Fine Fish Fiction

FICTION: "The Charismatic, Catholic, Christmas Choir"-A Smile for the Christmas Season

2009-12-13T14:08:00.000-08:00

"The Charismatic, Catholic, Christmas Choir" is a little fiction piece meant for:Catholics; folks with a sense of humor; people who like Christmas; Those of us just needing a big smile for the season.

For the choir really meant well when it embarked on the ferry to entertain its passengers. The dunk into the bay of sopranos, altos and tenors and the resulting confusion was never part of the plan.

Pic of the Day

The Charismatic, Catholic, Christmas Choir

It wasn’t the entire choir of Most Holy Blessed Sacrament that agreed to participate in the Christmas party at the Leonardtown Ferry terminal. Which is no matter because so far as the public in Warren county, Washington and locale of the Most Holy Blessed Sacrament Catholic church knew, it was the entirety of the Most Holy Blessed Sacrament choir that got all mixed up and ended up with five members-, an alto, two sopranos, a bass and one tenor, in the waters of the Monogasat Bay,- swimming for their very lives as the Leonardtown Ferry merrily sailed away unmindful of the desperate choir members struggling in the waters below.

This did not make Father George happy because, as he explained that night after the incident, the local newspapers referred to the choir members overboard as the choir of the Most Holy Blessed Sacrament and this incident did not reflect well on the parish of the Most Holy Blessed Sacrament. Father George was ever mindful of public relations in Warren county as he’d just had two spanking new buildings erected next to the Most Holy Blessed Sacrament church, a Parish life center and Religious Education Center. Father George promised Bishop Wright that he thought he could sign up maybe three thousand more parishioners at Most Holy Blessed Sacrament but now, what with the choir taking a dunk in the Monogasat Bay and the bizarre story behind it all he was not at all pleased for having to calm down Bishop Wright.

“I expect each and every one of you to sign up a new parishioner by the end of this month,” Father George told us through tight angry lips. “Maybe then I’ll forget that whole sad episode and the insanity of doing such a thing without the blessing of the church.”

Father George then gave Judd Turner a quick glance and walked off in a huff.

Actually it was Judd Turner, the music director of the Most Holy Blessed Sacrament church, who was responsible for all the confusion of the now infamous choral performance of the MHBS choir on the Leonardtown Ferry which was supposed to be at the Leonardtown Ferry TERMINAL, not on the actual Ferry and if Judd hadn’t messed up that little piece of information at the very least none of us would have fallen in the Monogasat Bay while singing “The First Noel/Pachebel’s Canon” on the rolling deck of the Leonardtown Ferry. Saddest of all, while Elsie, our flute player, didn’t fall into the Mongasat Bay, she lost her flute, just another victim of what has come to be known at MHBS as the Mongasat Bay Choir Massacre, dubbed so by a few wisenheimers on the pastoral council.

The whole thing began when Judd sent us all an email advising us that a parishioner heard us singing at the 7 am mass and inquired as to whether we might like to perform for the Leonardtown Ferry Christmas party scheduled in early December. I thought it was a great idea and returned the email telling Judd to count me in. The Ferry Christmas party was scheduled on a Wednesday night while our choir practice was on Thursday nights. At the next choir practice, Judd said he thought the Wednesday night date would interfere with our practice and with the Christmas program of MHBS so close to the date of the Ferry Christmas party he didn’t think the choir participation to be a good idea.

I was disappointed at Judd’s announcement but not surprised. Judd had been the music director of MHBS since the church was built, then some ten years, and Judd was not known far and wide for his vigor and enthusiasm to try anything new or expand his horizons.

“It’s too bad about the Ferry Christmas party,” Wendy, the choir’s song conductor and her words stopped me as I packed up my music to head home after practice. John Ryan, the choir’s best tenor, and Allen Markham, our most dependable bass, looked up.

“I don’t know why he won’t let the choir participate in some of these local events,” Nancy Ryan, John’s wife, said. “Last year we were asked to sing at Sunfest and Judd turned them down flat. Sunfest is in the Fall, hardly any busy time for our choir. Now Judd has the excuse of the church Christmas program being so close to the Ferry party but that’s all it is, an excuse.”

By now about ten members of our choir were standing around, grumping and complaining about Judd’s decision to not allow the choir to participate in the Ferry Christmas program. Seems I wasn’t the only one disgruntled by Judd’s iron hand and besides I had no idea he’d blocked us from singing at the big Sunfest event, a huge local event designed to bring tourists to our local beach areas after the summer season had passed.

Even now, a full five weeks after the unfortunate event it’s been difficult to compile, correlate and calculate just how the confusion came about but as best as I can tell, it was Nancy Ryan who began the email game of “gossip” that made an original email stating that Judd was thinking about relenting to her pleas to allow the choir to sing at the ferry terminal, that, if so, we should be there at 7:00 pm on Dec. 6, and we would probably be singing “Mary Did You Know?” and “Praise to the Newborn King” as we already knew these songs to turn into an email stipulating that Judd had definitely agreed to allow the choir to sing on the Leonardtown Ferry, that we should be there for take off at 7:30 pm, that we would be singing “The First Noel/Pachebel’s Canon”, a song we barely knew.

There were other factors that contributed to the big mix-up, not the least of which was the fact that Nancy did not have the correct email addresses of all the choir members so she sent out to those whose email she knew and asked us to forward the emails to those not included on the original email list. Jane Martin got an email from Bob Doyle that an email was being sent out about singing on the Ferry. Jane sent an email to Joe Tang asking about it and Jane got Joe’s email address wrong so it was returned to her. Jane saw Joe’s wife the next day at the grocery and asked what was going on with the Ferry. Joe’s wife didn’t know a thing about it so she emailed Barbara Wooden who said she couldn’t make it that night but she’d just talked to Allen Barker and he wanted to know what song the choir was singing so he could bring the right music. All of this email-go-round went on after our weekly Thursday choir practice on the week proceeding the Wednesday when we were scheduled to sing on the Ferry so Judd Turner was essentially, out of the loop.

And so on December 6, eight members of the choir of Most Holy Blessed Sacrament boarded the Leonardtown Ferry. We were surprised that we had to pay for the trip across Monogasat Bay but then again no one ever addressed the matter one way or the other. We were also surprised that only eight of us showed up what with all the email and excitement but we shrugged and said we’d carry on, that we made a commitment. A trip across the Monogasat Bay is not cheap, however, coming in at about $15.00 per passenger and we were all in a bit of a snit over having to put up our money when we were, essentially, providing the entertainment. At least as we saw it and no one knew the name of the parishioner who originally suggested we sing on the ferry at any rate, no one knew who had come up with the song choice, no one knew, for that matter, where the hell the other 15 members of the Most Holy Blessed Sacrament Choir were that night and, of course, it was windy and rainy and the ferry was rocking.

It did turn out that Santa Claus was to be on the ferry that night so we all figured we were in the right place. We went to the ferry’s lounge but there was no room anywhere for a choir what with the big Santa seat set up, the roped lines for the children to wait their turn to sit on Santa’s lap and goodness all the photography equipment.

John Ryan, the only tenor to show up that night, along with Alan Markham, the only bass, found someone who was in charge of the social activities on the ferry but she had no idea where the choir was to stand as it seemed, ahem, there was no room at the inn. She also did not know why we had to pay to get on the ferry so we dropped that issue and decided to deal with it later.

The ferry’s social director did find a roped off area out on the deck of the ferry and she directed us all to it. “When we get close to the Cape Jerome shore the ferry captain is going to summon all the passengers out to this area so we can see the pretty lights of the decorated Victorian homes as the ferry pulls into the Cape Jerome terminal. I’m thinking this is when the choir would be singing Christmas carols, to entertain the passengers as they watch the lights.” The ferry social director wiped her face and apologized for the awful weather but explained that this is the nature of planning activities so susceptible to unpredictable weather.

All eight of us began to grouse about having to sing in the pouring and blowing rain. We went on to moan about the fifteen bucks we had to pay then, now worked up to an angry rage, we all vowed to quit the Most Holy Blessed Sacrament Choir and we vowed to give that lazy Judd Turner some gigantic pieces of our minds.

Nancy Ryan finally shushed us all up and gave us a lecture on doing what we promised to do, that Christ the Savior would be born this month, that Mary gave birth in a cold manger in nasty weather herself and here all we had to do was sing. I found a little fold up umbrella in my purse that I’d forgotten I had and we all managed to get under it and in due course we got to laughing about our predicament but it was in the spirit of the season so we decided to brave on and deal with the problems later.

The fact that only two people even bothered to come out on the deck at the behest of the ferry’s pilot urging over the boat’s PA system was a bit disheartening but we all huddled under that little flimsy umbrella and decided we would entertain those two brave folk with the best rendition of “The First Noel/Pachebel’s Canon” they’d ever hear coming from the mouths of eight wet, cold and seasick people. We didn’t even let the fact that we didn’t know that song save the first two of ten pages stop us from our quest.

It was when the ferry let out a huge belch of smoke and rolled up over a huge wave that came out of nowhere that the real problems began. And there we were singing our anthem bravely and not doing half bad except for the roaring wind which drowned us out and a couple of us got to coughing when a wind gust swept a cupful of water into our mouths unexpectedly. This took alto Nancy Ryan out of the harmony along with our tenor and bass. The sopranos were able to continue on which is why we probably missed the ferry’s dip into the Monogasat Bay that sent five of us overboard plus Elsie’s flute.

The ferry quickly righted itself and the five of us swimming in those cold waters struggled to keep above water as Elsie screamed at us from the deck of the ferry to save her flute and none of us knew if help would come soon enough.

