The R. Collins Guide to Health

Last Updated on September 30, 2010 by Dave Farquhar

R. Collins Farquhar IV, aristocrat and scientist.
To the uneducated rabble.

Greeting:

I awoke this morning at my usual 11 a.m., and my manservants bathed me, as they usually do. As I had planned to visit my black-sheep brother, I had instructed my man-servant to have one of my modernized 1967 Rolls-Royces across the river in nearby Columbia, Illinois, which is the closest place I can land my Tu-144. The roads around David’s house are positively wretched, totally inadequate for an aristocrat, and one such as myself should minimize the amount of time he spends on them.

When I arrived, I instantly perceived something was wrong. The white Honda I have grown used to seeing in front of his house in addition to his silver Honda was absent. It seems my brother has been courting lately and probably not with much success. He has never asked my advice on courtship, which probably has much to do with his lack of success in that department. Of course, one never arose to the ranks of the aristocracy by sharing, which is why I personally do not recommend courtship or marriage.

I found David in his bed with two very old comforters pulled over his contumacious body. He never sleeps at this hour unless he is sick. I, of course, never get sick, owing my good health to my steady consumption of fine brandy and cigars. My pipe also helps. I understand that David has never smoked a pipe in his life, and only three cigars, and cheap ones at that, which might explain why he was laying there in his sotto voce state.

He never said a word. Typically he makes some comment about being really buff, and when he is in a particularly obstinate mood, he talks about being little and dainty and really buff. In reality, my brother’s body is as little and scrawny as his little-and-dainty mind, which is demonstrated by his obvious lack of knowledge of what “little and dainty” actually means. Just call my brother super-tryo.

Which reminds me: Thanks to my cigars and brandy and steady diet of imported caviar, my rotund being makes me the paragon of fine health. But I only drink decaffienated brandy, because caffeine dehydrates you.

Another clue was that he was not sleepwalking. That boy walks more in his sleep than I walk in a year. Of course, the upper crust should not have to walk. That is what manservants are for. Aristocrats should be carried. When I walked into his little-and-dainty bedroom in his little-and-dainty house and found him sleeping on his little-and-dainty queen-sized bed, he sort of sat up and growled something at me. One of my manservants said he said to go away. So I went into his little-and-dainty computer room and sat down at one of his little-and-dainty computers, and found it logged into his web site. He really needs to learn not to stay logged in. He could slow me down by 15 minutes if I had to hack my way in the way I did the first few times.

I will have to get Jacques Pierre Cousteau Bouilliabaise Nouveau Riche Ongle d’orteil le Raunche de la Stenche to take time from his busy schedule and accompany me when I next return to David’s house. We can cheer him up by insulting him, and he can watch two fine members of the upper crust enjoy cigars and aged brandy in our smoking jackets as we rebuild an antique radio.

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17 thoughts on “The R. Collins Guide to Health

  • November 1, 2003 at 9:40 am
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    thx for the chuckle.

  • November 1, 2003 at 10:08 am
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    It seems to me that R. Collins is using “little and dainty” in the same way that some realtors use “cute”.

    Of course, not being an aristocrat myself, I am probably wrong (in addition to being uneducated).

  • November 1, 2003 at 11:44 am
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    What I’m trying to figure out is why R. Collins would even come to Dave’s house. Did R. Collins feel the need to see how the lower class’ live?

  • November 1, 2003 at 3:36 pm
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    Steve A, indeed most who are not aristocrats are uneducated. Thomas, as usual, you prove yourself a nebbish. Your execrable mind cannot comprehend the largesse of the aristocracy. What R. Collins was inferring, apparently not obvious enough for your little and dainty intellect, was that he was on a philanthropic mission to his vapid brother’s hovel. You should be so lucky.

    R. Collins, my supplier in Indonesia has come through with those high-efficiency vacuum tubes. Our proxies will be in touch, as usual. And now I’m off for some sustinence: a snifter of a fine aged brandy.

  • November 1, 2003 at 9:11 pm
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    Hey Stenche, is ‘fine aged brandy’ what they call Miller Light in the world of the aristocracy? Its also good to see that you are finally getting to use your Dictionary.com words of the day.

  • November 2, 2003 at 12:26 am
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    Thomas, those who transport their liquor home in paper bags, and who consider beers such as Stag and Milwaukee’s Best to be aperitifs have little room to joust regarding fine spirits. And as I’ve been forced to reveal previously, I *supply* the Dictionary.com words of the day.

  • November 2, 2003 at 11:29 am
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    I’m just distressed about the manservents BATHING you… Isn’t anything sacred any more?

    Hope you feel better soon, Dave!

  • November 2, 2003 at 11:58 am
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    Stench, as we all know, true lower class people in St. Louis do not partake of the Milwaukee’s Beast or Stag. They do not stand up to the fine ‘aged’ beer we all know as Dirt Cheap. Only Dirt Cheap can satisfy the immaculate taste buds of the lower class. But then what is to be expected from an aristocrat who drinks his Miller Lite from refilled Crown Royal bottles.

  • November 2, 2003 at 6:17 pm
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    Mr. R. Collins Farquhar IV,

    Please email me, I would like to discuss your plane. Thanks.

  • November 3, 2003 at 12:04 am
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    Thomas, I have apparently offended your “sensibilities” by not mentioning your favourite plain-label swill, from a store with a mascot, never the less. The only thing regal about Crown Royal is the bottle. Aristocrats do not buy from your drive-through liquor haunts, and we place beer in its proper historical context: a first try. Your enamorment with it does explain your excessive flatulence, though.

    As usual, Thomas, while I consider pointing out the banality of your existence to be a societal duty, my intellect would be more pressed by watching my groundskeepers tend the estate’s acreage than by sparring with you about “ripple”. Now off to something more important: the bidet.

  • November 3, 2003 at 12:55 pm
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    My my, what a great number of responses. My cult of personality grows daily. I suppose I should be expecting another attempted 21-gun salute outside one of my mansions any day now.

    Mr. D: My busy schedule prevents me from accessing e-mail at the moment. What would you like to know about my Tu-144?

    Jeanne: What good are manservants if they do not bathe you? There are some things an aristocrat cannot be bothered with. Such as walking and bathing, for instance.

    Thomas: An aristocrat drinks his fine brandy from a snifter, not from the bottle like a common street hoodlum.

  • November 3, 2003 at 2:30 pm
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    R. Collins, remember that Liberace also had a cult of personality. The difference is that his was not hallucinated due to wood alcohol, but was derived from a flambouyance meant to hide deficient musical skills. Those “salutes” were just your neighbors’ pickup trucks and 1990’s-vintage automobiles backfiring. Living in a gated estate, of course, I cannot hear pedestrian annoyances such as street noise.

    Mr. D, all you need to know about R. Collins’s “plane” is this: it smells of model cement, it takes a very small brush to touch up the paint, and the pilot is less than an inch tall. The only landings R. Collins makes are when he parks his zaftig girth on my velvet recliner, at times leaving “tire tracks”. Someone should introduce the Scots to undergarments.

    Madam Jeanne, R. Collins thought my bidet was a drinking fountain, so indeed he needs some help cleansing himself. Of course, I first needed to introduce him to indoor plumbing. On his first trips to the estate, I would find him perched over a hole he had had his man dig in my yard.

  • November 3, 2003 at 4:41 pm
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    Stenche, fear not. You haven’t insulted my sensibilities at all. I would have to hold a frenchman of your caliber in high regard to feel insulted.

    Your also right in that Aristocrats don’t buy from “drive-through liquor haunts”, they have their servants do it for them.

    As for R. Collins, real aristocrats do drink their brandy from snifters, but not you. I’m sure you read that in one of your magazines on the rich and famous.

    One last bit, D., the only thing R. Collins can tell you about his Tu-144 is what glue he used to put it together with.

  • November 3, 2003 at 6:13 pm
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    Thomas, I admit I have erred. One must _have_ sensibilities to have them slighted. Seeing as you think “pâte” is a slang term for a gathering of friends, I can see how you could misjudge our relative social positions. More precisely, that I _have_ one.

    And you’re is a conjunction. But, again, English is guttural and you cannot be faulted for your American public school education.

    I must defend R. Collins here. When we first met, he drank water from a boot. Now he drinks fine cognac from a proper snifter, usually mine. He will still water down the brandy, but he is far from the “let’s see if I can peel off the whole beer label intact” crowds in which you run, Thomas.

    And I believe I did mention that R. Collins’s plane smells of model cement. “Cement” is another word for “glue”, Thomas. I’d recommend this book, but it appears to be out of print. You may wish to have a literate friend find an alternate title for you.

  • November 3, 2003 at 6:42 pm
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    Stenche, you caught me fair and square with my misspelling you’re.

    Maybe I have misjudged you. I mean to go and take the time to look around on Amazon.com for a book to help my feeble mind grasp the English language better is truly amazing. Maybe the fine French heritage from which you spring is not such well of ignorance as I first thought.

    Of course I’m thinking this as I chug down another of the fine cold beverages I call Dirt Cheap.

  • November 4, 2003 at 12:52 pm
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    Beware of Aristocrats.
    “Voltaire was publicly caned by the servants of an aristocrat he had offended, and served nearly a year in the Bastille.” Paul Johnson “Intellectuals”

  • December 9, 2003 at 12:08 am
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    Dave, R. Collins…

    A birthday wish to the both of you. I hope you two celebrated in equally enjoyable (though I predict equally different) ways!

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