Things were so much better in the old days. You could smoke cigarettes in church and drink while driving a school bus. The wars were worldlier. The racism more economically fortified. Horses were things you actually rode instead of just showing up in miscellaneous meat products. Even the polio was stronger. Not only that, a dry bob was only $3.50. What’s a dry bob you ask? How times have changed. There used to be something called a brothel.

   Before antibiotics and the UN, brothels were as common as Wal-Marts or Tescos. Unlike a Wal-mart or a Tesco, you didn’t buy chips but instead the transitory rights to a lady’s genitals. This allotted time allowed you certain license to commit acts with names like the aforementioned dry bob, diddling on the edge of the bed (with one foot on the floor), and of course the infamous Pinkey’s Special .

   The Editors grew up as stray children in a brothel. We were street urchins, wandering and aimless, without direction or any hope of a normal childhood. Those ladies took us in and made sure we were taken care of and had food. They even sent us to school and bought us books. One day, when we returned from school Madame Stephanie stopped us at the front door and said, “Children, this is no longer your home. You are old enough now. Go out, achieve, and forget about the tired lady and girls who raised you when they were nothing but children themselves.”

   And we loved Madame Stephanie so much we did exactly as she said. We miss those ladies. They had honest hearts. That was the thing about growing up in a brothel. It was the one place in town people told the truth about who they were and the things they enjoyed. Between them and the milk man you could probably find out anything you needed to know about anything in that town.

   We went back there once to see those ladies. The building wasn’t around anymore. They had demolished it and built a Wal-mart. Or maybe it was a Tesco. I don’t remember or care to tell the difference.

   Then we came across this menu on the internet from a brothel dated to 1912 and it took us back to where we needed to go. It comes from an establishment run by a Mrs. F.A. Tasse, which is an unfortunate name if real, but the Good Lord did not bless all parents with the ability to name their children equally. We read the menu, thanked those ladies even more and realized our grandparents and great-grandparents were freakier than we ever realized: