The Shrew

Eyes still closed, the shrew said to her mate, “Get up, lazy lout, you’re late for foraging. Get going now.”

“I’ll be a monkey’s uncle, look who’s still dormant while I’ve already gotten up and put on my shirt.”

“Then don’t just stand there, stop the jawing and go. That’s you, always hemming, always hawing. And you are,” she added mysteriously.

“I’m what?” 

“A monkey’s uncle, and grand-uncle of man. That was no slip of speech—you were bragging, and for the worst reason. So much began to go wrong when your side of the family evolved into simian and then humankind. Our side,” she said imperiously, “never would have started that whole disastrous line. Whatever prompted you and yours to go climb a tree?”

“Probably trying to get away from the nagging, scoffing of your whole side,” he murmured.

“I heard that crack,” she cried, “insinuating that I’m a genetic scold? when all I am is a necessary corrector, wearing myself out for your own good. O, I need to lie here, you’re giving me one of my migraines. I’ll die without a fit appreciator or provider. O, you!”

“I didn’t do a word!”

“Listen to yourself, how you get mixed up, the same old jabbering fool, and if I don’t stop you, you’ll go on carping, carping and harping, harping and carping—I don’t know how I bear it! Just go! That’ll stop your incessant nagging torrent.”

Moral: Whenever someone is after you, repeatedly and hotheadedly, too, there’s not the least doubt it’s themselves they are really talking about.