1776--Now With Bermondsey!

Of course we rewrite everything to include the dog. After all, can you deny that he is a very intelligent looking dog?

Today's offering comes from 1776--the play in which the Founding Fathers sing and dance their way to independence. Specifically, the scene in which John Adams is trying to convince each of the members of the Declaration Committee to take on the task of actually writing out the grievances against the crown. He turns to each of the members of the committee, asking them to be the author, because "if I'm the one to do it, they'll run their quill pens through it. I'm obnoxious and disliked, you know that's true."

Each member gives his excuses: Benjamin Franklin offers this refusal:

Mr. Adams, but, Mr. Adams
The things I write are only light extemporania
I won't put politics on paper; it's a mania
So I refuse to use the pen in Pennsylvania

Roger Sherman also pleads his inability:

Mr. Adams, but, Mr. Adams
I cannot write with any style or proper etiquette
I don't know a participle from a predicate
I am just a simple cobbler from Connecticut

Robert Livingston is off to New York and a newborn son, leaving poor Tom Jefferson the grueling task of remaining in a hot, fly infested city to write the first draft.

Too bad this all happened 230 years before Bermondsey existed, or he could have offered his own excuses:

Mr. Adams, dear Mr. Adams
The proposition you put forth is not supposable.
My talents are not lingual, they're more nose-able.
And besides my little thumbs are not opposable.

Chorus:
Opposable! Opposable! He can not hold the quill!

Weird Al Yankovic is not the only one who can do this, you know.