Brushes, Scrubbers, Dead Planets and Brillo Pads…

Devon N. Whyte was like any other, ordinary, travelling salesman except when it came to the travelling bit. Devon travelled far and wide, thin and fat, long and short. But moreover, it was what his ‘selling commodity’ was that captured the true spirit of a marketeer, a travellin’ salesman in the truest sense or form, and he was on form. Devon, like any other salesman on the road, had a briefcase, a laptop and samples; loads of samples. He also carried the ‘real McCoy’, that is the jen-you-whine artickle.

Brushes that swept the unseen dust, non-abrasive pan scourers that left the kitchen utensils complemented with an image of the user, 23rd century Vim that regarded a shine harder than diamonds and brighter than an Alpha Centaur-an caustic supernova. As well as a mop or two; he’d be yer guy, yer man, yer very own tickety-bob-boo, non-raffelic, unimposing but a prefect perfect salesman all the same.

But, what did Devon sell?

Dead planets.

Dead planets? Not much call for them is what I immediately hear you thinking by way of Devon’s mop looking telepathic contorting Brillo pad. Of course, you’d be right. I mean, whom who wants to own an ackjewel defunct derided deceased no more dead planet? Something with absolutely nothing going for it, no future, no growth, definitely not an investment for anyone with an ounce of nouse, yeah, sell it to a Frenchman, but I digest, gress, wouldn’t it, tho’ be a great topic of debate, a talking point on a drunken Friday night in Molly Malone’s dry bar on IO, Jupiter’s second moon, halfway between here and kingdom come. OK, Pluto to the unwashed, uninitiated and slovenly idiotic, all of which, I might add, might I add, have purchased Pluto from Devon, all fifty three thousand, seven hundred and forty nine of them! Devon coolly purloined ninety three pulsar ceptiks (equal to about a zillion billion trillion earth dollars back in 1922) EACH! And Pluto isn’t even a planet, it’s an ice nodule and due to universal warming, no doubt caused by the onset of Dubya’s 21st century plans of dumping all the exhausts from the Earth into the space just outside that atmos’, it’s a whole charabanc lot smaller, put it this way, Jenna Bush would need a few for her liquor now….

So what do ya think of Devon now? Bit of a ladies man, bit of can man perhaps, gift of the gab, kissed the blarney an’ all that stuff but overcharging not just someone but a host of peeps for something that is, to all intents and porpoises, dead as a Monty parrot pre-wrapped by a python….

I first met Devon on Nizxy42b in the 44th quadrant, third left of Alpha Centauri supernova and straight on till morning for those in the buff over Star Trek which, televised in the late 20th century, projecting life in the 23rd century, which was wholly wrong as we’ve now passed that corden, (I know he's a big fella but...) and we’ve arrived and there isn’t a damn Vulcan to be seen which just goes to prove how well Devon does his work and why he takes it all so seriously. I knew him when he started out. Just a tea boy with acme, no, not a misspelling, his poppa left him acme after the coyote dyed and Devon built on it. He was still a gimpy pimply undimply geek and many condemned his start, said it couldn’t be dun, that no-one could pull it off, Devon pulled it off, hence why the coyote was dyed and Devon then sold sand and oil to the Arabs, not only that, he sold them the service stations and fire buckets that went with it on the old Derbyshire road in east Lothian, Hampshire, that’s new 2 Hampshire, not to be confused with Hampshire in England or new Hants in the states or Hampshire 47th quadrant, 15th moon of GK12 in the sillisossage section outside the go no zone of beta blocker A, which, it just so happens, occupies a place in the federation of united states where hales a us male and Devon has done a bit of cushti business….

Devon, it has to be said, was a bit of a Momma’s boy. It has to be said that breast feeding usually halts after a few months but Devon kept producing and Momma kept biting. Devon had no idea who his father was, is or has been. He was, allegedly, a short pull for a tenor into a plastic Beatle while viewing a pawn magazine featuring none other than the three headed siren Mzzzzzzz Herzegovnina 2227 also known as miss knock three times I’ll come when you’re ready from Kentucky blood river blue, outer Mongolia where, it has to be said, Devon sold a rather large and unfamiliar (for these ‘ere parts) seafaring vehicle to a desert nomadic hoarseman who tried to re-enact a 20th century paradigm to do with the Jamaica oblong later to become the Bermuda triangle after Atlantis, the eastern corner, sank without Trace (or Sharon for that matter). Trace being sister to Mzzzzzzz H and also known as Big Trace with whom this journalist had a mad passionate 93 year fantasy affair with our song sung Dan wotsit’s ‘sometimes when we touch’, the word somehow being substituted with ‘if only’ but enuff about me tho’ I would like to add, to let you all know that I run a formidably trustworthy taxi service from here to the edge of eternity and back if you’re not unlucky like 2 guys initialled G and T who floated off on the cosmos ( didn’t even know that airline was still flying) someplace far from here and are probably shuffling papers and building birthing pools with Lego.

“So what we gonna call da baba” Devon’s Dada who wasn’t actually there in body (or spirit either really, just a plastic Beatle). “Not Alfred” came a farting, sorry, furtive reply from Momma in almost a Wispa. “Da what? Da van?” called back da Dada “Yeaheeee. Nor Bert” the Momma croaked in reply. And so Devon Norbert Whyte was born, or at least, made up which was quite amazing that a sap full of seamen could da speaka dat way. Someone should come again but da Momma was mortuarised and so Devon N became an only child, which is where I came in and decided to do this article on the whys and wherefores of Devon Norbert Whyte’s successful career up to and including, today, today being his very last day as a practising salesman or even a qualified one, but his totally and very last sale was just made. I was the purchaser, I own it.

Planet Earth. Thank you and goodnight/bye…..

© tcmoon 2011 (2007)