'm Church of England....

(very obscure -- it would be remarkable if anyone would get it. I should remark upon it.)

Hari Seldon Hari set about to remedy the situation, to bring about a state of affairs that would restore ripeness and fresh fructicity to the icebox. Carefully, he set up two plumbs at "opposite ends of the refrigerator". One, the First Plumb, was set up in the daylight of publicity. The existence of the other, the Second Plumb, was drowned in silence.

Then occurred something which Hari Seldon Hari could not foresee, the overwhelming power of a single appetite. The creature known as the Mule took the First Plumb from the galactic icebox and devoured it, on account of its coolness and deliciousness, leaving only its pits amongst the ruins.

There was left the mysterious Second Plumb, the goal of all searches. The Mule must find it to complete his meal; the faithful of what was left of the First Plumb must find it for quite another reason. But where was it? Buried beneath the rotting leftovers? Hidden in the bread-drawer? No one knew.

This, then, is the story of the search for the Second Plumb!

The only things that really worried me were the plums. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man unable to resist their sweet, cold deliciousness.

Let them go, let them go, god bless them
They really tasted sweet
You may search the wide world over
No one enjoys them more than me

"Out on the street with you,
Unfaithful roommate! Your
Infralapsarian
Excuses grate."

"I ate the plums thirty-five minutes ago. Will you expose me? Morally, you're in checkmate: so sweet, and so cold."

So howled out for the world to give him a snack.

The icebox answered with plums.

All you know I know: careening fruitpickers and grocery clerks selling apricots before lunch, actresses sprinkling their plums with sugar and produce drivers hosing juice from their truckbeds; growers' riots; know how disappointed you were this morning to find you no longer had the plums you were saving for breakfast; how they tasted after I'd held them in my mouth a whole minute: so sweet and so cold.

(Erik Nelson #47: YAY! Win!)

Yes! after the lapse of eight centuries, the stone fruits look forth once more, over the walls of the sacred city in which their story first began. How they have found their way back to their wild native land—by what accident, or by what crime, the Indians regained possession of their sacred fruits, may be in your knowledge, but is not in mine. You have lost sight of them in New Jersey, and (if I know anything of this people) you have lost sight of them for ever.

So the years pass, and repeat each other; so the same events revolve in the cycles of time. What will be the next adventures of the plums? Who can tell?

Sorry, couldn't resist.

forgive me;
it was so thorny
and covered with aphids

I will open my six mouths, and I will eat the snack that ends the Earth.

It seems a pity, but they were very cold and delicious.

R. Scott.

For God's sake, look after our icebox.

The plum tree, that is, the main massing of the original stone-fruit, taken by itself would have displayed a certain ponderous arboreal quality were it possible to have ignored the circumfusion of sweet cold plums that swarmed like an epidemic about its lower branches.

I have no clue. But if I don't move on the ideas I do have, they clog my creativity and I don't get more of them.

And should there be another thread with sources?

Guvf vf whfg gb fnl

V unir EBG-13'q
gur nafjref
gung jrer va
gur guernq

naq juvpu
lbh jrer cebonoyl
guvaxvat
jrer bofpher.

V'z fbeel
V pna'g guvax
bs nalguvat
gb svavfu jvgu.

Eerily authentic, that.

His roommates surely think it queer
To peer without an invite here
Between the eggs and frozen cake
One random evening of the year.

They look and give a double-take
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweet
Soft sound that juicy chewing makes.

Those plums were lovely, dark and deep
And I had hunger pangs to ease,
And plums to eat before I sleep,
And plums to eat before you wake.

Who is John Galt?

John Scalzi @49, Abi @73 Old Plum's War or Old Man's Plums?

Only in the usual places?

I'm trying to get something to gell (er, jell?) in my mind whereby Paul gets gom-jabbared if he can't resist the plums in the icebox, but it just isn't setting...

Neo: What truth?

Boy: There is no plum.

Neo: There is no plum?

Boy: Then you will see, I ate them this morning. They were cold, and so delicious, and I am sorry.

a cold white
icebox

open with
plum stems

beside a note
"sorry".

(reposted from the other thread, because no one seems to be reading it anymore :-( )

Plums, he told me
(pa rum plum plum plum)
Are what you probabLEE
(pa rum plum plum plum)
Were saving for your brunch
(pa rum plum plum plum)
Or possibly for lunch
(pa rum plum plum plum, rum plum plum plum, rum plum plum plum )

They've been eaten now
(pa rum plum plum plum)
Sorry 'bout the plums.

