Dames!!!! (P. G. Wodehouse Wisdom: "Do Butlers Burgle Banks"?)

If you did not know, P. G. Wodehouse is one of the funniest writers who ever lived (so long as you don't want your humor to be depressing and "realistic").


I did an earlier entry where I noted that Wodenouse wrote about dames, even though he did not call them that--being tough cookies who happened to be "delicately nurtured" females of the British uppre class (Wodehouse's upper class being a fantasy world that never existed, but should have). Since Wodehouse, even though he became an American citizen, set his stories in Britain, I thought he had never actually used the word "dames" (despite writing about them). WRONG.


In his novel, Do Butlers Burgle Banks (rating 91), Wodehouse imported some American gangsters to England. And they talked about dames!!!! One of the continuing series of this blog is revealing wisdom about dames from primarily old movies and old books. This example comes from Wodehouse's novel:


Some British criminals are attempting to rob a bank. They interrupt two Wodehouse, "delicately nurtured", dames who are previously robbing the same bank. What else can a fiance' do when she learns that her loved one is going to prison for bank fraud unless someone saves him by robbing the bank? In the world of Wodehouse, the only choice the fiance' has is to rob the bank. A real woman would not be that stupid, and would let the poor sap of a male hang, but Wodehouse dames are different, if fully as tough and vicious as real dames.


Anyway, one of the Chicago gangsters hired by the British variety, stumbles across one of the British dames--after they had already found the other one inside the vault. His reaction was, as he pushed the woman into the room where the other robbers were: "Dames!!!! Always butting in and not leaving men to ourselves."


Words to keep in mind, as you try to find private time away from the dames in your life. Robbing a bank is a possibility, since there are not too many Wodehouse dames out there going the extra mile to help a loved mere male. But now you might encounter a dame cop, or a "rea" gang of female bank robbers. So you might still have the same problem as the Wodehouse characters, as you find dames butting into the private world of males.