9:45 am | 31 October 2003 | you down with organizing parades for profit?

For the past couple of weeks, Naughty By Nature's* "O.P.P." has sporadically barnstormed my brain. I'll be standing at the kitchen sink, rinsing out the five or six glasses, cups and mugs I feel the need to dirty every day, and in the middle of humming, like, Peter Murphy or something, there's a sudden boisterous jangling of raucous piano and bouncy bass, and just like that, O.P.P. crashes my party, as so:

(To self, melodramatically: "Just wise owl tones no velvet lies, crush her velvet call...Oh Marlene suffer all the fools who write you on the wa--(vvvp vp [sound of record needle being dragged off turntable in shock]) As for the ladies, OPP means something gifted--the first two letters are the same but the last is something different. It's the longest, loveliest, lean--I call it the leanest, it's another five letter word rhymin' with cleanest and meanest. I won't get into that, I'll do it...ah...sorta properly: I say the last P...hmmm ...stands for property!" (Cut to your author, staring blankly into space.)

Yes, O.P.P. I was stunned into silence when Kenesha Petrack explained its meaning to me in eighth grade. "It's Other People's Pussy, duh," she said, with an air of I already had to explain queef to you. I needed further explication of the term, but then I let it go, and forgot about it for thirteen years. UNTIL NOW.

In celebration of randomness, I would like to present a list of alternative meanings for this acronym--meanings I can more fully support--until I pull myself together enough to make a proper Halloween entry. And go check out Robin's decorations, since this is The Office of No Holiday Spirit, Merely The Feeble Attempt At Festivity That Wearing Pathetic Cat Ears Can Bring. clm.

I'm down with...

Other People named Pete (family nickname, don't ask)

Operating on a Premise of Prankery

Obnoxious Poet Parodies

Only Ponies should Prance (message to boys dancing at Berlin)

Ordering Praline Parfaits

Onerous Personal Problems

Outdoing Party People

Otter Pop Packaging

Ordering Pints of Pilsner

*As opposed to "Naughty by Nurture," heh.