Haro!
I’ve got a great idea: Delaware should legislate the use of the “Clameur de Haro.” I originally thought that it should be enacted for the entirety of the US, but the more I consider it, the more it makes sense as a Delaware-only law, like how Delaware’s the only state that allows you to incorporate by simply putting “Inc.” after your name, or how it’s legal here to dump sulfurous gasses into the atmosphere as long as nobody’s allowed to smoke anymore.
If you aren’t familiar with the process of Clameur de Haro, here’s how it works. If someone is wronging you, you need to gather some witnesses (ideally by shouting “Hey! Witnesses! Come here!”), drop to your knees, put your hand in the air, and shout:
Haro! Haro! Haro! A l’aide, mon Prince, on me fait tort.
Which translates roughly to: “Haro! Haro! Haro! Come help me, my Prince, because somebody is all up in my BWEEZNASS.”
Then you just have to recite the Lord’s Prayer. In French. If you are unfamiliar with the French words, you can find them here. Once you have completed this task, the person that’s wronging you is required to stop, even if he or she is totally in the right, on penalty of fines and/or imprisonment. Of course, if you raise the Clameur without a valid reason, you are penalized as well (fines, imprisonment, and/or a sound thrashing with the branch of a sycamore).
Then you have to file your complaint with the Greffe Office, whatever the hell that is, within 24 hours. And until the courts have ruled on the matter, whatever your wronger (that sounds like a bell-laden laundry appliance, doesn’t it?) was doing cannot continue.
Wouldn’t this be great? Just think of all the possible uses:
- Keeping Rita from writing you a parking ticket
- Stopping people from going through the express lane with more than 15 items
- Calling a bar bouncer a fat nonce and then making sure he can’t punch you
- Preventing your wife from changing the channel while the Eagles game is on
We need to all write our state representatives immediatement and get them to work on this important piece of legislation.
