The Ampersand would like to mourn the passing of a great man, Adolph Vanderhate. Truly, Adolph was the father of love. Born in Munich, Adolph was the love child of the nephew of Kaiser Wilhelm II, Fritz Vanderhate, and a syphilitic prostitute named “Trixy.” The product of a backseat grope-fest in a ’29 Benz, Adolph was a particularly unattractive baby. The young man never grew out of his misshapen body that was frequently mistaken for a large eggplant-shaped doughy sponge and his unsightly visage, resulting in the nickname “Adolph Vanderugly.”
Unfortunately, the political climate under which he was raised was less than tolerant. The German government deemed that Adolph was too unattractive to receive a formal education. Although this served as a tremendous setback for the young man, he was able to teach himself through a bartering system. The spry fellow learned to exchange hand-jobs for reading lessons. As very few people wanted hand-jobs from such an unsightly specimen, he was only able to learn a very limited vocabulary.
Cursed by his appearance, Adolph spent much of his youth sorting through his unrequited loves. With each rejection, Adolph vowed to hone his romantic skills in order to successfully woo any woman. He perfected a never before seen short form poem. His first poem, although crude, reflected a raw emotion rarely seen. Here was his first:
Roses are red, violets are blueI’ll give you a hand-job if you give me some food.
The person to whom he delivered this impassioned message was none other than the visiting Christine Hallmark. Taken by his words, she gave him some food without requesting servicing. In fact, she decided on the spot that Adolph was the perfect person to jumpstart her new company, Hallmark Greeting Cards.
As a novice, Adolph started off small. Initially, he was the assistant to the second best Saint Patrick’s Day card maker. Within a matter of months, his natural talent began to shine and he was promoted to head of Columbus Day. Yet, not knowing who Columbus was, Adolph was hard pressed to find inspiration. He longed for his days of romantic diddles. In one of the boldest initiatives in the history of corporate America, Adolph marched straight into the annual shareholders meeting to announce his plan for the ultimate holiday, designed exclusively to rake in extreme amounts of money from romantic chumps all over the world. The holiday was to be on February 14th of every year. That day was to be called “National Hand-Job Day.” Although his sentiment was admired, it was decided that “Valentine’s Day” was far more marketable.
This is how it came to be that Adolph was deemed to be the father of love. So on this February 14th, when you are making sweet love to that special someone, think of dear old Adolph giving hand-jobs for food in heaven.
He died alone.
(Editor’s note: We apologize for the excessive usage of “hand-job” in this article.)
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