[…] Yet she glanced no thought At her own mermaid nakedness but gathering The long black serpents of beached seaweed wove Wreaths for old Jinny and crowned and wound her. […]

A light feveret, or an old quartan ague, is not a sufficient excuse for non-appearance.

ABRAHAM (turning ISAAC over facedown): Therefore downface thou shall be laid, Then when I strike thou shall not see.

While your parents may have had no other choice but to wash your tighty-whities when you were a tyke, those days are long gone.