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Don’t Call Me Shirley

A Comic Homage

Robert Hayes as reluctant pilot Ted Striker: “Surely you can’t be serious!”
Leslie Nielsen as Dr. Rumack: “I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley.”
(From “Airplane!” screenplay by Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker)

I said to him, “But surely that’s not right.”
“It is!” he said. “And please don’t call me Shirley.”
“Alright, my friend,” I said. “Don’t get uptight
Or let your mood become too crass and churly
Or surely you’ll regret what’s said in spite.”
“No, spite,” he said. “But please don’t call me Shirley
Unless you want to get into a fight!”
“I don’t,” I said. “No need for hurly burly.
How ‘bout we just go out and get a bite?
You surely must be starved. That’s why you’re surly.”
He said, “You think I’m surly out of spite?
Not quite, but I must say I’m getting squirrely
Because I nicely ask you all polite
Yet you ignore me and still call me Shirley.”
“I’m so confused!” I said. “Must you ignite
My anger now when I speak so demurely
Each time you carp? How can I fix this plight?
I know. Let’s get away. We could leave early
Just for a lark. I’ll treat you to a flight
To Vegas. Blackjack. Shows risqué and girlie.
That surely ought to prove that I’m contrite!”
“A Vegas trip on you? Heck yeah! Alright!
That’s surely worth the price. Just call me Shirley!”

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Little Me

The gadget that I built—the smallifier—
Went mad! The dials spun, the floor shook, all
The furniture grew large, the ceiling higher;
And once it stopped, I’d shrunk to one inch tall!

Three days have passed. I’m smaller than a cork
Trapped in a nightmare waiting for my wife.
I wish she’d end her visit to New York
And help restore me to my full-sized life!

It’s quite a challenge—that’s to say the least—
When smallified so much you’re just a smidge!
You’d think a little food would mean a feast
But I can’t even open up the fridge.

A mountain of fresh fruit is on the table
Comprised of oranges, some figs and grapes.
I pick at them the best that I am able
Intimidated by their monstrous shapes.

I’m very grateful we don’t have a cat
Because I then would prove an easy meal.
I fear the fruit-fly—bigger than a bat!
It circles me as if I were fresh veal.

I have no way to even use my phone
Which I set up for thumb-print execution—
A feature worse than useless had I known
I’d need it most when I turned Lilliputian.

The little woman comes home in the morning.
The man she wed? I’m not one-tenth that chap!
I somehow must convey to her a warning
So I don’t end up crushed in some mishap.

There’s two good things about becoming small
And entering this wonderland like Alice:
If I should trip I don’t have far to fall;
And now my house is bigger than a palace!

To live this small I easily conceal
Myself in spots you giants cannot see.
But life in hiding seems a strange ideal
When all I long to say sounds wan and wee.

The time has come to be right-sized once more
And not allow myself to be degraded.
A man who’s meek and mouse-sized cannot roar.
To live as if Tom Thumb is overrated.

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Brian Yapko is a retired lawyer whose poetry has appeared in over fifty journals.  He is the winner of the 2023 SCP International Poetry Competition. Brian is also the author of several short stories, the science fiction novel El Nuevo Mundo and the gothic archaeological novel  Bleeding Stone.  He lives in Wimauma, Florida.

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24 Responses

  1. Warren Bonham

    This was a great way to start the day! Airplane was one of the greatest movies of all time. I did see that someone decided they needed to remake it – I haven’t had the stomach to watch the new version. Regardless, the first poem is a great tribute to a great movie. It reminded me of Who’s on First with the repetitive misunderstanding but your ending was much more satisfying.

    Reply
    • Brian Yapko

      Thank you very much, Warren! I didn’t know about the Airplane! remake until you mentioned it. Why would they do that??? I don’t understand why Hollywood keeps remaking pictures that already great and, indeed, iconic just the way they are. I’ve seen wretched remakes of Ben Hur, Murder on the Orient Express, Ghostbusters, all these Disney live-action remakes of classic cartoons… It’s as if the writers in Hollywood don’t have an original thought in their heads.

      Reply
  2. Roy Eugene Peterson

    The greatness of your poetry astounds, as you have dealt with things beyond the bounds. With such comedic revelry, you championed the cause of ribaldry. I recall the movie of “Airplane,” and “Shirley,” what you wrote must be insane. And then the image of Tom Thumb has left me laughing till I’m numb!

    Reply
    • Laura Schwartz

      Brian,
      Just when we needed some light Tom Thumb foolery
      You delivered to us double gut-laughs so droolery!
      Your Man-Mouse did roar, that we cannot ignore
      And your Sure-ilies made our smiles twirlery!

      (With apologies to Mr. Peterson)

      Reply
      • Brian Yapko

        Thank you so much, Laura! I’m glad you enjoyed the poems and I must remember that “foolery-droolery” rhyme. It may well come in handy one of these days!

