HOWARD SCHNELLENBERGER'S TOP 25

1. Suspenders. For the 873rd week in a row. 

2. Armenians. The Studebaker of nationalities. Thick. Dependable. Sometimes burst into flame for no reason. 

3. SMU. Just can't bet against the best. Unless we're at a dog track, and then I bet on the one that relieves himself just before the race. An empty hound is a fast hound. 

4. Whalebone. The mighty beams that hold a lady-battleship in sailing form. Also a source of valuable calcium if you're trapped under an overturned wardrobe for three months. Mrs. Schnellenberger and I remember those three months in 1974 fondly.

5. Ancient Greece. Any culture celebrating sodomy as performance art has no place in my top five, not long as I draw breath. 

6. Snorkels. Seven dollars at Walgreen's. If you thought you couldn't smoke a pipe while swimming, you're wrong. 

7. Gypsies, but only the females. Wholesome in the face, but almost disturbingly flexible, and good in a dime-store robbery.

8. Tack piano music. Beating a Swede to death with a beer stein doesn't sound right without it.

9.  Haoles. My masseuse Lilac taught me that one. Don't think of it as a freebie, though, not with all the extra dough I have to shell out to get her to use peanut oil on my calves. Keeps away biting shellfish when I'm wading.

10. Turks. Why are there no Turkish mascots? The whole world's going to hell for a lack of decent marauders. Armenians can't stand 'em, though. Gotta look into that one day.

11. The Lincoln Town Car.  Handling stays smooth on rough roads or with two crossing guards stuck under the front axle.

12.  Pole beans. Are they a nutritional supplement, or a handy strangling weapon against home invasion? Schnelly says, why not both? 

13. Anvils. Most loyal pet a man can have. Stay, anvil, stay! Good boy!  See. Doesn't move an inch.

14. Brandon Cox. I think the kid's got real promise. (I'm assuming he's got eligibility left. Somewhere. Check the couch cushions.)

15. Cubans. Any race that assumes the "three" in "meat and three" means "two starches and a gallon of rum spiked with jet fuel" is Oscar Kilo in this sailor's book.

16. Snidely Whiplash.That fella tied dames to railroad tracks! I'm a softie, myself. I tether them to the horse lines out back.

17. Two and a Half Men. I don't know when that big-toothed Sapphic type is going to figure out she's living with a man with the Spanish Pox. When she does, though, hoo-dilly will there be some quality television comedy!

18. Crate & Barrel. We go through more than our fair share of wooden spatulas here at Casa Fort Schnelly. It's personal.

19. Waders. Underwear, diaper, fishing aid, and pants. If you get tired, just loop the suspenders to a sturdy tree branch and you've got yourself a personal hammock, too.  I do this two to three times a week on campus, and no one's bothered me yet.

20. Mario Teaches Typing. It's not always convenient for my office girls to know what I'm promising they'll do for rum shots on Chatroulette.*

21. Alaskans. A lot of people who understand why you'd fight a bear. Not many understand why you'd marry that bear. Fewer still would understand how you could grow apart from that bear, and why you'd let it go without shooting and skinning it to let it be with whatever man its whoresome self wants to be with. Alaskans are such a people. (P.S. I'll never forgive you, Lorraine. But I'll never forget you, either.) 

22. Minstrels. There just aren't enough quality balladeers roaming the dales anymore.

23. Nails. A breakfast of Turfman's Iron Fortified Rust Flakes For The Iron Gentleman just isn't complete without them. It also confuses the bastards at airport security, but my biplane won't leave without me anyway. "Sir, do you have any metal on you?" "No, but I do have it in me." They never believe you until you pass them, but the sound of penny-nails hitting porcelain underwater is a distinctive one. 

24.  Candace Bergen. Got me to put peacock feathers in the unlikeliest of places.

25. The Isthmus of Panama. It's the dainty waist of two buxom continents. A gentleman must admire that. 

*Sub note: Chatroulette is like the technology formerly called the Telex, only with more visible waggling of the gentlemanly gavel involved.