Pompeii residents no beauties

The male and female residents of Pompeii were actually uglier than imagined, according to bones recently unearthed from the ruins of the city buried in A.D. 79 by a volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius. For centuries the legend existed that the people, especially the women of Pompeii, were classical beauties.

“Hey, why is everyone making such a big deal out of a bunch of bones?” asked Dr. Melvin Toolini of the Italian-American Protection League. “Consider for a moment,” stressed Toolini, “that these primitive people had no sun screen and no skin conditioners. Add to that the fact that they had just been covered up by scalding lava, accompanied by all sorts of rock and other debris. Do you know what that can do to one’s complexion alone?”

Toolini went on to point out that after all this abuse the victims laid around underground for almost 2,000 years.

“What did my colleagues hope to find,” quizzed Toolini, gesturing to a mob of anthropologists assembled at the main digs, “the ultimate prom queen?”

Toolini has published an extended study that suggests that anyone who had undergone such a trauma would look like hell by now, but that despite their state of decomposition still might look good to out-of-state hunters at closing time.

“Ain’t no man can avoid being born average but ain’t no man gotta be common.”

– Satchel Paige