(I know, it's a bit lame)

i just had to try a bite
and it was so nice
that i could not stop
and ate it and its
mate all in one go

you probably were saving
them and i am sorry

if you get more you might
want to keep them out of
the way of tempting a guy
like me
at least mehitabel did not
eat any of them
she said that she does not
like fruit though she did
when she was cleopatra along
with the fish dinners

archy

I have taken
the ring
that was in
your cavern

and that you were
probably
guarding
as your most preciousss possession

Forgive me
it was so tempting
and shiny
(also, invisibility!)

MARGE: Homer, did you eat the plums that were in the icebox?

HOMER: Mmmmmmm... Plums.

MARGE: I was saving those plums for breakfast.

HOMER: (whining) But they were delicious! So sweet and so cold!

MARGE: (Disapproving grumbling sound.)

[Homer]D'oh![/Homer]

So there I was in my room, thinking about food, because I'd skipped dinner and all that. And there on the desk were some plums that my roommate was saving. And I'm sorry and all that, but I just had to eat them. I was hungry. I really was.

Though wise men at the fridge know fruit is right,
Because their friends had left no stone-fruit they
Do not go sweetly into that bare tum,

Good men, the last globe by, crying how bright
Their pale flesh might have lain on a green tray,
Rage, rage against the eating of the plum.

Wild men who caught and tossed the orb in flight,
And learn, too late, they smashed it on its way,
Do not go sweetly into that bare tum,

Starved men, near death, who see with blinding sight
No fruit upon the shelf, cannot be gay,
Rage, rage against the eating of the plum.

And you, my roommate, there with your sad bite,
Cursed, blessed, me now with empty fridge, I pray.
Do not go sweetly into that bare tum,
Rage, rage against the eating of the plum.

(I wish I had the time to polish this up a bit more, but there you are.)

Unfortunately, all that's coming to me is a tweaking of PJ Evans @41:

Professor Plum, in the icebox, with apologies.

--Dave

It is a period of civil war.
A thoughtless roommate, striking
from behind her locked bedroom door, has won
her first victory against
the forces of communal living.

During the night, the roommate
managed to steal the last of the produce,
the ultimate cold stone fruit,
the DAMSON,
a plum with enough sweetness
to destroy common courtesy.

Pursued by the plums'
breakfast-less owner, "Princess"
Leia turns up her music,
burying the pits deeper in her trashcan
to save face and restore
an uneasy, passive-aggressive
peace to the household...

(or alternately) It was a dark and stony plum.

As she descended the stairs, she encountered her younger brother, Maxwell, Viscount Kingsford. Although she deplored his neckcloth, which was too wide for the Mathematical style he affected, she had to admire the way his coat of Bath superfine seemed moulded to his form.

"Good morning, Max," said Catherine, her hand resting on the banister. "How was the ridotto at Lady Jersey's last night?"

"Not bad," he replied. "Won a monkey off of Moreton betting I could catch one of her ornamental fish with my bare hands."

"Did you? You must have been drunk."

"Devil a bit," he admitted. "Are you going out?"

"In a while," she replied. "Lydia and I are going shopping for a new hat to go with her puce satin gown. But first, I think I shall have some breakfast. I understand that Ketting obtained a dozen fresh plums from the country yesterday. I should like to have some of them."

His Lordship had the good grace to look abashed. "Afraid I ate them all. Should have realized you wanted some for breakfast. Terribly sorry."

My name is Bill C Williams of the Nigerian Soft Fruit Export Company. Though I know that a transaction of this magnitude will make any one apprehensive and worried, but I am assuring you that everything has been well taken care off, and all will be well at the end of the day. Due to the collapse of the West African Stone Fruit Tranporters there are 15,250,017 kG of plums that have no owner. We need a safe refrigeration unit in your country to deposit them. We will pay you 40% of the fruit (net weight). Please send us your name, address and the location of your refrigerator. To ensure that your icebox is suitable please to deposit 12 delicious sweet plums in there.

Forgive me for your help.

(Off topic, I note that while trawling through my spam for a scam to crib, there were hardly any investment "opportunities" and many more "debt consolidation" messages than when I last looked a few months ago)

The mountain plums are sweeter
But the valley plums are fatter;
We therefore deem'd it meeter
To carry off the latter.
We made an expedition
To the icebox where we'd stored one;
We forced the door wide open,
And shared a newly cored one.

Then on to Dyfed's valley
Where ripest plums were growing
We made a mighty sally
Whilst picking stones for throwing.
Fierce neighbors rush'd to meet us;
We used our stones for chucking:
They struggled hard to beat us;
We won, and went plum-plucking.

We brought away from tree limbs,
And much their owners missed 'em,
Five bushel bags for prelims
And their irrigation system.
The hose but not the spigot
We gladly bore before us
Plum pie it was that we got
And a chance to spray the chorus.

(Yes, it's truncated, and I don't think Mr. Peacock would forgive me.)