    • Brian Yapko

      Roy, thank you for this chortle-inducing comment in verse which is hilarious in its own right. I’m glad my work gave you a good laugh!

      Reply
  3. jd

    Two wonderfully imaginative and humorous pieces, Brian. You are quite the amazing poet.

    Reply
  4. James A. Tweedie

    Brian, “Surely you jest,” in ways rhymefully akin to Larry, Moe and Curley!

    And drinking in your Lilliputian thumbprint reference was like savoring a perfectly aged fine wine—and then spitting it out in a burst of laughter.

    Reply
    • Brian Yapko

      Thank you so much, James! I had not thought of the name “Curley” as a rhyme and am kicking myself for the lost opportunity! I happen to be one of those low-brow poets who love the Three Stooges as well as Abbott & Costello and the Marx Brothers. I’m especially glad you liked that “execution-Lillipution” rhyme. I was rather tickled when the Muse whispered that one in my ear.

      Reply
  5. Mark Stellinga

    You had to have been in an abnormally ‘goofy’ mood when you were penning these 2 charmers, Brian – thanks for the frivolitical entertainment on a wet & cloudy Sunday morning up here in Iowa 🙂

    Reply
    • Brian Yapko

      “Goofy’ is right, Mark — actually a rather frequent state of mind for me. Sometimes I enjoy writing poetry that is just mindless fun — we all need our Jabberwocky moments! I hope the sun has come out in Iowa! Florida is sweltering right now with temperatures in the mid-90s and humidity in the mid-90s.

      Reply
  6. M.D. Skeen

    These are both quite funny and the use of only two rhyme sounds in Don’t Call Me Shirley is well executed. You address some very practical modern problems with shrinking like trying to use a biometric phone password. Very imaginative and humerous!

    Reply
    • Brian Yapko

      Thank you very much indeed, M.D. Telling this story in the 21st Century, I needed a good reason why my speaker couldn’t use his cellphone to text for help. Facial recognition would have been just as much of a problem.

      Reply
  7. Joseph S. Salemi

    “Don’t Call Me Shirley” is a great example of the use of a single misunderstood word as the hinge on which to hang an entire poem. Such poems are almost always comic, and there aren’t many of them. I remember one that made fun of the song title “Secret Agent Man” by revising it as “Secret Asian Man,” and the rock song “Shake, Rattle, and Roll” was twisted into “Shake Marilyn Monroe” by my younger brother.

    The Marx Brothers were great at this sort of thing. I recall when Groucho was discussing a legal matter with his brother Chico, and advised him to depend on the “sanity clause” for his defense in a trial. Chico replied “Nah, you can’t fool me. There ain’t no Santy Claus” (i.e. Santa Claus). Or there was the scene where someone said to Groucho “Your enemy is outside, and he’s waxing wroth.” Groucho replied “Why? Does Roth need to be waxed?”

    As for “Little Me,” I am reminded of the great 1957 science fiction film “The Incredible Shrinking Man.” It was based on a Richard Matheson novel. This poem seems to parallel many of the details of that movie: the dangers and inconveniences, the problems with getting food, the fights with insects, the inability to make one’s presence known to normal-sized human beings, and the threat of being eaten by a cat.

    These are two imaginative and funny pieces. They show what poetry can do when it doesn’t get smothered by sentimentality.

    Reply
    • Brian Yapko

      Thank you very much, Joe. I’ve been an “Airplane!” fan for many years and have often borrowed the “and don’t call me Shirley” line. I challenged myself to see if I could make a coherent poem out of this silly line and am pleased that it seems to have worked.

      These “misheard” words in songs have actually led to something of a genre of musical satire with Weird Al Yankovic as one of its more famous practitioners. His “Like a Surgeon” (instead of “Like a Virgin”) comes to mind. I howled with laughter when you described Groucho Marx and the “waxing Roth” line. Groucho’s tongue-in-cheek style of delivery was perfect for that kind of line.

      I’ve never seen “The Incredible Shrinking Man” so this is a movie I must watch soon. I was more specifically inspired by “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” and, more obliquely, by the old Irwin Allen TV show “Land of the Giants.” But I imagine the problems one might face when being shrunk down to an inch tall would be fairly universal. How to eat. How to not get eaten or squished. Those old chestnuts.

      Reply
  8. Cynthia L Erlandson

    Thanks for this hilarious version of “Brian in Wonderland”, and all the fun rhymes for Shirley.

