For those who don’t already know, Stephan Pastis created Pearls Before Swine, a wickedly funny cartoon strip. He constructs long, intricate puns that make me laugh out loud. This disturbs me because everyone knows puns are the product of devious, disturbed minds. If I point out that Mr. Pastis also likes to tweak those who’d censor his rather pungent view of humanity, we can all assume the combination is no coincidence.  As a case in point, one of the strips recently dealt with a man in fear of a kick in the hoo-hahs. One assumes this is a euphemism; no search of respected literature shows any anatomical feature remotely like hoo-hahs. In that regard, Mr. Pastis has been exceeded. A recent article in our local paper declared Woman kicks attacker in Snohomish, escapes. Disregarding the fact that the woman is courageous beyond description and the crime is the sort that begs the reinstatement of flogging, we now have another wink-wink-nudge phrase for Mr. Pastis to dance with. Can we anticipate harsh language wherein one is dismissed as He ain’t got the Snohomish for the job?  Or (for better or worse) praised as The Snohomish-y kind who gets things done?  Perhaps. Worse yet, however, can the inventive Mr. Pastis create a pun involving the word Snohomish?
Forget that.