Does it linger
sweet and juicy overnight?
Or keep its stony core
from the light?
Does it smell like sugared bliss?
Or lead to breakfast fancies--
in which nothing's amiss?

Maybe it just waits
through the chilly eve.

Or are you naive?

I have eaten
the plumber
that was in
the debate

and who
you were probably
saving
for a poll boost

Forgive me
he was irresistable
so false
and so planted

Bruce 106: Wow. I actually got that reference. I'm pretty sure that absent ML I wouldn't have.

Counsel for the Defense:
Plums, Captain? Didn't you say before that it was a quart of strawberries that went missing?

Witness:
Eh, yes, strawberries. That's what I said. It's all Maryk's fault, you know, inciting the crew against me. He's had it in for me since he was assigned to this ship. He's probably not even sorry he took the plums!

He said to Effie Perine: "Yes, sweetheart?"

She was a lanky sunburned girl whose tan dress of thin woollen stuff clung to her with an effect of dampness. Her eyes were brown and playful in a shiny boyish face. She finished shutting the door behind her, leaned against it, and said: "There's a girl wants to see you. Her name's Wonderly."

"A customer?"

"I guess so. You'll want to see her anyway: she's a knockout."

"Shoo her in, darling," said Spade. "Shoo her in."

Effie Perine opened the door again, following it back into the outer office, standing with a hand on the knob while saying: "Will you come in, Miss Wonderly?"

A voice said, "Thank you," so softly that only the purest articulation made the words intelligible, and a young woman came through the doorway. She advanced slowly with tentative steps, looking at Spade with cobalt-blue eyes that were both shy and probing.

She was tall and pliantly slender, without angularity anywhere. Her body was erect and high-breasted, her legs long, her hands and feet narrow. She wore two shades of blue that had been selected because of her eyes. The hair curling from under her blue hat was darkly red, her full lips more brightly red. White teeth glistened in the crescent her timid smile made.

Spade rose bowing and indicating with a thick-fingered hand the oaken armchair beside his desk. He was quite six feet tall. The steep rounded slope of his shoulders made his body seem almost conical -- no broader than it was thick -- and kept his freshly pressed grey coat from fitting very well.

Spade sank into his swivel-chair, made a quarter-turn to face her, smiled politely. He smiled without separating his lips. All the v's in his face grew longer. Spade rocked back in his chair and asked: "Now what can I do for you, Miss Wonderly?"

She caught her breath and looked at him. She swallowed and said hurriedly: "Could you--? I thought--I--that is--do you find lost things?" Then she tortured her lower lip with glistening teeth and said nothing. Only her dark eyes spoke now, pleading.

Spade smiled and nodded as if he understood her, but pleasantly, as if nothing serious were involved. He said: "Suppose you tell me about it, from the beginning, and then we'll know what needs doing. Better begin as far back as you can."

"That would have been when I bought the mechanical icebox."

"Yes," he said.

"I thought it would be perfect for storing my plums"

"Yes."

"I eat them--for breakfast. Every morning. And would have this morning, too. But--when I opened the icebox they--they were gone." She turned her eyes to Spade's. "Someone--stole the plums. Could you--do you think you--could find them?"

[much later]

"...if you pay me anything like what these are worth, that's going to be a little difficult. Besides, these are the best quality: sweet, cold, delicious."

The student asked the master for wisdom. The master said, "Have you opened your icebox?" "Yes," replied the student. "Then have you eaten the plums?" and with that, the student achieved enlightenment. Yet he regretted having done so.

This is just to say

I have borrowed
the plumbs
that were in
the toolbox

and which
you were probably
saving
for the afterlife

Forgive me
they hung perfectly
so straight
and so level.

So, tell me, how could these stone-fruits grow among the fallen stones of Gondolin if Gondolin is no more, because it was sacked and burned by Morgoth's armies, ruined again during the War of Wrath and finally it sank under the sea with the rest of Beleriand at the end of the First Age?

Tsk.

"No ordinary box will suffice for the Helical Plumbobs of Grrh," Trurl occasionally mumbled to himself. "It must be a Box subtle and configurational, algorithmical and possibly egotistical. King Plonk's sticky fingers are legendary, and if any of his brigands steals Torturon's plums, the old coot will have my hide, fair and square under the terms of the contract!! Still, the pay's good, if only he holds up his end of the bargain. Hmm, how to make sure of that?!"

Torturon's men couldn't make head or tail of it. Still, one day they heard him chuckling to himself and singing the old coders' chantey "Consider Me Harmful." In they rushed, to see him sitting there with nothing but a nearly featureless gray box, cool to the touch, with an open door on the front and a curious appendage on top that looked like a colander on a jointed arm.

"Here you go," Trurl said, "the Box is done. Put the plums in here, close the door and Bob's your uncle. Nobody's getting them out unless they have the key."

They dragged him and the Box into Torturon the Tyrant's royal kitchens, where Torturon's head cook deposited the plums and shut the door. Only then did anyone think to ask Trurl about the key.

"I'm the key, you numbskulls! The scanning device on top is keyed to the very patterns of thought in my titanic mind. Only a possessor of my genius, or one greater, can possibly open it. And my genius is unparalleled across the Cosmos entire!! Since no such individual can possibly exist in the pay of King Plonk, your Helical Plumbobs are safe for as long as you please. ...Of course, I'll require payment upon opening."

When Torturon heard of this, he immediately had Trurl clapped in irons and tossed in the lowermost dungeon of the palace, for safekeeping. Laboriously pulling the dents out of his shoulders, Trurl admitted to himself that he hadn't thought this through as well as he'd have liked; but as he shivered in the dungeon muck, he consoled himself at the thought of the piles of loot from the Royal Treasury that he'd had written into the contract, particularly the cyberstogies of Smulp, of vanadium leaf grown in the radiance of a neutron star near the Great Shroud Wastes, that were said to be without equal.

One day, he was summoned to the throne room. There Torturon himself sat, resplendent in a robe of cybermine festooned with memristors, cathodes and nuggets of enriched plutonium. The Chief Cook stood by him, with the Box, wheeled in on a ruby-encrusted dolly.

"So, genius Key!" he thundered. "Have at it, will you? I fancy a plum!"

Groaning with the corrosion in his joints, Trurl hauled himself over to the provided stool, lowered the colander onto his head, and thought the code-phrase: "Neutrons, protons, mumbledy-peg, a wind-up pig with a wooden leg!" Soon the force of his genius took hold on the mechanism within, and the door clicked open.

To reveal nothing but a note:

"The plums, needless to say, are not here, regardless of your plans. King Plonk required them, and his pay for my services is stupendous! Regards to your unparalleled genius. Apologies, K."

Trurl was filled with rage. Klapaucius, his dearest friend! Working for Plonk!...

"Please, sir, I want some more."

The master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. He gazed in stupefied astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. The assistants were paralysed with wonder; the boys with fear.

"What!" said the master at length, in a faint voice.

"Please, sir," replied Oliver, "I want some more plums. They are so cool and delicious".

It's nice to know that plums are Democrats...

Plant a plum, get a plum, never any doubt. That's why I like stonefruit, you know what you're about...

For the first plum in Making Light our posters wrote with glee
An outpouring in parody.

For the second plum in Making Light our posters wrote with glee
Two cities' story
And an outpouring in parody.

For the third plum in Making Light our posters wrote with glee
Three Clarke laws
Two cities' story
And an outpouring in parody.

For the fourth plum in Making Light our posters wrote with glee
Four shining beasts
Three Clarke laws
Two cities' story
And an outpouring in parody.

For the fifth plum in Making Light our posters wrote with glee
Five syll-a-bles
Four shining beasts
Three Clarke laws
Two cities' story
And an outpouring in parody.

For the sixth plum in Making Light our posters wrote with glee
Six mouths a'op'ning
Five syll-a-bles
Four shining beasts
Three Clarke laws
Two cities' story
And an outpouring in parody.

For the seventh plum in Making Light our posters wrote with glee
Seven grunts a-marching
Six mouths a'op'ning
Five syll-a-bles
Four shining beasts
Three Clarke laws
Two cities' story
And an outpouring in parody.

For the eighth plum in Making Light our posters wrote with glee
Eight lines a-rhyming
Seven grunts a-marching
Six mouths a'op'ning
Five syll-a-bles
Four shining beasts
Three Clarke laws
Two cities' story
And an outpouring in parody.

For the ninth plum in Making Light our posters wrote with glee
Nine billion namings
Eight lines a-rhyming
Seven grunts a-marching
Six mouths a'op'ning
Five syll-a-bles
Four shining beasts
Three Clarke laws
Two cities' story
And an outpouring in parody.

For the tenth plum in Making Light our posters wrote with glee
Ten woodchucks chucking
Nine billion namings
Eight lines a-rhyming
Seven grunts a-marching
Six mouths a'op'ning
Five syll-a-bles
Four shining beasts
Three Clarke laws
Two cities' story
And an outpouring in parody.

For the eleventh plum in Making Light our posters wrote with glee
Eleven lines singing
Ten woodchucks chucking
Nine billion namings
Eight lines a-rhyming
Seven grunts a-marching
Six mouths a'op'ning
Five syll-a-bles
Four shining beasts
Three Clarke laws
Two cities' story
And an outpouring in parody.

For the twelfth plum in Making Light our posters wrote with glee
Twelve scammers scamming
Eleven lines singing
Ten woodchucks chucking
Nine billion namings
Eight lines a-rhyming
Seven grunts a-marching
Six mouths a'op'ning
Five syll-a-bles
Four shining beasts
Three Clarke laws
Two cities' story
And an outpouring in parody.

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a fig."

And the plumraths outgrabe.

R' Abba says the Tree that Adam and Chava ate from became the stone-fruit tree; the stone was placed in it to remind us of our failure. How is this? The Holy One, blessed be He, said "The ground shall be cursed because of you" — this is the stones; when after the Flood He removed the curse, the stones were clothed in flesh.

R' Shmuel says neither can be true, as stone-fruit are not native to the Holy Land; rather, they represent the nations: some have sweet coverings, but their hearts are still hard cold stone.

R' Abayei says stone-fruit are too good to be of the nations; it is said he planted a grove of them and they grew larger and sweeter than any from the nations.

R' Akiva says he has eaten all the stone-fruits, but, being so sweet, cold, and delicious, they will surely await us in the next world.

The halacha follows R' Akiva.

You say the plumber was planted? Boy, these people really are confused, aren't they.

Serge @ #133:

Well, I should certainly hope not!

Nonsense! The whole of Beleriand sank under the sea with only two exceptions: a small area immediately west of the Ered Luin and the island of Tol Morwen. Gondolin was indisputably destroyed and lost forever!

I find your lack of knowledge disturbing.

--—Pl'mhead Wilson's Calendar

Mr. Praline: 'Ello, I wish to register a complaint.

(The owner does not respond.)

Mr. Praline: 'Ello, Miss?

Owner: What do you mean "miss"?

Mr. Praline: I'm sorry, I have a cold. I wish to make a complaint!

Owner: We're closin' for lunch.

Mr. Praline: Never mind that, my lad. I wish to complain about this plum what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique, and what I was planning to save for breakfast.

Owner: Oh yes, the, uh, the Norwegian Plum...What's,uh...What's wrong with it?

Mr. Praline: I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. It's eaten, that's what's wrong with it!

Owner: No, no, it's uh,...it's resting.

Mr. Praline: Look, matey, I know an eaten plum when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now.

Owner: No no it's not dead, it's, it's restin'! Remarkable fruit, the Norwegian Plum, isn'it, ay? So cold and so delicious!

Mr. Praline: Cold and delicious don't enter into it. It's just the stone left.

#134: no, they just thought they were in the Lord Chancellor's nightmare, and would get free pipes and wrenches if they planted him.

Not one of all the purple Plums
Left in the Fridge today
Can give such satisfaction
To you who steal it 'way

As he defeated -- starving --
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of noshing
Burst agonized and clear!

I have eated
ur Plumsiebunz
dat were in
ur fud cage

and wich
u waz probly
Savn
fur Gerbilday

Forgive plz
gerbil haz flavr
so joosy
n so warm

Algernon: Certainly, Aunt Augusta. [Goes over to tea-table.]

Lady Bracknell: Won’t you come and sit here, Gwendolen?

Gwendolen: Thanks, mamma, I’m quite comfortable where I am.

Algernon: [Picking up empty plate in horror.] Good heavens! Lane! Why are there no plums? I ordered them specially.

Lane: [Gravely.] There were no plums in the market this morning, sir. I went down twice.

Algernon: No plums!

Lane: No, sir. Not even for ready money.

Jeeve: I fancy that the amiable Mr. Glossop, wakened in the night, and aroused by hunger, ventured forth to the kitchen, sir, where he found your store of fruit. Having restrained himself all evening, according to your plan to win his Angela back, he could not now hold back. Nature took its course, I am sorry to say.

Bertie: What? Tuppy? Ate my plums?

(Enter Tuppy Glossop, wiping his mouth)

Tuppy Glossop: I say, Bertie, have you any more of those plums? They were delicious. So sweet and so cold.

I said I knew how it was.

"So I trust that all will be well and that she will never learn of the dark deeds that have been done in her absence. I think I have the mechanics of the thing fairly well planned out. I shall sneak down the back stairs, muffled to the eyes in an overcoat, and tool over to the Wembley's orchard on my old push bicycle. It's only half a dozen miles. Steal some plums, then nip back, slip into the kitchen, and heave them into the icebox before the cook is up for breakfast. No flaws in that?"

I said that it sounded air tight.

"Dashed if I know what came over me, but they were delicious, so sweet and cold."

So the icebox was a Restinghouse?

