A PLAGUE OF JESSICAS

A few days ago I was lurking about the handsomely appointed lunchroom upstairs (handsomely appointed due to the presence of coffee and biscuits in it and a few chairs that don’t break when you sit on them), when I began to leaf through one of the many magazines that live there.

There's a truckload of these things laying about, some of them dating back to the days when Michael Jackson was still vaguely recognisable as a human being and Madonna didn't look like Agnes Moorehead from "Bewitched".

"Women's magazines", they call them, though no woman I've ever had more than a passing acquaintance with would be seen dead reading one of the things, and if I ever did have a passing acquaintance with a woman who admitted to reading such stuff, I'd probably shoot her in the face with a musket as an act of mercy.

These things have oodles of pictures, mostly of people I've never heard of who do things I've never been aware of, but by golly they must do ‘em well and do ‘em often cause their faces, their bums, their armpits, their blackheads, zits, nits and shaving nicks are plastered all over these magazines for the benefit of our viewing and reading pleasure.

There's not much text in these things, though if someone vaguely “known” has announced an impending pregnancy, these magazines will often run a photo of the person with a texta-like drawing of a little circle with an arrow from it pointing at the woman's belly, just as a way of reminding us (I guess) that babies come from women’s tummies and not from storks.

Fancy that.

Happily, the editors have refrained from adding little texta drawings of that thing that mostly enables a pregnancy to begin, but it's early days yet. So don't be too surprised if you pick up one of these magazines one day and find it full of little texta penises and little squiggly tadpoles heading off to party up some poor lass’s crotch. With an arrow to guide them on their way.

But on this particular day, as I was leafing through this particular magazine, I began to feel vaguely unsettled in a chilly “someone wants to eat my soul” kind of way.

For on every page I looked at, page after page after page, a JESSICA looked back at me.

There was JESSICA Alba. There was JESSICA Biel. There was JESSICA Simpson. There was JESSICA Mauboy.

There was a Sarah JESSICA Parker, too. She has a big spot on her face, did you know? It’s name is JESSICA too.

A veritable plague of JESSICA’s had taken nest in this magazine and I wondered if I’d accidentally stumbled upon a Stepford Wife conspiracy of sorts.

You see, JESSICA Alba looks like JESSICA Biel’s younger sister. And JESSICA Simpson looks like JESSICA Biel would look if you stuck JESSICA Biel in a bleach bath for a year and wrung her out with a white shagpile rug. JESSICA Mauboy looks like an "Australian Idol" contestant and, strangely enough, Sarah JESSICA Parker looks like a horse with a big spot on its face.

Also, they all have these blindingly white teeth. Or at least, I think they’re teeth. Every time one of them smiles, it’s like peering in at a bunch of enameled miniature Miele appliances and all you want to do is move in and set up house and whip up a stir-fry. Or a quiche.

Or, in Sarah JESSICA Parker’s case, hose the poop out of the stable and bring in some fresh hay.

And another thing. They’re all actors. Except for JESSICA Mauboy, who was an "Australian Idol" contestant, so we can stop mentioning her right now ‘cause the rest of her life is utterly irrelevant to any aspect of reality anymore.

Now, I’ve seen JESSICA Alba in some films, but I can’t remember a damn thing about her in any of them. She was in “Sin City”, a film I loved to bits, but as far as I can recall, all she did in that was go twirling around a pole in her underwear for a while. Not an entirely unpleasant thing to watch, but whether or not she can actually act has yet to be determined. She was also in a movie called “The Eye”, which I may have seen, but can’t really remember, though I think it was about a possessed eyeball doing whatever it is possessed eyeballs do. By the way, did you know that the name JESSICA is derived from an ancient Hebrew word meaning “foresight” or “clairvoyance”? Uncanny, what?

And JESSICA Biel was in the remake of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, which I do remember because I liked it. But all she did in that movie was run around in a shirt that was tied off above her navel and ultra-tight jeans. I found it quite distracting. In a pleasing way, I guess, but I’m watching a horror movie and it’s beginning to resemble an episode of “Baywatch” gone feral, and I’m not sure that’s a good thing for a horror movie. By the way, did you know that the first noted usage of the name JESSICA was for a character from William Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice”, a quite nifty and entertaining little play about paying debts with chunks of your own bloody flesh? Unsettling, isn’t it?

Unfortunately, all I know about JESSICA Simpson is that she once had pimples. She slapped her face with some acne treatment stuff and got rid of her pimples and decided to raise some breasts instead, which appears to have worked out quite handsomely for her. Lucky girl. By the way, did you know that the word “pimple” is derived from the Latin “papula” or “papilla” which means nipple? Are you getting chills yet?

As far as Sarah JESSICA Parker is concerned, she made a name for herself in a show about dildos and shoes, which must have been a novel experience for those who watched it, but I much preferred her early stuff. By the way, did you know that the name Sarah means “princess”, and that there was once a famous princess who wore shoes and died in a car crash?

So.

What may we glean from this plague of JESSICA’s?

If we …

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Um.

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I KNOW!

LET’S START OVER! …

A few days ago I was lurking about the handsomely appointed lunchroom upstairs (handsomely appointed due to the presence of coffee and biscuits in it and a few chairs that don’t break when you sit on them), when I began to leaf through one of the many magazines that live there …

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LISTEN! NO-ONE’S MAKIN’ YA READ THIS CRAP, YA KNOW!!

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Leave me alone.

I’m unwell.