Quotes from the book (4)

I just love laughing out loud on the train, hunched over a book, secretly enjoying my fellow travelers trying to find out what it is that makes me smile. The following passage, from Paul Murray's "Skippy Dies" really cracked me up...

'Mario -' Dennis sits up '- what makes you think any girl is going to get anywhere near you? Let alone like fifteen different girls.'

Mario hesitates, then says conspiratorially, 'I have a secret weapon.'

'You do?'

'You bet, mister.' He flips open his wallet. 'Read it and weep, boys. It's my lucky condom, which never fails.'

A silence, as Mario smugly returns his wallet to his pocket, and then, clearing his throat, Dennis says, 'Uh, Mario, in what way exactly is there anything lucky about that condom?'

'Never fails,' Mario repeats, a little defensively.

'But -' Dennis pinches his fingers to his nose, brow furrowed '- I mean, if it was really a lucky condom, wouldn't you have used it by now?'

'How long have you had it in there, Mario?' Geoff says.

'Three years,' Mario says.

'Three years?'

'Without using it?'

'Doesn't that sound more like an unlucky condom?'

Mario looks troubled as his unshakeable faith in the luckiness of the lucky condom begins to show cracks.

'It was definitely pretty lucky for the condom, to wind up in your wallet!'

'Yeah, Mario, your wallet is like the Alcatraz of condoms.'

'It's like the condom Bermuda Triangle!'

'Condoms tell each other stories about your wallet, "Oh, he disappeared into Mario Bianchi's wallet, and he was never seen again."'

'Yeah, I bet right this very second your lucky condom is in there whistling the theme from The Great Escape and digging a tunnel out of your wallet with a plastic coffee stirrer -'