A consonant walks into a bar and sits down next to a vowel. "Hello there," he says. "Have you been here before?"

"Of cursive," she replies. "I'm irregular. I come here, like, all the time."

He can tell from her accent (which is kind acute) that she is a Vowelly Girl. He looks her over. She's short and has a nice assonance. He's impressed with her style and how well stressed she is. Without a dot, she is a cipher sorites. Heap perceives that she has cast a spell upon him. And to capital off, she has quite an uppercase. He hopes he's just metonymphomaniac. He remains stationery, enveloped by her charm. His initial reaction is so pronounced, he is hard-pressed to know what to say next. He is, at present, tense. "You've a lovely set of...teeth," he sputters in complement. "Do you crush with breast--I mean, do you brush with Crest?"

"Oh my god, gag me with a spoonerism! What align! Your mind is in thick guttural, fer sure."

Admiring her figure of speech, he falls into a fantasy. He pictures a perfect wedding. They ex-change wedding vowels. The minister says, "I now pronouns you husband and wife." A man with omission, he kisses her on the ellipsis.  "I love you, noun forever," he size as he looks at her close up. She takes him literally, proofing her love. The conjugation is in tiers. In a word, they are wed. He awakens from his daydream and proposes a dance.  "If you are so ink lined," he adds.

She parses for a moment and then declines.

"Would you like a beer? Alcohol the bartender--"

"I bitter not," she says, falling silent.

Ferment there, she looks like she's going to bee [sic].

"Are you okay?" he asks.

"I've got a yeast inflection."

"I knew something was brewing." He calls over the bartender. "Bud, my beer is warm."

The bartender empties the bottle into the sink. The consonant watches as his hops go down the drain. A middling lush, he orders margin.

Abandoning all pretext, he says, "Let's go outside. I'd like to have a word with you--if you know what I mean. If you're in the mood, it's imperative that you come with me."

"Are you prepositioning me?!" she asks as she shifts in her seat.

"I won't be indirect. You are the object of my preposition. Understood? Are we in agreement?"

"Oh my god, you're, like, such a boldfaced character!"

Not reading too much into her remarks, and thus failing to grasp her subtext, he says, "I see your point, but I'm font of you."

Now she shows her clause and says to him, in no inserting terms, "Do I have to spell it out to you? I don't caret all for you! It's not like I've been leading you on. You've gone way over the line!"

He knows he could plea serif she would only modifier behavior and give him a chance. He asks her if he gives her his number, will she phoneme?

"You're not my type!!" she says, her voice rising.

He says he would like to meter again and asks if he can look her up sometime.

Not wanting to be subject to his advances any longer, she yells, "Get off my case and out of my space!!!"

His hopes slashed en dashed, he languages a moment. Then he braces himself and decides to letter b. "What a finite this has been! I'll certainly remember this tilde day that I die. Now my evening lies in runes!" But he's really not too word about it and he leaves. His happiness is not predicated upon her acceptance. His disappointment is offset by an indelible inkling that he'll have letter luck next time.

Original version © 1991 Gary Roma
Revised version © 2007 Gary Roma