"It is long accepted by the missionaries that morality is inversely proportional to the amount of clothing people wore” ~A Carey

Working as a serving wench at Doc McGilly's Sasparilly stand during the medieval fair means long hours and hard work. By the end of a ten hour shift my hands are stained a lovely brown from the rootbeer and sore beyond belief from corking and uncorking and recorking bottles. The tips make it worth the time. And then there's the wenching...

I'm normally a pretty conservative gal, so the chance to play a character who is reprobate and scandalous is a lot of fun. Despite my cheesy fake-British accent, I'm pretty good at being a bad girl too. (Hey, don't just ask my husband - a university film crew did a feature on my character so I have a little proof to back the statement up.)

This year I knew what to expect from the beginning, plus had an idea of the sort of things that would get more tips. Low cut blouse. Absolutely. Heckling the pirates. Yehar. Bawdy innuendo. Maybe the accent is more Irish than British but who cares when I say such sweet things...

I was sad to discover that my gong was not available this time. Last year I'd had our pirate, Jerry, give it a good whack for me when I received a tip. (Cries of "bang me Jerry, bang me" were a real crowd pleaser.) But I made do, reminding our customers that tipping a wench is the guaranteed way to get a woman to scream for you.

Being a parent, I did limit the more adult themed comments during most of the first day as there were many many kids around. Saturday though, I set out from the beginning with shouts to the passing lords to begin their day with a bit of wench tipping. I huzzah'd for all my tippers, loudly proclaiming to everyone how m'lord or m'lady had warmed me wenchy heart with their tip. To amuse myself, I would from time to time take my customer's name so I could not only scream for them but scream their name too. By the middle of the afternoon the other wenches were often asking me to huzzah for their tippers. I became known as the "noisy wench" which suited my character just fine.

Midway through shouting a huzzah and reminding our customers to tip the sticky wenches, I looked up to observe the approach of a man wearing a cowl with a cross dangling from around his neck. Most of my tip baiting is extemporaneous, based on the customer and situation at hand and this was no exception.

Leaning forward over the counter, I smiled my most wicked smile and said, "Ooooh Padre, are y'here to take me confession? Because I've been a very naughty wench."

With a beatific smile, he shook his head. "I'm not a father. I'm a monk."

I laughed, replying, "Ohhh good. That means I can still be a wick....uhhh." Suddenly it dawned on me. Accent abandoned, I blinked. "That's not a costume, is it?"

"No." The monk tilted his head. "I'm from St. Gregory's Abbey."

I can't remember the last time I blushed so hard.

I swear I thought it was a costume.

WordWednesday is brought to you today by the word reprobate 1 : a person foreordained to damnation 2 : a depraved person : scoundrel. WordWednesday is a writing challenge based on The Free Dictionary's Word of the Day. Start your own challenge and better your writing skills.