I was doing an okay doggie paddle and managed to quell my panic enough to notice that we weren’t far from the shore line. Nancy Ryan, however, is a somewhat large woman and she kept going down below the waves. Her husband John, not a small person himself, kept trying to get to her but Monogasat Bay was angry and roiling.

I decided to swim over to both of them with images of proud headlines about the Most Holy Blessed Sacrament’s choir member who managed to swim to the shores of Cape Jerome while pulling over four hundred pounds of human flesh to safety. Except on my second swim stroke my feet touched something odd and I realized it was something solid, not watery at all. I plunked my foot down and stood up and found I was only in water up to my knees at that point. In a few seconds I slipped again but my hands did a Braille type of maneuver and I realized I was on some rocks. I screamed over to John that he should grab Nancy and move forward a couple of feet, that there was a rock jetty right close.

All five of us managed to get atop the rock jetty and I don’t know, we thought maybe there would be a bastion of Coast Guard boats with blinking lights at the ready to pluck us from the cutting rocks and out of the chill air, to safety, perhaps a warm towel. Instead we heard the ferry horn blow hoarsely and watched Elsie as she continued to beg us to save her flute.

We were actually able to walk along the jetty to the ferry terminal at Cape Jerome where the ferry’s social director and a few other ferry personnel awaited us. They were getting ready to summon a rescue for us we were assured.

So it turned out that the Christmas party was at the ferry TERMINAL, on the Leonardtown side, alas, not on the actual ferry and, indeed, about twelve choir members of Most Holy Blessed Sacrament Church were, even as we shivered from the chill and fear, singing “Mary, Did You Know” after receiving a rollicking applause for a few other holiday tunes they’d sung earlier. Judd Turner was also at the Leonardtown ferry terminal and he’d been griping the whole time about where were we , his best alto, bass and tenor, when we’d been the ones complaining about wanting to attend the Christmas party at the very start.

A couple of local reporters happened to be on the ferry that night, one complete with a camera. St. Catherine’s, located across Monogasat Bay in Cape Jerome, is an ersatz rival of Most Holy Blessed Sacrament and the reporter was a St. Catherine’s parishioner. St. Catherine and MHBS are friendly rivals as these things go, to be sure, but given a chance one church will revel in the travails of the other. Which must be against some commandment as I lamented to John Ryan in the aftermath of our disaster. It was the stuff of mockery, the photo of five very wet, bedraggled members of the Most Holy Blessed Sacrament choir not to mention their absurd story to accompany the photo. Alongside the pictures of our five pathetic selves, of course, was a merry picture of the rest of our choir, all dressed festively, laughing, eating snacks, drinking punch, hair perfectly coiffed, enjoying their time at the Leonardtown Ferry terminal’s annual Christmas party.

I managed to coax a parishioner from St. Catherine’s to come join Most Holy Blessed Sacrament church in fulfillment of Father George’s “punishment” for our mess up. Nancy and John Ryan managed to convince the two reporters from Cape Jerome, also parishioners of St. Catherine’s, to sign up for MHBS. “I want to belong to a church which has such brave and audacious choir members,” one told Nancy. After the story of our mishaps was published in the Cape Jerome newspapers, we heard rumors that over fifty people called for information to sign up to be MHBS parishioners.

Judd Turner devised a special email listing, with an email address that would be used ONLY for choir issues. He’d enjoyed the Christmas party at the Leonardtown Ferry terminal so much and like John Ryan said, a little publicity goes a long way in attracting new parishioners.

Not that we made a big deal of it, but a few weeks after it all came down, weeks of mirthful publicity about the dunking taken by the MHBS choir, the pictures of the new buildings on the MHBS church campus, the publishing of a video on the MHBS web site of the concert given at the correct locale- the ferry TERMINAL- on that fateful night, attendance at the church has increased, inquiries about joining the MHBS parish family keep coming in, darn, Elsie was invited on TV for the local cable channel and was gifted with a brand new flute. The Leonardtown Ferry returned to each of us who showed up to sing for the passengers on the Leonardtown Ferry the $15.00 plus two free tickets for a future trip, date of our choice.

Father George has dubbed us the underwater members of the Most Holy Blessed Sacrament Choir and every once in a while has us step forward after the choir sings the anthem for proper introduction.

With a stern but bemused smile on his face, of course.
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12.1.09

2009-12-01T14:04:00.000-08:00

The Case of the Missing Thanksgiving Turkey

2009-11-22T14:44:00.000-08:00

Here’s a fiction story ready for Thanksgiving Turkey titled, appropriately, “The Case of the Missing Turkey”.

It had been in her oven for sure until a half hour before serving. Then her turkey turned up missing. She did the only thing she could do under the circumstances. She stole her neighbor’s turkey.

Which action landed her in jail and other hilarity that is a tale to repeat each Thanksgiving holiday.

Pic of the Day

The Case of the Missing Thanksgiving Turkey

“Tell us the story about the time the Thanksgiving turkey disappeared right out of the oven Grandma!”

I waved my hand to shush my granddaughter, Mary May. Everyone then gathered around my Thanksgiving table had heard the story a thousand times. Except, of course, a handsome young fellow named Edward, who was Mary May’s guest this holiday.

“I’d love to hear that story Mrs. Bobbit,” the handsome young Edward said to encourage me and I figured I could let the turkey rest a few more minutes while I regaled the ensemble gathered around my table to thank God for the bounty of the harvest, America, family, whatever each was thankful for. I do dearly love to recount the story of the Thanksgiving when our turkey had been blissfully roasting in my oven then suddenly turned up missing, boom, yes, completely gone.

Well it was just the strangest thing.

It was 1977. My daughter, Mary May’s mother, Genevieve, Ginny for short, was ten years old. Her older brother, George jr., was twelve years old. My beloved husband, now departed, was very much alive and was very excited that year in that he was up for promotion and his boss, the bosses’ wife, and their two children, were our guests that Thanksgiving. Of course George didn’t want to get me all worked up over the pressure that normally accompanies preparing a Thanksgiving meal, much less one to be consumed by my husband’s boss. George’s promotion to manager of the accounting department at the hospital where George was then employed was so very important to our family. George and I had been planning on finally buying our own home and we needed this promotion to continue on to that American dream. But worked up I was, goodness. I was a right sharp cook and Thanksgiving dinner had always been my favorite meal to prepare for my family. As best as I could, I kept myself calm and purposeful, writing lists for food, to-do’s for the big meal, orders for my own children as to proper behavior, essentially covering all the bases to make that meal a most successful endeavor that would have George head of Bon Secours accounting department within the week following Thanksgiving day.

For all my organizational skills, how could I possibly have anticipated that my turkey, beautifully browned, stuffed with sausage and chestnut dressing, basted to a perfect sheen, would totally disappear from my oven with no explanation for same?

I know the turkey had been in the oven at around 3 pm that Thanksgiving afternoon because I’d informed all then eagerly awaiting the turkey that so teased their noses that the meal would be on the table in about a half an hour. I’d moved the sweet potatoes around within the oven cavity to insure their proper doneness and it was an effort with that big turkey in the way and I even had to pull out that extra dish of dressing to make room for a quick heating of the rolls. All the while that turkey was in that oven, I swore on my children’s lives to George right after it went missing, such was my distress.

“You’ve been smelling it roasting all morning, George,” I said, half-sobbing , half-cursing the gods who managed to steal my perfectly roasted Thanksgiving turkey right out of my oven within a half hour before I was ready to serve it at my Thanksgiving dinner.

“You got to know I’m not nuts. This entire house smells like roasting turkey! You saw me prepping the thing this morning, dear Lord! But it’s not here George! Look for yourself.”

George had alternately been trying to keep my voice down to a hysterical stage whisper lest his boss hear and debating me whether there had ever been a turkey in that oven.

“I do smell the baking turkey smell, Rhonda,” George acquiesced this point to me during the hushed kitchen debate. “But I really didn’t see you prepping the turkey this morning. Rhonda you were up at 5 am this morning beginning the preparation for this dinner! I mean please, Rhonda, I believe you. It’s just that I can’t get my mind around how an entire turkey can just disappear from someone’s oven. Not a single one of us heard a thing, Rhonda. We’ve got a house full of people here, Rhonda. Somebody would have seen something.”

Of course George was right. We had kids running around all over the place, a house full of adults walking all around, goodness I’d been in the kitchen at least once every twenty minutes. Somebody would have seen a turkey thief taking off with a 23 pound almost fully cooked turkey one would think.

“Well we’ve got to do something, Rhonda. I think the Shop-A-Rama is open. They were selling fully cooked turkeys this week, maybe they’ve got some left. I’m going to tell everyone the very strange story of the missing turkey and then me and Rob will run down and see if we can’t scarf up a cooked turkey, maybe a roast chicken from Shop-A-Rama’s rotisserie if we have to.”

I saw our first real house fade from my happy dreams. We’d invited George’s boss for Thanksgiving dinner and somehow lost the damn turkey. I wouldn’t promote someone in charge of my company’s finances that was so pathetic as to lose the turkey on Thanksgiving Day. And yet, the thing was gone. I begged George not to tell his boss about the missing turkey, that I maybe could get a turkey.

I kind of mumbled something to George about getting my mother to fry up a turkey in her deep fryer but that was not a good idea. First, my mother’s deep fryer wouldn’t even hold a small chicken. Second, my mother lived fifty miles away. By the time she fried up some kind of edible bird and I could somehow get a hold of it some two to three hours would pass at the least. No I had another plan.

I am a devout Catholic and attend mass at least once a week. My plan to steal my neighbor Mrs. Martin’s turkey came from a desperation that was bottomless. I made a sign of the cross and promised God I would make it up to Mrs. Martin somehow, some way.