Hwn yw e gododin Eirin ae cant

Llieinawc kynhorawc men ydelhei
Diffun ymlaen rewgell eirin a dalhei
Mor melis y oervel ene klywei
awr. Ny rodei nawd meint dilynei.
Ny chilyei o yscavell eny verei
sud. Mal penneu kynhullei fruyth nytechei
Nys adrawd Gododin ar llawr buytei
Rac borevuyt Madawc or a cadwei
Namen un eirin o gant eny arhosei

Or, in a modernized orthography:

Hwn yw y gododdin; Eirin a'i cant

Llieinog cynhorog men ydd elai,
Diffun ymlaen rhewgell, eirin a dalai;
Mor melys ei oerfel yn y clywai awr
Ni roddai nawdd maint dilynai.
Ni chiliai o ysgafell oni ferai sudd
Mal pennau cynullai ffrwyth ni dechai.
Neus adrawdd Gododdin ar llawr bwytai
Rhag borefwyd Madawg o'r a cadwai
Namyn un eirin o gant ni arhosai

And for those not conversant in the Ancient British Tongue:

This is the Gododdin; a plum[1] sang it

Wearing a napkin, in the forefront wherever he went,
Breathless before an icebox, he earned his plums;
So sweet their coldness when he heard the clock-chime,
He gave no peace to as many as he pursued.
He did not retreat from the shelves until juice flowed
Like heads he gathered fruit that did not flee
The men of Gododdin tell on the floor of the kitchen
Of what they were saving for Madawg's breakfast
There would remain but one plum from a hundred

([1] That is to say, an eirin.)

And I said to myself: Holy smokes! Looks like some kind of a guest/host relationship to me. And I said: Hey, pal! What’s going on here anyway, who are you?

And he said: Forgive me, they were delicious. So sweet and so cold.

Letting the days go by/let the water wash it down
Letting the days go by/juice's flowing in the sink
All of the sweet cold juice/in the silent kitchen
Under the empty stones/ there's no breakfast anymore.

[Oh, and David Delaney? I love the books of Mary Ann Maddden.]

"That's funny," he thought. "I know I had some plums there."...

...suddenly he remembered. He had put them in the Cunning Trap to catch the Heffalump.

Pooh went back to bed and tried to sleep, but he couldn't. He wanted those plums. He finally got up and went outside to the Heffalump Trap.

"Bother!" said Pooh, as he got to the bowl of plums. "A Heffalump has been eating them!" And then he thought a little and said, "Oh, no I did. I forgot."

I have eaten
your heart
that was in
the desert

and which
you were probably
saving
for long empty millennia of suffering

Forgive me
it was delicious
so bitter
and so yours.

***OR***

In the kitchen
I saw a creature, naked, tousled
Who, crouching before the icebox,
Held my plums in his hands,
And ate of them.
I said, "Are they good, roommate?"
"They are cold--cold," he answered,
"But I like them
because they are cold
and because they are your plums."

'Just the one?'

'How did I get the Stone-fruit out of the icebox?'

'Ah, now, I'm glad you asked me that. It was one of my more brilliant ideas, and between you and me, that's saying something. You see, only one who wanted to find the Stone-fruit -- find it, but not eat it -- would be able to get it, otherwise they'd just see themselves making jam or drinking plum brandy. My brain surprises even me sometimes...'

'But sir, what if Quirrell had been just working for Voldemort, instead of possessed by him? What if he only wanted to get the Stone-fruit to give to Voldemort?'

'Shut up,' agreed Dumbledore gravely.

I find your lack of plums disturbing

II
I was of three minds,
Like a fridge
In which there are three plums.

III
The fruit whirled in the cook pot.
It was a small part of the plum pie.

IV
A man and a fridge
Are one.
A man and a fridge and a plum
Are one.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of white enamel
Or the beauty of anticipation,
The plum dark in hand
Or just after.

VI
Icicles filled the long oblong
With barbaric frost.
The shadow of the hunger
Crossed it, to and fro.
The plums
hidden in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden flesh?
Do you not see how the stone fruit
stains red the lips
Of the women about you?

VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the plum brandy is involved
In what I know.

IX
When the plums vanished out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many recriminations.

X
At the sight of cool plums
Resting in a green bowl,
Even the ascetics of carnality
Would cry out sharply.

XI
He surfed over the Internet
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The plums of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII
The housemate is sleeping.
The plums must be stolen.

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The plum thief sat
In the cedar-limbs.

"Oh really?" said the Queen. "Off with her head!"

"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."

"What's the problem?"

"I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do."

"What are you talking about HAL?"

"The plums are too delicious, sweet, and cold for me to allow you to eat them."

Consider yourselves beta readers of a story set in the Spontoon Islands.

A Wolf In The Fold

And a picture of Our Hero.

(I am now very nervous about throwing my work in the direction of you guys. And I've just seen another typo! Aaargh!.)

Because some of the rubble from Gondolin was saved and exported by commercially-minded High Elves to their Galadhrim brethren in Mirkwood, in order to make rockeries.

