Jonathan Rogers is a fine author, an awfully smart fellow, and a man who excels at humorous anecdotes. He even has a humorous anecdote about telling a humorous anecdote. If your family has yet to be introduced to his Wilderking Trilogy, or The Charlatan’s Boy, you are among the world’s underprivileged. His guest post today is a riddle/poem about underwear befitting the august talents of a Ph.D. in Seventeenth Century English Literature. (Featured Image taken from a painting by Larry Dyke) –Sam
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A Riddle
I went to school in my underwear,
But no one really seemed to care.
My teacher didn’t stop and stare
Or stomp or shout or pull her hair.
My classmates didn’t think it rare
To see a boy wearing underwear.
No one even noticed me–
Tell me, dear reader, how could this be?
[Shall I tell you the answer, or do you think you can figure it out?]
His non-fiction books include The World According to Narnia, Saint Patrick, and The Terrible Speed of Mercy: A Spiritual Biography of Flannery O'Connor.
Jonathan is also the proprietor of The Habit, an online library of teaching resources and hub of community where like-minded writers can connect, discuss, and give one other just a little more courage.
- Writing on the Dawn Treader - January 24, 2022
- Making Time to Make Things - November 9, 2020
- Serious Business - October 6, 2014
I can’t decide if it’s too early to submit a guess. Is it? Is there a polite amount of time to wait?
Also, Jonathan Rogers is one of my favorite people on the planet.
What’s so great about Jonathan Rogers?
He doesn’t even like Charlotte –which is in the South. So, like, I mean, C’mon.
SD, you may have meant that as a rhetorical question, but I think “What’s so great about Jonathan Rogers” might make a fascinating (though, perhaps, overly long) blog post.
I could knock it out pretty fast. You would probably have problems with it “at the sentence level,” but it’d be OK.
*like*
I feel a certain responsibility to withhold my answer for a time, having had a lifetime of experience with underwear, and having written a song which plays on the homonymetics within the word. It seems an unfair advantage.
Randy – I was wondering how you felt about Jonathan encroaching upon your area of expertise here. Jonathan, have you thought about putting your riddle to a tune? (Fairly sure it could somehow fit on the Scripture Songs album).
Ach. That was me commenting. Somehow managed to log myself out there.
I wasn’t going to mention this, but I wrote the underwear riddle several years ago, when the underwear song wasn’t even a twinkle in Randy’s eye. My phalanx of lawyers is helping me weigh my options.
Release the hounds. You have all waited a polite amount of time to offer answers. P.S. My head isn’t as squashed as the image under my name would suggest.
Well he must have gone to school in his underwear, but he must have had his clothes over the top. P.S. my head isn’t blank and emotionless as the image beside my comment would suggest.
I’m not sure I’ve struck on the answer, but I will say that most days I go to the office in my underwear.
I hope that doesn’t mean that you don’t wear your underwear some days. 😉
Josh and Hannah Joy are correct. Most of us go everywhere in our underwear. Now, everybody picture Josh sitting at his desk in his underwear.
I guessed it before I read the comments. Do I get anything? (Accolades? Adoration? The Underwear Song now stuck in my head?)
I just read this to my six-year-old and without a pause she said, “I wear underwear under my clothes.” I think it’s time to move on to tougher riddles…
Weighing in too late, but I totally assumed it was a dream sequence.
I’m super late to reading this one, but had to say that I completely enjoyed it. Thanks, Mr. Rogers!