by Larry Low
As far back as she could remember and even farther back than that, Rhymes With had been on one dig or the other. When she was six- months old, her mother, a fantastic mommy you dig, who was fanatic about mummies, had placed precious little Rhymes With, in her jolly jumper and hung the whole kit and kaboodle high on a branch of the only tree that grew along that stretch of the Nile. Mom, a noted Egyptologist, and Pops, a talented but eccentric, techno-geek who was determined to bring archaeology into the modern world, merrily went about their business among the heat and flies of the Nile, lustfully logging an exciting find on their banks. They were so engrossed in unlocking the secrets of ancient Egypt that they never seemed to notice when RW squawked because flies flew up her nose. Now, I ask you, is there anything crazier than that? I mean is there anything crazier than modernizing archeology? Wouldn’t modernized archeology be the poorest excuse for an oxymoron that you have ever heard? As for flies in your eyes and up your nose that is the way things are on the Nile but you get used to them after awhile.
In case you are wondering how this fair young lady came to be tagged Rhymes With, wonder on, for no one knows, except her parents that is. It seems they named her Cinderella. I guess they wanted to be certain that she would marry a prince. For at that early stage they had no inkling that she would be destined to kiss a lot of frogs before that was likely to happen. Cinderella would have none of her name. When Cinderella started school and the teacher asked her, her name, she replied, “Rhymes With.”
"Rhymes with what?” the teacher asked.
"Nothing,” Rhymes With replied.
" Rhymes With?” the teacher asked.
" Rhymes With,” Rhymes With insisted.
"Welcome to our class. Class, I want you to say hello to Rhymes With." Just to make sure that they got the message, she gave them
one of her teacherly looks.
“Hello Rhymes With,” the class said in unison as demurely as little cherubs.
It may be said that Rhymes With grew up, up the Nile, for her parents dug that dig through several Pharoic sagas. Rhymes With eventually became RW. In high school, at Nile High she was initiated into the Nile High Club, but of course she didn’t inhale. Now here she was winging her way to jolly olde England to commence a dig of her own. Sitting next to her was a good-looking young chap, not quite as handsome as the guy she had left behind, but in a pinch would do. Perhaps he could be persuaded to buy her a drink or two.
She then had a second thought. What do I need with a drink from some guy who probably doesn’t appreciate the first thing about the valuable work that I do? He wouldn’t likely know a fig about the challenges of uncovering the foibles of history so that they need not be repeated but of course they will be. Her thoughts began to ramble. She soon focused on what lay ahead and left her seat companion to focus on what likely lay ahead of him, if anything. For the very first time in her young life, she was in charge of a dig, her very own dig under the cathedral at Canterbury.
It seems that the ghost of Thomas á Becket had escaped and was roaming around the catacombs that lay beneath. The Canterbury tourist trade was in turmoil for Thomas á Becket was obviously bent on revenge. You’d think by now, he would have gotten over the slightest slight by some long-forgotten king and moved on. Several visitors to that quaint little town filled with shops, for wasn’t England a nation of shopkeepers? had had the very bejesus scared out of them. At any rate, quaint little shops, such as Wax and Wax Wonderful, one of the world’s greatest candle stores, had seen their business plummet faster than Nortel on the Ghost Rider in the Sky, a death defying ride at Knott’s Berry Farm, if you must know, although what Nortel was doing on the Ghost Rider was never explained. It was the task of Rhymes With to put matters to right, so to speak and this she fully intended to do.