pot-au-feu pussy

So I'm sitting in the kitchen nook this morning, having coffee with the roomies and a house guest when Veese suddenly announces that our pal's cat Merkin died recently at the ripe old age of 18.

This fact was certainly out of context, as we were just discussing the best porn video titles— the funniest, we all agreed, was "Weapons of Ass Destruction". (Bet'cha there are a lot of Bush's soulless patches scatting around in that video.)

I was suspicious Veese was baiting my innocence and using the cat story as a vehicle to cast the word "merkin" out into our scintillatingly academic, Saturday morning conversation.

Merkin. The word sounded oddly familiar to me. I was sure I'd heard it before. Its definition was hanging off the edge of my... Veese was now madly giggling over the word merkin like a 17-year-old boy with mirrors on his shoes, so I knew whatever the word meant, it was a pretty, dirty thing.

So obviously, I googlismed it. That's right, merkin is slang for a pubic hair wig.

By the looks of them, pubic hair wigs have come a long way since 17th centruy prostitutes used them to cover up their syphillitic scars. Merkin's have truly evolved into a much, much brasher, acerbicically witty thing (hurraugh feminism).

Really — why buy a natural looking merkin, when you can buy a supernaturally fake pubic hair wig (see above photo)? Why not put your treasure trail to good use — since it's valued real estate — and honour your country right at the origin of the species?

I dig this gay little wikipedia fact:

"In gay slang, a merkin means the "official" male companion of a closeted female homosexual used to help allay suspicion that she is a lesbian, the male equivalent of a beard.

It's all chickens and eggs, really. Who cares what came first, when it's all about the Archaic Mother's soul patch.

Did you catch this post's title: pot-au-feu pussy? As I type, I'm feeling this stunning little phrase entering my list of commonly used slang like heroin poured through the ear of Hamlet's pa... even though it is Nabokovian in origin. I'll take Shakespeare over that slacker any day. Shakespeare, I'm sure, would be down with the merkin. Nabokov, on the other hand... well, he ain't taking on any pussy that's lived past 18.