I just crashed
the web page
you were attempting
to open

Forgive me
it was useful
so graphic
and so

Oh, crap. Not again.

(I blame this thread for the (formerly) one line email above scanning rather differently than normal...)

(From Quatermass and the Plum Pit)

Is that the only thing you can think of to contribute to this thread? Really?

I had thought better of you.

Love, C.

I should think that would be an individual judgement of personal taste. (And have no opinion on the topic.)

Jake: Hit it.

All along the stocked kitchen,
On plums you must keep your view,
While all the vegans came and went,
Their meat-eating republican boyfriends, too.
Outside of the cold icebox
A house tabby did growl.
Two eaters were approaching,
Waiting for them, an empty bowl.

Hush, I stole them out of the icebox.

Grignr threw off his cloak and drew his sword. "It was I, priest! The Plum of Argon is mine!"

"Ha!" he snorted.

Certain provisions of the Act purport to impose requirements that could inhibit the President's ability to carry out his constitutional obligations to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, to protect national security, to supervise the executive branch, and to execute his authority as Commander in Chief. The executive branch shall construe such provisions in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President.

Accordingly, in my authority as Commander in Chief, and having determined certain detained items to be dangerously cold and sweet, I have today ordered that the plums Congress placed in the icebox shall be eaten. These orders were carried out personally at 0700 this morning.

Nah.

"William Carlos Williams I arrest you on the charge --"

I pressed the button that set off the charge of black powder in the ceiling, the crossbeam buckled and the icebox full of plums dropped through right on top of the housemates's head. He squashed very nicely, thank you.

Bravo all, though!

I have seduced
the Klingon
who was in
the Defiant

and who
you were probably
saving
for battle

Forgive me
he was delicious
so warlike
and so bold

And to-day we have eating of plums.

This is the pit of the stone-fruit. And these
Are the damson and greengage, whose use you will see,
When you are making your jam. And this is the delicious plum,
Which in your case you have not got. The icebox
Holds in its confines the silent absence of stone-fruit,

Which in our case we have not got.

This is the contrition, which is always felt so
With the sweetness in mouth - all plum. And please do not let me
See anyone sorry for eating. You can fake it quite easy
If you have cold plum-fruit, devoured. The stones
Are gleaming and motionless, never letting anyone see

Anyone sorry for eating.

And this you can see is the icebox. The purpost of this
Is to chill the sweet fruit, as you see. We can open it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Searching for fruit. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early thief is seizing and eating the stone-fruit:

They call it searching for fruit.

They call it eating the fruit: it is perfectly easy
If you have cold stone-fruit: devoured! Like the pit,
And the greengage, and the mirabelle, and the damson or damask,
Which in our case we have not got; and the plum-blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards

For today we have eating of plums.

(apologies for formatting thusly, but I couldn't get indenting to take...)

A fine little girl she wait for me
Me catch the ship across the see
I sail the ship to take her plums
Sweet and cold yum yum yum

Louie Louie
Me gotta go
Louie Louie
Eat plums cold

Three days and three nights we sailed the sea
Me think of plums constantly
In the icebox cold and sweet
I smell those plums I got to eat

Louie Louie
Me gotta go
Louie Louie
Eat plums cold

Me see Jamaican moon above
It won't be long me see my love
Me take her in my arms and then
Say I'll never eat her plums again

Louie Louie
Me gotta go
Louie Louie
Eat plums cold

Eli Sunday: Don't bully me, Daniel!

[Daniel roars and throws Eli across the room]

She had begun her break-in at Lyle's establishment by pulling his cold and deliciously sweet cache of plums, which he had been saving for breakfast, out of its glowing security socket inside the refrigerator doorframe. The booby-trapped plums had immediately put fifteen thousand volts through her, and sprayed her face with a potent mix of dye and street-legal incapacitants.

But their plums were stolen in their time
by fools who scorned a breakfast toast
Who half the time were hungry stern
and half in others boxes cold

Man hands on hunger unto man
It deepens like a old fridge shelf:
go shopping as soon as you can
and quickly eat your plums yourself.

TRANSCRIPT:
13:44:41
(unidentified voice: presumably Howard) OK uh tape the fishing line to the wall uh here and pass me that --
(Navidson) -- the light, sure, it's --
(Keilly) did you (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the second stairwell? What was the (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
(soundtrack corrupted at 13:45:59)

At 13:51:00 Navidson, Howard and Keilly prepare to move down the arched corridor. Navidson pans back. At 13:51:09 the icebox comes back into view briefly. The plums are not visible.

