Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, September 11, 1995                   TAG: 9509110032
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WATER JUGS, RHINESTONE PINS

There's a perfectly reasonable explanation for this. But it's boring, and so I won't bore you with it.

In fact, I'd planned not to bore anyone with it. I'd planned that, when asked why I was carrying a couple of jugs of water in the backseat of my car, I'd lightly respond, "Well, you know. In case I break down in the desert."

Light. Clever. Entertaining. Ha, ha, ha.

But the other day, when someone finally did ask me about those jugs of water, the clever retort went right out of my head. Straightaway, I gave the boring explanation. Following which ensued a rather boring conversation concerning wells and water and natural springs.

Now, plenty of folks think of clever rejoinders after the moment has passed. Plenty of folks rehash arguments endlessly until they win. Plenty of folks know the disappointment of missed barbs, the frustration of undelivered retorts, the foolishness of forgone explanations.

But how many folks do you know who can plan a clever comment, and still fail to deliver?

One. Me.

One Christmas, to entertain my guests, I pinned every sparkling rhinestone pin I own on the front of my blouse. (And I own a lot of rhinestone pins.)

Then I carefully devised a clever explanation for the questions these decorations were bound to raise.

"Oh, these pins?" I'd say lightly. "Well, this is Croix de Guerre. This is the Star of Bethelem. This is the coveted Purple Beet." Etc. Etc. Until I could say at last, "And this one - this one I'm most proud of. This is the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval."

I did my routine exactly once. I only bungled it a little bit, I thought. But from across the room, a dour man said, "Your face gave that one away."

I don't know quite what he meant, but I didn't try to explain my decorations again after that. "These pins? I just thought they were pretty. Sparkly for a party, you know."

Maybe a joke is no funnier planned than it is explained. I have made a few clever retorts in my life. Words that have just popped out, unbidden, and all around me, folks have laughed uproariously.

But every time I've tried recounting one of these episodes, every time I've tried recapitulating the laughs for another audience, I've provoked merely polite titters. If that.

So I won't bore you with reports of any such instances now. Imagine them for yourself.

Just as you are still, I hope, imagining what perfectly reasonable explanation a woman might have for carrying two one-gallon jugs of water in the back seat of her car.

I'll give you a hint. It has nothing to do with radiators.

Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times columnist.