    Reply
    • Brian Yapko

      Thank you so much, Cynthia! I had a great time writing this and love the faux title “Brian in Wonderland” which gives me some interesting poetic ideas…

      Reply
  9. Margaret Coats

    Brian, as I was reading through “Little Me,” I thought it might take on the serious notion of loss of voice and inability to speak out on one’s own behalf. The speaker is, after all, the victim of the smallifier gadget he himself built. That could have symbolized his psychological need of greater assertiveness, as well as explaining why he, in the final stanza, seems to determine he will (apparently by his own effort) become “right-sized,” and no longer let himself be “downgraded.” In addition to Brobdingnag and “The Incredible Shrinking Man,” I thought of Dr. Seuss and “Horton Hears A Who.” Horton as an elephant discovers that “a person’s a person no matter how small,” and that book is good on pro-life values. But then I arrived at your last lines alluding to the hilarious “Mouse That Roared.” That means you call to mind comic entertainment in which a tiny country intends to benefit by losing a war against the United States, and unaccountably wins the war, with further ridiculous consequences. The end result is, however, world peace–and the individual who could have revealed the error on which it was based decides to keep quiet! A happy next-to-last line starring Peter Sellers is irresistible, though I agree in the end that smallness is overrated. Good things achieved in the second-to-last stanza are small desiderata. May better and best be envisioned, as comedy likes to conclude!

    Reply
    • Brian Yapko

      Thank you very much for your kind comment, Margaret. You are absolutely correct about the serious message underlying the various fantasy allusions. What started out as a frothy science fiction tale ended up as something of a psychological allegory in which the speaker who has allowed himself to become diminished and hidden has been galvanized into finding his right-size — and his voice — once again. Thank you for seeing the layers of this little tale. And thank you for mentioning The Mouse That Roared. I’ve rarely seen it in reruns even though it’s a Peter Sellers movie, and rather thought that people had forgotten about that feisty little Duchy of Grand Fenwick.

      Reply
  10. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    Brian, what a thoroughly entertaining pair of poems that shine with poetic eloquence and wit. “Don’t Call Me Shirley” is an absolute hoot, and that closing couplet, with that deft change from “don’t” to “just” had me laughing out loud – a definite plus in these humorless days.

    But, it’s “Little Me” that sings to me. I love all your “little” nods to Alice, Tom, the Lilliputians, that roaring mouse… etc. But, like Joe, I am reminded of one of my favorite films – “The Incredible Shrinking Man” with a life-changing closing speech that has stayed with me from the age of eight till now. Your poem reminds me to NEVER lose my power and presence in a big world. Being small may seem an amusing, safe option, but I believe it leads to vulnerability, loneliness and frustration. Being seen and heard by those around us is crucial to one’s happiness and dignity. Brian, your beautiful poem makes me want to stand up, shout out, and never shrink away from the world – no matter how big and scary. I don’t know whether my interpretation of your poem is correct… but, this is what I’m taking away as a reader and I thank you wholeheartedly for an admirably crafted poem my soul needs to hear.

    Reply
    • Brian Yapko

      Susan, I’m delighted that you enjoyed both of these poems! Yes, you noticed and “got” that turn from “don’t” to “just.” I also inverted the rhymes in those last two lines so that what had been a-b-a-b-a-b unexpectedly ends with a b-a instead of an a-b. That parallels the speaker’s reversal of his own complaint and now allowing himself to be called “Shirley.”

      “Little Me” is my favorite of the two as well. You have correctly and completely interpreted what I intended for the speaker — to never giveup power and voice, even if you feel you are too small to make a difference. As you yourself say, “Being small may seem an amusing, safe option, but I believe it leads to vulnerability, loneliness and frustration. Being seen and heard by those around us is crucial to one’s happiness and dignity.” It is indeed crucial for oneself but I believe it is also crucial for society as a whole to have those silent and hiding voices raised up to shout out truth. I believe that one of the reasons society — especially the West — has gotten into such a bad predicament with wokism and and invasion of Islamist fundamentalism is because people with brains and sense simply could not bring themselves to speak up and say “NO!” This diffidence, this inability to assert and maintain boundaries, this inability to express truth, has cost us an enormous amount of grief and will continue to do so.

      So when you and I talk about not shrinking but shouting out what needs to be said, be assured that we are on the same page and fighting the same battle. For that I am incredibly grateful.

      Reply
  11. ABB

    These poems are a riot in the best, most lyrical sense. ‘Don’t Call Me Shirley’ turns a classic punchline into a dazzling swirl of rhyme and wordplay, like a Shakespearean comedy filtered through a Zucker-Abrahams lens. The escalating volley of “Shirley” poetic pivots is masterful. ‘Little Me’ is equally delightful—clever, charming, and slightly existential. The comic absurdity of shrinking into a world of giant grapes and killer fruit flies recalls so many films and novels. I especially loved the final stanza’s yearning to roar again. Both pieces show technical skill wrapped in humor and heart. Bravo!

    Reply
    • Brian Yapko

      Thank you so much, Andrew! I enjoyed the wordplay tremendously as I was writing “Shirley” and hoped that a bit of that giddiness would translate into black and white. Also, I love your observation of the existential aspect of the poem. It really is ultimately about being seen and heard. Generous comment very much appreciated!

      Reply

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