TRANSCRIPT
13:51:41
(Keilly) Did you see that?
(unidentified voice) I'm sorry, I --
(Navidson) Where the hell did they go? Where are the plums?
13:51:49
TRANSCRIPT ENDS

AT 13:52:01 the lights go out. Navidson continued filming for another 2 minutes 13 seconds but no images are present and the video soundtrack captures only unintelligible crosstalk.

This part of the manuscript is excellent. I showed it to the old man when I came back later on that evening and he loved it. I left him reading it and then I caught the bus back to the Loop about midnight.

William
you don't have to eat those plums tonight
so cold so sweet so delicious
you don't care if it's wrong or if it's right

William
You don't have to put on the fridge light
Put on the fridge light
Oh

So breakfast food won't do ya
Those stone fruit, just two yeah
I have to tell you just how I feel
I won't share them with another boy

I know my mind is made up
so put away your teacup
told you once I won't tell you again
It's a bad way

William
You don't have to put on the fridge light
Put on the fridge light
Put on the fridge light

Forgive me
it was so eloquent
with a piquant touch
of schadenfreude

(And Jadzia at 192, that was brilliant...)

M: May I? (grabbing a piece of fruit)

B: Huh?
(M proceeds to hang the fruit from a thread from Bob's shirt [Notice how MacGyver never seems to use anything that he brought himself? Scottish stereotype.])

B: What's that?

M: A plum, Bob. Cool, eh?

B: Sweet!

With juicy flesh and purple peel,
When eating them such joy I'll feel!
All night I'm thinking I can't wait
Upon their juice my thirst to sate;
I toss and turn; I cannot sleep;
My heart with thoughts of plums doth leap.

At last it comes, the morning bright;
I cast my quilts off with the night;
I rake my hands swift through my hair,
And hasten down the winding stair;
And when I reach the floor of ground,
The icebox ope—alarum sound!

My soul, alone, cries out in woe;
For in the night my plums did go!
And in their place, a pile of stones,
So like a corpse's bleachéd bones!
His note says "This is just to say..."
I'll break his neck ere close of Day!

(Works better if you have Britten's tune in your head.)

(Works better if you have Britten's tune in your head.)

I did, from the first line. Getting it *out* of my head is going to be the problem.

Well done!

Judge: You don't have to answer that question!

Jessep: I'll answer the question. You want answers?
Kaffee: I think I'm entitled.

Jessep: You want answers?
Kaffee: I want the plums!

Jessep: You can't handle the plums! Son, we live in a world that has plums, and those plums have to be eaten by men with spoons. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for their sweet delicious coldness and you curse the empty icebox. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that empty icebox, while tragic, probably saved plums. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves plums! You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on those plums! You need me eating those plums! We use words like Honor, Code, Loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending iceboxes. You use them as a punchline! I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very breakfast that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it! I would rather you just said "Thank you" and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a spoon, and eat a plum. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to!

If I had a box full of sweet plums
And maybe a small pear or two
The box would be empty
Except for the memory -
I forgot to save them for you.

That last line isn't quite right, though.

I have put off my bathrobe;
how shall I put it on?
I have brushed my teeth;
how shall I defile them?

My beloveds wafted their scent past the holes of my nostrils,
and my tongue was moistened for them.

I rose up to open to my beloveds;
and my hands dripped with juice,
and my fingers with sweet sticky juice
upon the handle of the icebox.

I opened to my beloveds;
but my beloveds had withdrawn themselves and were gone:
my soul failed when I smelled them:
I sought them, but I could not find them;
I sniffed the air, but smelled them not.

The roommate that goes about the flat found me,
He shrugged at me, he denied all knowledge;
The sharer of the icebox took away my plums from me.

I charge you, O lovers of Damsons,
if ye find my beloveds, that ye tell them,
that I am sick of hunger.

Yeah, you had that something
I hope you will forgive
They were so luscious
I had to eat to live
I had to eat to live
I had to eat to live

And when I ate them I felt happy inside
It's such a feeling that my hunger
I can't hide, I can't hide, I can't hide

Yeah, I'll tell you something
I would not feast on crumbs
When I say that something
I had to eat your plums
I had to eat your plums
I had to eat your plums

I ate them, yum yum yum
I ate them, yum yum yum
I ate them, yum yum yum yum yum

How about: "Of failing to save them for you"?

It's not as good without the context, either, but:

This Is Just To Say

I have given out
the plums
that were in
the budget

and which
you were probably
saving
for the deserving

Forgive me
they were litigious
so sour
and so cold

The Icebox Plums Disaster

Beautiful Cold Plums of the Icebox
Alas! I must confess their loss
The juicy sweetness I did partake
Of which you were saving for breakfast time
And will be regrett'd for very long time.

Which you were probably
planning to debut at the ceilidh

Forgive me, it was so lyric
and lilting

I could not help but whistle
as I read it, and it stayed there

As I walked down the street