Mrs. Martin told me the week before that her eldest son, his wife and their two adult children would be coming by for Thanksgiving dinner this year. Mrs. Martin was so filled with joy as the two prior Thanksgivings Mrs. Martin’s children left the poor woman alone. George and I always invited her to have Thanksgiving dinner with us but I always wondered how her own sons could leave her alone on such a special day.

“Johnny, he has such a busy job, you know,” Mrs. Martin told me, the joy of knowing her son would be at her home for Thanksgiving quite obvious by the shine in her ageing blue eyes. “His oldest son is bringing a ham but I don’t believe Thanksgiving is Thanksgiving without a turkey. So I’m going to bake a turkey and goodness I don’t see why we can’t have both a ham and a turkey on Thanksgiving day.”

It was my memory of this conversation that prompted me to my plan to steal Mrs. Martin’s turkey. They’d have a ham after all and this way I could save my pride and dignity with George’s boss. Mrs. Martin, she was just the sweetest woman. But she was getting very forgetful and what with being in her mid-80’s she tended to be just a bit senile. I took to checking in on her a couple of times a week and I often wondered why any of those two sons she always talked about never came to check on her. George and I lived next door to Mrs. Martin by then almost three years and we’d never seen either of her two boys or her grandchildren come to visit.

It would be like taking candy from a baby, or goodness, a turkey from an elderly somewhat senile woman. I knew the layout of Mrs. Martin’s home and if I could somehow fool her son into thinking I was in his mother’s kitchen for some valid purpose other than to steal the turkey from her oven, I figured I could pull it off. I was sure Mrs. Martin would be dismissed as forgetful, as perhaps never having baked a turkey or as having somehow misplaced it. If my own husband had his doubts about my mental capacity as regards my missing turkey, and I was in my mid-30’s at the time and had yet to show any signs of senility as of that date, then I was sure Mrs. Martin’s family would eat the ham and laugh over their missing turkey.

The next few hours are all a blur to me. Even with the passing of these many years I mostly remember my terror when the handcuffs were placed upon me, the shock on my husband’s bosses’ face, the fear in my children’s eyes and the disappointment in George’s voice as he asked me over and over why I did such a thing.

I managed to get through Mrs. Martin’s sun porch to her kitchen with no problem. I heard the sound of voices, the tinkle of glasses, the shifting of chairs from Mrs. Martin’s living room. Mrs. Martin’s house was older and the rooms were a bit of a maze. To get to her kitchen from the living room required a walk through the dining room then a walk down a short hallway before making a left into the kitchen. Mrs. Martin’s stove was right by that back door and I figured it would only take me about fifteen seconds to pull that turkey out of the oven and rush out the door. I already had potholders in my hands to pull off my stealthy and dirty deed.

Mrs. Martin’s scream made me drop the turkey and of course the hot grease splattered on my legs and I too screamed. I slid on a piece of stuffing and fell and I looked up and saw five old ladies looking down at me, all of them screaming, one on the telephone calling the police.

“She’s trying to steal my turkey!” Mrs. Martin shouted to the first police officer to arrive at the scene. I spent the few minutes I had begging Mrs. Martin to forgive me but it seemed that Mrs. Martin didn’t know who the hell I was. I managed to get George’s attention by screaming his name from Mrs. Martin’s sun porch but any exit from same was blocked by little old ladies with blue hair. I thought I’d died and went to some sort of retirement home filled with elderly shock troops armed with canes and knitting needles to prevent escape from the justice they sought.

The police officer snapped the handcuffs on my turkey stealing self, ignoring my husband’s pleas for some slack on this Thanksgiving holiday but the blue-haired ladies were all sobbing and screaming with fear and rage, Mrs. Martin was denying she ever saw me before and my explanation that I lived right next door was unheard by a police officer himself missing a home-cooked turkey dinner no doubt and at odds with a holiday turkey thief such as myself.

I wasn’t actually thrown in jail but the interruption of my trip to the police station and the subsequent protocol of dealing with turkey thieves did require my husband to speak softly with his boss, sending him and his family home without a bite of turkey one but George did fry up a quick couple of steaks and served them along with the other Thanksgiving food frou-frou. George was full of apologies and a promise of a very sane explanation to come about all of this. George assured his boss that I was innocent.

“And it would turn out,” I said, folding the dish towel in my lap with a studied concentration and giving my granddaughter’s handsome young suitor a steady gaze, “that I was innocent.”

“It turned out that the turkey Grandmom was stealing was really her own turkey!” my granddaughter Mary May shouted, always unable to keep a secret. I carefully showed Mary May the palm of my hand to shush her. I quietly stood up for a nicely browned and stuffed turkey awaited serving as surely its juices were secure after sitting for so long as I told my story of the missing Thanksgiving turkey.

“Mrs. Martin had somehow got into my kitchen that Thanksgiving day and it was she who stole my turkey. Mrs. Martin, you will remember, was a bit senile but who knows? Perhaps she forgot to buy a turkey for Thanksgiving in her forgetfulness and actively engaged in turkey theft to serve her guests. Or maybe she got confused, thought my kitchen was her kitchen and, of course, thought the turkey in my oven was hers. Although that requires some explanation as to how my turkey got into HER oven but whatever the case, all ended well.”

I noted Edward’s bemused smile and hey, it always was amusing in the telling and re-telling.

“I knew it was my turkey because after I got home from the police station, there, at my door, was Mrs. Martin. She had a big tray of turkey and all the trimmings. She’d heard I had to leave suddenly and she wanted to give me and my family some food as she figured we maybe didn’t have a Thanksgiving meal.”

I explained to Edward that I couldn’t have made it up if I tried. I didn’t even try to hash it out with Mrs. Martin. I accepted her gracious gift and we all did, in fact, sit down and eat Mrs. Martin’s thoughtfully provided Thanksgiving leftovers. I took one bite of the stuffing and knew it was mine.

“I always put sausage in my stuffing and I don’t use just any sausage. I purchase a special sausage made upstate that has a pleasant combination of caraway seed and sage, a somewhat odd combination of sausage ingredients but perfect to accompany a nice roasted turkey. My chestnuts sealed the deal. While chestnuts aren’t all that unusual in turkey stuffing, combined with my unusual sausage I was convinced that Mrs. Martin had stolen my turkey.”

The sadder thing of this somewhat funny memory was it would turn out that Mrs. Martin’s sons would not, or could not, attend Thanksgiving dinner at her home so she invited a few of her elderly friends from her favorite Bingo parlor. In fact, I learned later that Mrs. Martin had no sons at all, she had no children in fact. At some point Mrs. Martin must have told the Bingo ladies that I was her neighbor but like I explained to the handsome Edward, to this day I don’t know when Mrs. Martin entered a senile moment from when she was just a plain old turkey thief.

But I must be honest. My attempt to take Mrs. Martin’s turkey was pure thievery and nothing less for I did not know, please understand, that the turkey I was stealing was the one I’d roasted and stuffed just that morning.

George managed to make well with his boss over the turkey incident and all had a good laugh over that strange Thanksgiving. George did get a promotion and we did manage to buy our first home.

I gave my beloved George a passing memory, thanking God for my years with him and hoping he was having a nice turkey in heaven. Maybe Mrs. Martin, who passed away the year after she’d stolen my turkey, was sharing a turkey with George up there with the angels.

I was sure Mrs. Martin was in heaven. After all, it was I who was the turkey thief. She was just a forgetful and lonely old lady.
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"A Halloween Party for the Scribes"-a 300 Word Limit Seemed Impossible Yet the Winner Pulled it Off With Three Words

2009-10-25T15:05:00.000-07:00

Her writing professor insisted the Halloween essay should scare him silly but must not exceed 300 words.

Impossible, the protagonist decides.

Yet the second place entry consisted of only three words and the winning entry only two!

Pic of the Day

A Halloween Party of the Scribes

The last time I signed up for a writing class, five people in the class ended up married, including myself. Here I am in yet another writing class and now assigned to write a non-fiction love story so there is no question that I should write about this love story.
It may sound like fiction but even so, it is true, albeit slightly hilarious and greatly coincidental. But this comes later.
My last writing class was two years ago. The course title was "Creative Writing: Creating Characters." There were some characters in this class all right. The biggest character being the instructor himself.
"This is crap!" Melvin Swann screamed, immediately after reading my essay aloud to the class. I ran out of the class in tears.

"He is the meanest sunovabitch on this planet is what he is," I alternately sobbed and screamed to my boyfriend, Jack. "He makes fun of all our writing, he calls us names, he tells us we are talentless hacks! I mean...Jesus....that's what we are there for...to learn how to write. Apparently he doesn't want to teach us."
"Maybe that's what he's doing," Jack said quietly.
"Explain this please. He is teaching us to write by telling us we can't write? If I want to teach you how to fly an airplane, I should tell you you can't fly a plane?" I swiveled from facing Jack to face my computer screen. I most needed to call up Word Perfect and spend my vitriol with the word processor.
"Writing isn't like flying an airplane, Sher. Writing is a very creative activity. Conventional instruction methods won't work. Maybe this is how the creative juices are unleashed."
Jack said this to my spine.
I pounded the keys and watched my verbal rage march across the screen.

I started writing when I was five years old. I wrote a poem for my mother's birthday. She sent it in to our local newspaper. They published it! It's the last thing I have ever had published.
And that's not for want of trying by this, my twenty-eighth year of life. I had written poems that would make Byron blush. I had written essays that Buckley would envy. I had written short stories that would scare Stephen King. The editors did not agree nor did my Creative Writing instructor, apparently.

"The problem is...you tend to be wordy. You want to tell the reader everything. Sometimes I get exasperated that you'll never get to the point."
Jack was tossing a salad while reciting this lecture. As if he was even the slightest bit interested in my hopes and dreams. Guy was thirty years old, never married and showing no such inclination. He seemed content to drift along on life's river. I loved him with all my heart but had accepted that marriage would come, if at all, when Jack decided. Meanwhile, I was going to be a writer, mostly because, well, I like to write so much.
"I don't understand that, Jack Schneider. I don't understand that at all.
People that like to READ like to READ. So why mince on words? I'm not saying to get ridiculous, although some have accused James Michener of this. I'm just saying what the hell is this obsession with word count?"
Jack sighed, rested his salad weary arms at his side, and gazed at my indignant self.
"Everyone in the world is competing for the reader's eye. Brevity, as they say, is the soul of wit."
I turned from Jack's speech and fumed. Now he could go ahead and use a stupid cliche that I had learned to avoid in Writing 101. For myself, I was going to write and I was going to write my way. If I couldn't write my way, then why write at all?

"Mr. Swann has some interesting ideas for Halloween, I hear."

I pulled my sweater tight against me to ward off an early autumn chill. Taking a quick drag of my cigarette, I turned to the voice that brought me gossip.
Carey Albrecht loomed from the shadow to the light of the street light. As he appeared, he lit a cigarette and took a long drag.
What a dork, I thought. Always he wore those cardigan sweaters, the kinds with a V-neck to expose a conservative tie and an tiny alligator on the chest. His look shouted nerdy prep to anyone with vision.
"Okay, I'm game," I said to my smoking partner. "What'd you hear?"

"First I heard...on Halloween, all the students have to come to class in costume. Only we have to put our costume on in class and behind a screen. Then we have to read a list of adjectives that describes our costume. Only adjectives. Heard it counts as one test grade and the more people that guess your costume the higher your grade."
Okay, I thought, this was do-able. I knew adjectives. I blew a smoke ring in the air, signaling by smokers' agreement to continue.
"Then, I heard you have to write a story describing the costume you would wear that would be the exact opposite of your normal personality."
Again, I thought, this was do-able.
"Finally....and I heard all this from one of his last year students...he is going to have us all enter a writing contest. And he is going to be the judge! " Carey took another drag of his cigarette to leave me considering this revelation. After a ostentatious exhalation of smoke, Carey offered more.
"What we have to do....we have to write a poem, essay or short story. And it has to scare him. And I heard it can't be more than 300 words."
I took a long drag on my cigarette and looked up to the dark sky. 300 words? I couldn't write a sentence in less than 300 words. Yet I am supposed to write something that scares the scary Melvin Swann?

Within the next ten minutes, several more students came out to join us in a smoke. Within one minute of this, conversations of writing Halloween exercises designed to thrill, chill and embarrass punctuated the night air.
"I think a poem. I would try a short but scary poem." I couldn't believe these words from Buck Walinsky whose stature suits his name very well. The guy looked like he was a football fullback. Yet here he stood, deciding to write a short, terse poem that would scare Mr. Swann.
"Well, I wouldn't get myself too involved in any decision making here," Linda Devon said while simultaneously flossing her teeth with her long black fingernails. "We don't know Swann's going to do the same thing this year."
A swath of blonde hair blew into my face at the cusp of a wind gust. I swatted it away because it sure didn't belong to me.
"I think the ideas are wonderful and will definitely make better writers of us all."
We all turned to look at this insect with blonde hair to discover it was only Sharon Shelle, a real Valley Girl only now living clear across country in Baltimore, Md.
How 'bout you Wayne? Got any ideas?"
Wayne Gruen threw his cigarette to the ground and self-consciously chased it across the sidewalk for shoe-smashing. And just as he always did, he responded directly to the surface below his feet.
"I...I don't know. I will have to think about it."
I threw my own cigarette to the ground for smashing. Why this guy got it into his head that he should be a writer I would never know. I think a writer has to be a forceful person, a person not afraid to lie and vent his/her own spleen for the reader's consumption. Wayne couldn't look anyone straight in the eye.
"So Berthe, what you think? Think you can scare Swann?"
Berthe Myers leaned against the lamp pole and paused in thought. "I can only do the best I can. I don't expect to win, anyhow."
And now here again was another forceful personality that expected to be a writer.

"Three hundred stupid words. You know how few words that is?"
Jack shooed our cat Wilamena off the bed and prepared to rest his weary bones. He didn't seem to care at all about word counts.
"I have no idea how many words are 300. I guess that it is not many?"
"Jack, maybe a recipe is 300 words. How can I scare someone with the same amount of words as a recipe?"
"How many words are in 'The Raven'?"
I yanked my robe off angrily, then stopped to consider. Darn, I didn't think "The Raven" had all that many words now that I thought of it. But what the heck, did Jack think I was Edgar Sherry Poe?
I pulled the covers down and slid next to Jack. He pulled me in his arms.
"You worry so much about your writing, Sher," Jack whispered softly into my hair, "and I know it's important to you. But it can't be the focus of your entire life."
Writing wasn't the focus of my entire life. First, there was Jack right here and holding me tight, whom I loved dearly but I was not loved by him enough to discuss marriage. Then there was my job, which I didn't particularly like, but then who does? Then...then...then there was my writing.
I just wrote all the time and the truth is, I rarely submitted anything for publication. The truth is, I just didn't have time to work a full time job as Office Manager for a busy retail chain, write, and then market what I wrote. But I was only 28, I had often reasoned. Time to write and learn and learn while writing. Then, maybe I could finally start that book.

"Jack, in a few years, I'd really like to try writing as , and I'm serious here, a career. I mean like stay home and write and make enough money from writing to, you know, stay home and write. That's why I'm so serious about it. Some people go to night school to get a Master's Degree or a doctorate. I go to learn all I can about writing. You don't have to believe it will ever happen, but you have no right to denigrate this which happens to be very important to me. I mean, I don't know if I'll ever really do it...on a professional level I mean....but I don't want to walk away from it either. That's why I keep on writing and taking night courses and trying to learn. This is my...."
The sound of soft snores ended my soliloquy. Not only did Jack Schneider not want to marry me, he didn't want me to be a writer either.

"This instructor is so mean, Laura. He rants and raves and tells us to develop thicker skins. He says he's doing us a 'favor' by 'toughening' us to constant rejection. All he's doing to me is scaring me out of my mind. I'm not going to quit the class though, leastwise not until after Halloween. I hear he has some interesting writing exercises planned."
"Yeah? Like what?"
My best friend and confidante stuffed a french fry in her mouth after this short inquisition. I took the cue and recited the rumors about hiding behind screens, adjectives and scary writing tasks.
"An adjective? Ain't that like a describing word? Like 'bad'...that's an adjective?"
"Yes, Laura, 'bad' is an adjective. Only I can't imagine using the word 'bad' to describe your costume. It's supposed to be adjectives that are germane to the costume."
Just before stuffing another french fry into her mouth, Laura wisecracked, "Germane? Ain't that one of them red flowers?"

She was impossible. If sarcasm ever becomes a valuable commodity, Laura will be wealthy. We formed an unusual friendship, she and I who were almost twenty years apart in age. There are some that have accused my own self of considerable sarcasm. I bonded with Laura the night we met at a nearby disco and spent the evening making fun of all the men. Such activities as dancing were usually entered in with the intention of meeting a potential male partner, and generally for more than just dancing. But the night I met up with Laura, I was delighted to find a partner in the art of the nasty word. Laura was better at sarcasm than me, and mainly because she could usually do it in less than 300 words.
Laura Williams had been married four times. In addition, she boasted over five live-in boyfriends.
"Men are like a bus. You miss one, stick around, another one will come along."
Amazingly, this Laura witticism did hold true. At least for her.
She wasn't an especially pretty woman, although she was attractive, well-groomed and very witty. With all her marvelous wit, Laura had never written a word in her life and I doubted she had read all that many. And while she listened politely to my writing woes, she thought writing was a rather stupid occupation.
"Why sit behind a computer and type out your life? Why not go out and live it?" was how Laura use to phrase it.
"Are you seriously suggesting that no one in the world should write anything, Laura?" I would respond, serious at the moment but not too committed in converting Laura. If writers depended on Laura for their living, there would truly be no need for them.
"Nah. I guess not. There's a need for books and stuff, I guess. I read Cosmopolitan sometimes, but that's about it. I get antsy sitting around trying to read. I don't know how people do it."
I was smiling in muse at the hopeless Laura when the very real sound of her voice intruded my thoughts.
"So what's got you all worked up? So...you have to use some adjectives. Don't writers always use adjectives? Ain't adjectives a regular tool of the trade, so to speak?"
I had to chuckle at the question as Laura phrased. And actually the adjectives did not concern me. It was that darn 300 word thing. I explained my worry to Laura.
"Gee. 300 words sounds like a book to me. You telling me that ain't enough words?"

I finished off my coffee, wiped my lips, and regarded this Laura person who would think 300 words was a book.
"I bet I could scare your teacher in less than 300 words."
I looked again, this time in a squint at the Laura across from me and my current lunch companion. You know, I bet she could scare Swann in less than 300 words. If Swann thought we were a bunch of illiterates, he ought to meet up with Laura who had such disdain of his craft. I'm sure that would scare him.
"Oh Laura. You just don't understand. It's a writing thing. I shouldn't expect you to get it."
Laura threw a half-eaten french fry to her plate.
"I'm not an idiot, Sherry Bellmain. I respect that you're trying to be a writer. It's just that I will never be one of your customers, if you get my drift. I bet I'm smarter than most of those would-be writers in your class too. Sometimes I wonder that people become writers as substitute for a real life."
Now I was getting annoyed. I really hated that people thought nothing of making fun of writers. Not that the same people would make fun of Stephen King or Alex Hailey or Leon Uris or just anyone that's making a lot of bucks for people with no real life. But a fledgling writer? Even though we may someday be the ones making the dough, we are free
sport for the mocking predators.
"I think I have a real life, thank you Laura. I have a job and a boyfriend...."
"Speaking of boyfriends....has Jack asked you to marry him yet?"
Laura's sudden change of subject shocked me to comfort. Now we were on a more familiar area of our friendship. Laura and I both often discussed the men in our lives and I greatly valued her input.
"We don't discuss it, Laura. We just do not discuss it."
"Do you want to get married?" Laura asked, taking a bite of hamburger now that her french fries were gone.

"By the time I'm thirty, I would like to be in some sort of relationship that would be heading toward a permanent commitment, yes," I intelligently responded.
Laura opened her eyes wide as if a mental lightbulb were switched to "On". Being that she had a wad of food in her mouth, she had to wave her hamburger in the air to indicate I should wait until said food was swallowed to hear the brainstorm.
"No wonder you're so worried about 300 words. Like I said, I don't know how many words this is but I know you just said a whole bunch of unnecessary words to tell me that you want to get married. Jesus, Sherry, do you write as long as you talk sometimes?"
Not that Laura would ever know, but she was right. I guess I did write as long as I talked.
We had both finished our lunches, and I was ready for some fresh air and a much needed cigarette. After paying the bill and gathering our parcels, Laura and I took a nicotine stroll around the block.
"Are any of these writers in your class married?"
"God, Laura. There are 28 students in the class. The only ones I know even a little are the smokers. And then because it's only civil to talk when in someone's company and sharing a smoke."
"So tell me about the ones you know."
This request allowed me to launch into an interesting narrative about Carey Albrecht, the pompous prep person and Wayne Gruen who spoke to the ground and Buck Walinsky who played football and wrote poetry. Then I had to describe the females. There was Berthe Myers who was half french and half jewish and with no self-confidence. And Linda Devon who painted her nails black, rode a Harley-Davidson and wrote beautiful poetry. And I couldn't forget Sharon Shell, blonde, vapid and an aspiring romance writer.

We had gone through three cigarettes by the time I finished my narration. I also further described the Halloween writing exercises as rumored to me by Carey Albrecht. Besides the 300 word scary thing, there was the screen thing and also the costume in opposition to our real personalities. Laura and I had walked around the block three times before the class characters were described and the writing exercises re-visited with appropriate angst. I also informed Laura that none of my scribe smoking buddies were married, such important information having already been gleaned at the smoking pole.

"You know what you need?" Laura asked as we walked toward our cars to end our lunch date. "You all need me to join that class."
I didn't quite guffaw at this notion, but I had to stifle a giggle.
"Sure, Laura, we all need you in our writing class. You who has never written a word and read only several more than this."
"I'm serious. I listened to you describe these people and it's like...instantaneous....I got this flash. These people need me! Plus, I think I could help with those writing exercises. Is it too late for me to sign up?"
I just smiled and sighed at this thought. I told Laura I had no idea if it was too late and that she was a nut.

It was only two days later that I realized just what a nut she was. I was standing by the lamp post for one last smoke before class begun. Immediately behind me I heard the screech of tires and jumped to avoid pedestrian death. Before my heart could recover, Laura's Trans Am pulled up to my side.
"Hey, I signed up for that writers' class today. They told me I could if the teacher agreed. I called Mr. Swann myself and he said he would love for me to come along."
After shouting this to me from her car's passenger window, she pulled her Trans-Am away from the curb to swing into a nearby and more permanent parking spot. I watched her, mouth agape, as she rushed across the parking lot, complete with a briefcase!

Before I could ask the million questions rolling around in my mind, several of the other students joined us under the lamp post and for one pre-class smoke.
"Christ I got my period today and I'm crampy and grouchy as hell. Did you get that story outline done?"

Linda Devon had rode in on her Harley, parked the thing with great roaring, and loped across the lot, lighting her cigarette while en route.
Before I could respond to Linda regarding my outline, I was distracted with greetings and introductions of Carey, Berthe, Sharon, Buck and Wayne to Laura and they to her. Conversation then focused on our short story project.
"I'm writing a love story that takes place in ancient Greece. My protagonist is thought to be Greek goddess by everyone around her. She is so lovely and soft but also very mortal. You'll have to read the story to find out how it all turns out."
Sharon the Valley Girl described her story thus while both Laura and myself avoided any wisecracks. My arched eyebrows sent a body message that would roughly be interpreted as "fat chance I will read the story."
"I'm writing a story about an attorney that starts out very poor but is so successful that he becomes very wealthy and very busy. He has everything but can't find a woman to love him just for himself."
I sent another arched eyebrow to Laura at this story line by Carey Albrecht, tiny alligator man.
Carey, the perpetual prep, then slapped Buck Walinsky on the back and asked him what his story was about.
"I got an idea that takes place in medieval times. The protag is a court jester. Only the jester learns to read, a practice forbidden by his sort, and wishes to become a wise man, the kind that decide the fates," Buck said, then his voice faded. "I don't know...I'm still working on it."
"How about you, Sherry?" Sharon of greek mythology asked. "Got any ideas yet?"

I was afraid someone would ask this. The assignment was to write a short story with a strong protagonist. We were learning character building after all.
"I'm thinking about a story with a female protag who loves this guy but can't get the guy to commit. So she leaves him because she just gives up. Only the guy decides he really loves her and tries to get her back."
I was pretty vague about my story line and in the description it sounded pretty lame. I had, in fact, spent the better part of the prior evening outlining a plot that involved three protagonists that end up being their own antagonists. There was also several sub-plots that would all lead to a surprising end.
Laura responded by raising her eyebrows to me to say "*I* will definitely read this story. Is the antagonist named Jack Schneider?'
I ignored her eyebrow talk. She had no clue that my story was complex and sub-plotted enough to amaze even the skeptical Melvin Swann.
"Well, they say 'write what you know', so I'm thinking about a story of a little girl raised by a band of outlaw bikers." All eyes turned, understandably, in amazement, to Linda Devon who just described possibly the most unbelievable of plots.
"So, Wayne, what about you?"
Somebody at the lamp post asked this question of the reticent Wayne who responded by looking at the ground below him.
"I thinking of a story about a guy who sends in a novel manuscript to a publisher over the Internet. The publisher loves it but the writer is too shy to have it published. I think....well, I can think of some good tension in this....," Wayne's voice trailed off as at least I wondered about a publisher chasing after an unknown writer.
"My story's a little like that!" the unconfident Berthe exclaimed to Wayne who continued to regard the earth.

"Only in my story, the writer gets published and is excited until she realizes all the public speaking she has to do. She begs the publisher to return her manuscript, but she has already signed over the rights and it gets published. So the writer decides not to promote the book, but it is a big success and...," Berthe blew a hair from her lip with a billow of smoke and stopped her talk. Suddenly, it appeared, Berthe realized that she was, well, sort of speaking in public.
"Well, since this is my first night here, looks like I've got some catching up to do. Goodness, I guess I better think of my plot," Laura said while snuffing her cigarette with a vengeance. Of all of the group, only I could realize the humor in this statement.
"Two minutes to class, guys," Carey Albrecht called out to his rear as he headed inside. Smoking group individuals gathered their materials and took last puffs. Before I could begin my trek to the building, Laura grabbed my sweater.
"Sher," she stage whispered as she pulled my best cardigan hopelessly from its original shape. "Come here."
"Laura, I don't have time to come here. Class starts in a minute and besides I'm royally miffed at this little joke."
"Sherry, listen to me a minute! I was right!" Laura's whispering held so many exclamation points that I had to tune in.
"These people. They need my help. There's three couples here alone that ought to be in love and planning marriage. Plus...you and Jack, I think I could help you and Jack."
With less than forty-five seconds left till class, I tried to understand this woman who has had four husbands and many would-be's all of a sudden becoming a professional matchmaker.
"Listen, Sher. I know I'm no winner. But this past year alone, I matched up two people on my job and my brother-in-law who is an unemployed bum. I tell you, I got the touch. I thought of it the other day when you were describing those guys. Now I know I was right."
There were about a thousand questions on my mind re Laura's mind, but I pulled my sweater loose and rushed to class.

"Okay, we've been in this class three weeks. We have a new student tonight. Folks, meet Mrs. Laura Williams." Mr. Swann opened with this and the class greeted Mrs. Laura Williams politely.
"While we have a little talent in this class, Mrs. Williams, we could always use more. Since you seemed so determined to join this class, I hope that foretells the writing we will read from your own mind."
Laura flashed her famous smile and wiggled in her seat.
"I'm very good at adjectives, Mr. Swann....and thank you."
Even mean Mr. Swann had no response to this Laura who excelled at adjectives.
"Okay scribes. Listen up! In three weeks, it will be Halloween. And I have planned some excellent writing exercises that will challenge even the best of you."
I wiggled in my seat along with Laura, who I could have spit upon for having the audacity to come to my writing class to play some kind of match-maker. Still I couldn't help but wonder how she could help with my Jack situation.
"Ten adjectives! That's it! So pick ten good adjectives and hope they're good enough to have the class guess your costume."
The loud voice of Melvin Swann pierced my ears and tore my thoughts away from my Jack boyfriend who avoided matrimony.
Oh boy, I thought, more word limits. And only ten. But with good enough adjectives, I could probably do it.
Laura was smiling in joy over the request for adjectives.
"So, Mrs. Williams, you can finally get to use all your adjectives," Mr. Swann said to Laura as he walked around her desk as if examining a bug.
"How about asshole, Mr. Swann? Is asshole an adjective?"
Swann stopped at this strange question and answered quite seriously. "No, Mrs. Williams, asshole is not an adjective."
"Well, that's too bad, because that's the only word you'd need behind that screen and everybody would know it was you."
The whole class hooted at this. Mr. Swann surprised us all and laughed along.

The rest of the session went like this, with Laura openly bantering and Mr. Swann rejoindering with zeal. The class served as audience and provided appropriate laughter.

"I just can't believe she joined my writing class. You know how I love Laura, but she can't write. What...does everyone in the world think writing is so stupid that just anyone can waltz into a writing class?"
Jack and I were sitting on the porch and listening to crickets while I ranted about the word-obsessed Melvin Swann and the outrageous Laura Williams. As the conversation often did, it came round to the 300 word problem.
"I sat down and wrote a paragraph. It was an honest to God paragraph that I would use to start a scary story. Only the opening paragraph was 343 words and I had only described the scenery!"
Jack chuckled at this. He did think my 300 word problem was a joke didn't he?
Perhaps it was just the sound of Jack's chuckle that set me off. The chuckle sounded like a cackle. Or maybe it was the sudden sense of peacefulness that overcame me as we sat together on the porch of the tiny rented house. It seemed so perfect and yet there was no permanence.
The man didn't want to marry me and he thought writing a joke. I knew then that we had no future and strings would have to be broken.
I didn't yell or scream or in any way indicate my anger. I simply got up from the porch swing, went into our bedroom, and began packing my clothes. It was time for this writer to go out and get a real life.
"Sherry what are you doing? Why are you packing?" Jack followed me into the bedroom to ascertain my miff. He pulled away from my packing chore and pulled me into his arms.
"Aw, come on, Sherry, I'm sorry I laughed," Jack said into my hair. I held my body stiff as a board.

Jack gave up on affection and dropped his arms from around me. He ran his fingers distractedly through his hair and paced the room. I returned to my packing.
"It's just this 300 word thing has you so upset. I can't imagine anyone getting upset over such a thing. When I went to school, everyone loved it when the teacher limited the page count. But I tell you what, Sherry. If you calm down, I will help you write a REAL scary story. In fact, since you've been talking about it so much, I sat down and tried to come up with something scary in a few words and I had some great ideas. I was afraid to mention it because you might be insulted that me, a mere stock clerk, would dare to help you write. But now you tell me about Laura and it doesn't seem so stupid any more."
I continued to pack with dogged determination. It wasn't about the 300 words but I couldn't explain that to Jack. I was afraid to mention the words yet I didn't want to continue on this way. How weird that I, who could vomit verbally as well as almost anyone, could find no words to approach this unapproachable subject. My fear was no doubt predicated upon the fact that when I first met Jack, he was just emerging from a relationship that didn't last because, to hear Jack tell it, she wanted a commitment and he wasn't ready. For myself, I had just broken up with a boyfriend of over three years because he headed out of town when I mentioned marriage. This entire relationship of Jack and Sherry had a foundation formed from fear of marriage.
So I couldn't say what I wanted to say to Jack. But, then again, I considered, let me get this bag packed.
Just before I walked out the door, I turned and looked at the perplexed Jack.
"Jack, I can finally say what I was so afraid to say because it doesn't matter any more. I can't lose you because of what I am going to say because I have already lost you."
I had set my suitcase down for this narrative, but still paused from fear. After a deep sigh, I plowed on.

"I can't live forever like this. I want to get married yet I could never say this because I was too afraid I would lose you. Now I've decided to take your cliche bull by the horns, do the saying, and leave."
I picked up my suitcase at the end of this speech, turned with purpose, walked to my car and drove away. I headed directly to Laura's house.

Even before my knuckles first hit the door I could hear the laughter.
"Sherry! Goodness, this is a surprise. Come in."
I tentatively walked into Laura's small rancher, afraid of the laughing sources. I was as surprised to see Buck, Linda, Carey, Berthe , Wayne and Sharon all in Laura's living room, as Laura was to see me.
"Come on, have a seat," Laura commanded as she took my coat.
I was really in no mood for a crowd tonight, but then I couldn't turn around and return to Jack either.
"We were all just practicing our skits for the Halloween exercises. I never knew there were so many adjectives in this world. We talked a bit about our buddy Swanson, too," Laura updated me as the smoking crowd laughed at the reference to Swanson.
"I already have my essay ready. Had to cut off about 200 words to get it within word limit, but I thought it was scary."
Sharon of the Valley offered this and scared the hell out of me who hadn't even started the thing.
For the next half hour the group discussed, laughed, whined and complained about Halloween writing exercises, word counts and weird writing instructors. I tried to join in with enthusiasm, but Jack was on my mind. Laura sensed my distance and shooed off the crowd.
"Before you tell me about what happened between you and Jack, I just want to tell you that I fixed them up and you have to admit it was perfect."
"Fixed who up?"
"The couples. Linda and Buck. Both of them looking like something they ain't. What do you writers call that?"
"Illusion, " I answered mechanically.

"Yeah...that. Anyways, Sharon and Carey...come on, they're perfect. Valley Girl meets Izod Man. Sounds like...what do you writers call weird stuff that ain't true?"
"Science Fiction," I answered more mechanically.
"Yeah...that. And Berthe and Wayne. He stares at the ground and she apologizes for being on it. You writers got a name for that?"
I was now quite tired of the match-making and shifted in discomfort.
"Okay, Sherry. Let me get you a cognac and you tell me about Jack."
It was the same old story and I re-iterated to Laura.
"You two are too different," Laura stated at one conversation pause. "You need someone more like you...someone with the same interests. See how I matched those people up and it was always based on their personality similarities. Now, I know you love Jack, honey, and I don't mean to make light of it."
Laura patted my thigh and pulled me up from the couch. As she led me into her spare bedroom, she made a promise.
"Just as soon as I can, honey, I am going to find you a man. You think a woman that had all the boyfriends and husband as I've had ain't learned a thing or two? I always marry men opposite of me! Next guy I meet, gonna be just like me. And I'm gonna look for the same for you."
I was now quite sleepy from crying and talking. I had no time to ponder a man just like me. Then neither one of us could make it in under 300 words and I didn't know how that would help matters.

The night of the Halloween Party for the Scribes, as it had come to be called, had finally arrived. I was living with Laura while making arrangements to find my own place. My conversations with Jack were brief and mostly concerned our mutual finance concerns. Jack never mentioned my parting speech and I knew I had been right. Laura went about her business of finding a man for me.

I did managed to write something scary in under 300 words but I thought it sounded stupid. It didn't matter because I wasn't going to do any better than a C in this course anyway. Not only would I never be married, I decided I would never be a writer either.
The writing exercises were creative, and even fun. Rory Martin got behind the screen and donned a sheep outfit. One of his ten adjectives was "ewe-like" which caused Mr. Swann to go into a tirade about the questionability of this being an adjective and did he know how stupid that sounded when spoken rather than being read?
The class was about falling out of their chairs with laughter at this.
Then Carey Albrecht said the character he would be that was the exact opposite of his REAL personality would be a Nerd, with a capital N. The class was silent to ponder just what Carey thought he was.
The Mr. Swann announced that he had read the scary submissions and was ready to announce a winner.
"There were no Pulitzers in the submissions," Mr. Swann said as he sat on the edge of his desk with a sheaf of papers in his hand.
"What I think you will find really surprising, was the first place submission was only two words."
Heads turned and whispers buzzed. Two words? What two words could scare Melvin Swann and have him announce them first place.
"What's even more surprising," Mr. Swann went on in spite of the turmoil, "is the second place prize was for a submission containing only three words."
Of course, the class was abuzz with this. I just held my chin with my open palm and placed my elbow on the desk. I knew for sure that I hadn't won with my fake letter from the IRS and a proposed audit. My submission was exactly 300 words and then I had to use every contraction I knew. Still, two words and three words? I was most interested in this.
"The second place winner was submitted by Sherry Bellmaine," Mr. Swann soberly announced and I almost didn't realize that he meant me. My chin fell off my hand when dawn broke.
Mr. Swann rattled a paper importantly and proceeded to read my alleged submission and second-place winner:

"I Saw You" Mr. Swann read with an ominous pause on each word.
The class remained quiet for five seconds after the reading, then sent whispers into the air. All around me were soft congratulations at this genius of mine. I didn't know whether to deny or accept, so I remained mute. I didn't write those words, although, I thought them quite effective in their ability to convey fear in their vagueness. Brevity could also be the soul of fear, I thought with Jack's cliche.
"And first place," Mr. Swann then announced importantly. He rattled the paper , cleared his throat, and pushed his glasses up his nose.
"The words that scared me the most...a submission of only two words. And the author is none other than our latecomer, Laura Williams!"
If my chin had fallen from its hand-holder at my winning entry, it was now on the floor with this revelation. Laura wrote the winning entry? And it was only two words?
"Marry Me," Mr. Swann read aloud, the lowered his glasses to regard the class over their frames. "It is signed, Laura Williams."
The class laughed for a full five minutes. Even I had to smile. Woman was a dingbat, that was sure. Yet, hey, those two words did seem to scare quite a few men including my own estranged Jack.
"Now here's two words that are going to scare you, Mrs. Williams," Mr. Swann said in his loudest tenor. He walked around Laura's desk as if looking at the same bug of Laura's first night in the class. After several revolutions, he bent over and shouted into Laura's ear:
"I accept!"
Here is where the pandemonium began, because persons named Berthe, Linda, Carey, Wayne, Buck and Sharon all jumped up to announce recent or not-to-distant engagements. There were even some happy dances going on, with Laura leading the pack.

"See, Sherry, I told you I was a match-maker. I even picked a husband for myself!" Laura shouted to the writing class, then gave Mr. Swann such a long kiss that even the most obtuse knew their little charade was NOT a joke.
There was more going on in my head than had a right to be there. Where on earth had my three word entry come from? And what is with Laura the matchmaker marrying this writing teacher who had to be her exact opposite when she expressed adherence to the "like-as-like" principle of mating? And why on earth was everyone in this class getting married except me?
And before I could sort any of it out, what with the dancing and kissing and flashing of engagement rings, Jack ran into the class.
"Sherry, I'm sorry I'm late...but I had a flat tire." Jack ran across the room and knelt down before me and amidst all the revelers.
"Did you win?" he asked.
"Did I win? Oh...you mean you wrote the three words...'I Saw You'?"
"Sher, I didn't want to make you mad, but I wanted to show how much I loved you and how much I cared about your writing. So I stuck my thing in the envelope before you came over to pick it up. I'd thought you'd win so you wouldn't be mad. You didn't win?"
Jack bowed his head at the admission. I couldn't believe any of this night and still the class danced and hooted.
Jack reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper.
"I was saving this as a surprise. It's another wonderful piece of writing in just a few words so I knew you would like it."
I was unfolding the paper, when Jack stopped my actions.
"Sherry," he said softly, "before you read this, I just want to say that I guarantee that it will make you happier than any two words you will ever read. At least I think it will."
I opened the paper and read the words: "Marry Me". The note was signed 'Jack Schneider'.
I laughed and cried and danced a few dances myself. If Laura followed her own advice, she'd be marrying this Jack Schneider who had the same two words as she.

Only she was too busy kissing the weird Melvin Swann so I just smiled at the coincidence and kissed my own Jack Schneider, husband-to-be.

It's been two years now and everyone that got so strangely engaged is still married, even Laura and Melvin. So this is my submission of a love story for "Creative Writing: Plot Development" only I didn't have to develop a plot. And I bought the thing in at a little under 7000 words!
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The Surprise Party Was For His Priestly Twin Brother; Birthday Parties Go Awry in this Fiction "Father Beachem's Birthday Party"

2009-08-01T13:25:00.000-07:00

Even though Father Beachem was his twin brother, the protagonist in this fiction short story helped arrange his twin's surprise birthday party which turned out to be a bigger surprise to the caterer and priest's brother than to the party's man of honor.
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Pic of the Day

Father Beachem’s Birthday Party

While my twin brother Joey and I weren’t quite as different as Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzeneggar in the movie “Twins”, there are very few occasions when we are mistaken for one another.

Of course we are not, to state an understatement, identical twins, thus any physical resemblance we have to each other is the same as any brother would have with another. And, indeed, Joey and I do look enough alike to be identified as the Beachem brothers. Beyond that, in terms of our habits, likes, dislikes, temperaments and that sort of thing, Joey and I are as different as Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzeneggar.

To begin with, Joey is a priest. I, while a devout Catholic as was my upbringing and as my parents raised both me, Joey, and our sister Christine, could never be a priest. And I mean that in the nicest way possible.

In fact, though, most folks would, without making previous acquaintance with either I or Joey, would likely point to me as the priest while he would be considered the party boy, the guy constantly telling the jokes, the fellow surrounded by admirers and sought out by all for his sparkling company. Yet there you have it. Joey is known to most of the world as Father Beachem while I am called, simply, Jeffie.

“Let me get this straight,” I said with a simmering seethe to my sister that day in early April after her suggestion that we throw a surprise birthday party for brother Joey. “You want to throw a surprise birthday party for my twin brother? I mean, come on Chris, I know Joey and I are not much alike what with being twins and everything, but we were born on the same day. Did it occur to you that it would also be my birthday too?”

“Aw Jeffie…I’m sorry,” my sister said, giving me a hug of reconciliation. “I thought you would understand.” With this Christine walked over to a corner stool in my apartment, only one of two places to sit in my humble and barely furnished apartment.

“This year your birthday also falls on the day Joey takes his final vows for the priesthood. I thought it would be a great thing to throw him a combination of a surprise party as well as a celebration of his final vows. I knew it was also your birthday, Jeffie,” with this Christine stopped and grabbed a curl of her head hair and began twisting on it with an intensity. “But the last time we threw both you and Joey a surprise party you totally freaked out. You screamed and cried and made me and Mom swear to never do such a thing again. It’s strange that now you are complaining because I did promise never to throw a surprise party for you again, Jeffie, if you remember. But I never made such a promise to Joey and somehow it doesn’t seem fair that just because you don’t like surprise parties that Joey should never have another one. And I wouldn’t even be doing this but it’s also the day he takes those final vows.”

Christine had by then twisted that hank of hair around so tight that I figured it had to be hurting her.

Everything Christine said was true enough. She and my Mom threw a surprise birthday party for me and Joey’s 14th birthday and it was just awful. See, whereas Joey is outgoing and loves a crowd, I like to sit in the background and watch the action. I tend to get tongue-tied when confronted by strangers and for sure females scare the bejabbers out of me. At the tender and scary age of 14 it was all I could do to keep from passing out from fear the day of me and Joey’s surprise birthday party and add to this Christine invited about twelve girls from our school and talk about terror.

“I was hoping you would cook for the event, Jeffie,” Christine said in a small, very timid voice.

Suddenly I became animated. Wow. Cooking for a party, preparing various but classy appetizers, making up a tasty and fine main dish. My mind wrapped around the concept and soon I was making up mental lists of groceries and preparation techniques.

For as shy as I am around people and all that being in the company of strangers entails, I am exactly the opposite in my enthusiasm level for preparing food for those same strangers. Since I was a toddler, so my Mom tells me, I’ve always liked the stove, food, and cooking. In fact, I just recently got promoted to head Chef at Amour De Mer, the restaurant of my current employ. I loved cooking for the restaurant patrons indeed but it’s always been my dream to have my own catering firm where I can bring joy and celebration to life’s major events via my own carefully chosen and prepared foods. I began to mentally compile the menu.

“I can tell you like the idea, Jeffie,” Christine said, interrupting my reverie.

I let out a quiet chuckle. “You want me to cater my twin brother’s birthday party,” I said, bemused. “And yet,” I continued, looking to the air for the sentiment I wanted to express, “I want to do it. Let’s put the emphasis on Joey’s priesthood vows and downplay the birthday thing. I don’t want the fact that it’s my birthday to detract from Joey’s celebration.” Christine nodded affirmative to my requirements. I considered a brothy minestrone would be a fine soup course. I’d make the pasta myself.

Christine came over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “I really don’t want to hurt your feelings, Jeffie. I love you as much as I do Joey. And if I thought you wouldn’t get all upset, I’d be planning and throwing a surprise party for both of my twin brothers.” Christine walked over to the door and stopped before turning the handle for exit. “It’s about time you got over Marianne, Jeffie. Maybe there will be a special female at the party.”

I threw my dishtowel across the room at my sister. “Don’t even THINK of trying to set me up, Christine. I’m doing just fine with the females and I hardly remember Marianne.”

Which was not true at all except for that bit about forbidding my sister from setting me up with some girl. It’d been almost a year since Marianne and I broke up but I still ached like the dickens for her. Alas, it was not meant to be. Marianne left to attend graduate school late last summer and she never came back. She sent me a “dear Jeff” letter and hey, I deal with it. Broken hearts heal but they take time.

Joey is a wonderful priest. Although I didn’t suppose he’d be officially a priest until those final vows but if one were to choose out of the two of us who would end up the priest, most would pick me. I am shy, withdrawn, quiet, and with an “almost holy” air about me, as Marianne once phrased it. I thought it was a compliment at the time but I guess not.

Joey’s sermons always keep the congregation alert, he enjoys meeting many new people, he tells jokes and makes humorous observations and he is beloved immediately as soon as one should meet him. He is devoted to the Catholic faith although many might not think so. “If I have a personality that draws people to the church Jeffie,” he would tell me, “then I consider that God gave me that talent for a reason.”

Although I’ve heard often enough through the years that it would seem I was more priestly, common sense would dictate, if one thought about it, that a shy, quiet and withdrawn priest is hardly an asset to the church.
~~~~
“Jeffie, you’ve positively outdid yourself,” Christine told me the night of the intended surprise party. I watched my sister chew on a bacon-wrapped shrimp thoughtfully and I beamed. I’d worked for almost three weeks planning, preparing and purchasing all foodstuffs for this party and in less than an hour my twin brother would arrive. Joey will love having a surprise party. Earlier in the afternoon Christine and my folks had a little party for me with a small cake and gifts. It was perfect for me and now I would shine with the food spread I’d prepared and that was okay with me. One of the better things about the party is that I would not have to stand around all wooden and awkward. I could busy myself with the food and my interaction with the guests would be so much more comfortable in my role as caterer than as one of the subjects of the party. My brother the priest would do so much better as the focus of the festivities.

“Christine I don’t know how you found all of our high school friends but Joey will love it,” I told my sister as I stirred the minestrone and tested the tenderloins for temperature. “I must admit it’s been great for me to see them again as well.”

My sister beamed in pride at my compliments. I checked my watch and noted that my priestly brother would be arriving in ten minutes. It was time to get the gang all hidden away. My brother thought he was meeting me at a hotel room where I was allegedly staying for the fumigation of my apartment. Instead I would meet him in the lobby and guide him to this hotel meeting room now decorated for his special day.

“What?” I said to my brother’s voice then coming through on my cell phone. “Joey, I’ve been looking forward to this all week. I can’t have a birthday party without my twin brother!”

“I’ll be there, Jeffie. It’s just that I’ve got some things to tend to here. Don’t get so upset. It’s just our family. They’ll understand.”

Of course I couldn’t tell Jeffie that a bevy of our friends and family awaited his arrival so they could shout “SURPRISE” as he walked into the room because the event was, duh, a surprise. But Joey didn’t know this and he had a delay of some sort and he figured it was just a quiet get-together with our family so he phoned me up to casually tell me about the delay. Inside I was freaking out.

The guests were by now getting restless. And hungry. I told the guests that Joey would be late but that he gave his blessing for all to begin eating and hopefully he would arrive in time to open the gifts. Besides, my tenderloin on crispy toast points was beginning to dry out so I was anxious to get the folks eating my creations.

An hour passed by before I even knew it and oddly, no one even asked about Joey. I spent the time checking and adjusting my smorgasbord and I did quite enjoy the many compliments and the sheer joy of seeing so many enjoying my food.

All party attendees filled their plates, many two and three times, and laughter could be heard filling the room. I circulated amongst the guests, checking their food, answering questions, promising recipes, assuring many that soon enough I would have my own catering service. It was great to see so many of our friends from school, including Linda Halpern, former cheerleader and once the object of my unknown-to-her affections.

“How have you been doing, Jeffie?” she said once I got free of another group of high school chums to pay her some singular attention. “I just can’t tell you how wonderful this food is. You’ve always been a good cook. I remember that time you prepared all the food for our senior football banquet and what a great time we all had.”

I promised Linda the recipe for my crusted tilapia and she handed me her business card so I could call her with it. Linda cautioned me not to email it as she often let her email pile up. I asked Linda how she was doing with Martin, our high school’s star quarterback who she married right after graduation and she told me they’d been divorced three years now. It crossed my mind that the tilapia recipe might give me another chance to meet Linda. I quickly pushed such a notion out of my head as I noted that my priestly brother was still nowhere to be found and the guests were again getting restless.

“You want me to do what?” I struggled to keep my voice down as I finally reached Joey and he told me to open up his gifts for him.

“The Bishop is here, Jeffie. I can’t just walk out. It’s family, Jeff. They’ll understand. Tell Mom that as soon as I get there I promise to spend the whole evening with them. We’ll catch up. Have Mom and Dad hold their gifts till I get there but I understand Aunt Gertrude and Uncle Bill need to leave. Open YOUR gift from them and mine will probably be the same.”

It was all starting to get so complicated. Joey was still laboring, wherever he and the Bishop were, under the assumption that his birthday party as scheduled was a simple gathering of our close family and I was at a point where I might have to tell him the truth. It wasn’t as if I’d be opening gifts from Aunt Gertrude and Uncle Bill and it simply would not do for me to open up all the gifts from our family and friends at Joey’s surprise party. They brought gifts for Joey and he should be the one opening them. I got my sister Christine and put her on the phone with Joey. I figured I was the chef, let her figure out how to handle this.

“Jeffie, we’ve got a web cam hookup,” Christine told me after speaking with Joey for five minutes. Chris pointed to some object over in the far corner which I could not see but I guess it was supposed to be a web cam. “I’m going to explain to the guests that Joey’s been tied up doing priest stuff and he is watching on the web cam. You will open his gifts in his place. Be sure to hold them up in front of the web cam. We told the guests this was a surprise for Joey’s final vows of the priesthood. I don’t even think they know it’s either you or Joey’s birthday. I feel bad about you having to open Joey’s gifts but you insisted that there never be another surprise party…”

I waved off Christine’s concerns in the confusion and oddity of the situation. Before I knew it gifts were piled up in front of me and the whole absurdity of it all faded away. I opened the boxes and held up the shirts and socks and gift certificates to something over in the corner, hoping my brother was seeing these gifts and pondering if my cake icing was holding up in the kitchen.

After the gift weirdness, I got the cake and did have to touch up my fine buttercream icing a bit. I put 28 candles on the cake and asked my sister Christine if Joey was still on the web cam so we could sing Happy Birthday to him.

“Let me take this, Jeffie,” Christine said, taking the cake from my arms. “You worked hard enough baking the thing and making all the food. You’ve been a real gem, Jeffie. You go out and sit with the guests. Yes, Joey’s still on the web cam so he’ll see us singing Happy Birthday to him.”

I blew an exasperated breath wind up my face. This was certainly turning out quite unexpectedly what with Joey not here for his own surprise birthday party. I did, as I thought in muse before handing over my exquisite cake to my sister, having a good time in spite of the guest of honor’s non-arrival. I supposed he’d get here sooner or later and at least our immediate family could have a small party and spend time with him.

I managed to get a seat next to Linda Halpern, just by accident, and was surprised to see a big Movie screen come down from the ceiling. My brother, bigger than life and garbed in his priestly vestments, appeared on the screen. At the same time my sister came in with the cake, all 28 candles lit and burning brightly.

“SURPRISE!” both my sister with the burning cake and my brother on the TV screen shouted and I looked around as to just who was being surprised.

“Surprise, Jeffie. This was the most difficult thing to pull off. I told Christine it would never work but she managed to do it.” After these words my mother gave me a peck on the cheek and my Dad bashfully held out his hand for a shake.

“Happy Birthday, Jeffie,” my brother’s voice boomed from the movie screen. The guests were all murmuring amongst themselves at this sudden turn of events. I was numb from trying to figure it out.

“Let’s all sing Happy Birthday to Jeffie,” my sister said, holding up that cake with the 28 lit candles. “This is the only way we could give him any kind of birthday party, much less a surprise party. We knew any gift you would bring for Joey would suit Jeffie for the most part. Jeffie, I hated to do this but I watched you. You had a good time at your birthday party…which your twin brother deliberately missed just so we could surprise you. I know you did.” Christine then leaned over and whispered in my ear: “I also knew you wouldn’t hear of me setting you and Linda Halpern up but I see it worked out too.”

Everyone in the room was laughing and singing Happy Birthday to ME. I looked around at all my high school chums, my family, my Aunt Gertrude and Uncle Bill, and Linda Halpern. In fact I did have a great time.
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It’s been five years now since that famous 28th birthday party. My brother finally did take his final vows and I learned such a thing is not the sort of activity that takes one afternoon. Linda and I are married and we jointly own J&J’s catering firm. My brother the priest is a silent partner. We have one son, Joseph, named after his beloved Uncle, and Linda expects our daughter, Jane Christine, in three months.

It was the surprise birthday party of a lifetime. If my sister had listened to me, I’d probably still be cooking for Amour de Mer, still be a lonely single guy, still be….

Ah, but Christine didn’t listen to me, now did she?
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The intriguing reality is that neither of these two finalists of the Next Food Network Star, Melissa or Jeffrey, have any extensive food background.

Which some would say makes it all the sweeter.

The contenders were good but the Korean, the Creole or the Healthy could beat the cooking of the 2009 Next Food Network Star finalists and their charming on screen presence.

My choice for the winner. All with pics and video you'll find nowhere else on the Internet.

HERE
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It could have been the stimulus that didn't stimulate, the health care package Americans hate; bowing to the Saudi King…well President Obama has given us enough actions that will likely bring down his presidency as his ratings tank like our 401-k's.

But folks, the Gates incident illustrates more than anything where this very naive man is coming from. It will be the incident that caused his downfall.

Plus some detailed information on the Health "reform" that will have you killing Grandma; some Clinton kitchen utensils; and some thoughts on just why you have to be crazy to ask for a birth certificate?

Does this make every MVA in America conspiracy theorists?

HERE
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Even though Father Beachem was his twin brother, the protagonist in this fiction short story helped arrange his twin's surprise birthday party which turned out to be a bigger surprise to the caterer and priest's brother than to the party's man of honor.

HERE
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Some 2009 summer reality shows plow on, others start up, some are brand new, some old and stale.

Reviews here of 2009 "Hell's Kitchen", HGTV's 2009" Design Star"; "America's Got Talent" finally over the auditions and a new one that fat people across the fruited plains will adore:"More to Love". Or maybe not.

All with pics and video you'll find nowhere else on the Internet.

HERE
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2009 Bachelorette Jillian has chosen her man.

We have a review of the Men Telling All, The Final Rose and After the Final Rose.

With some analysis of the series, some smirks, a few laughs and, of course, pics and video you'll find nowhere else on the Internet.

HERE
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"The Slippery Slope of Marriage"-a Fictional, but Very Possible, Look At the Future of Marriage

2009-07-19T08:42:00.000-07:00

It's fiction but it will someday be very true as the writer of the diary asserts.

For now, it's up to Youtube to provide a scary but very believable illustration of how marriage will be defined in America's future.
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Pic of the Day

The Slippery Slope To Marriage

It’s like abortion.

Or course those are rather abrupt and sudden words as I sit here composing a diary entry on a rainy afternoon. I can be abrupt, and shocking with my diary entries because, well I am the only one who reads them.

At least until my death.

At which time I suppose my diary will be found along with my other personal effects and someone, very likely my precious granddaughter Mary Louise, will read it.

This is fine because reading a grandmother’s diary after her death is a long-established American tradition and like so many grandmother diaries before mine, I hope that my descendents learn something about life in my time.

Which gets me back to abortion because Mary Louise has lived her entire life knowing that should she desire and have the need, she can have an abortion any time she wants, even at most any point during the term of the fetus if you add that damnable catch-all, “the health of the mother”.

Although it is a given here, should I be dead and Mary Louise is reading this diary, that Mary Louise is vehemently against abortion, as am I and as is her mother and most other females in our extended family. Most of us being devout Catholics and everything is what I’m saying here.

This was not always the case and I document now that back in the early 1970’s, abortion on demand was made legal and as a young and pretty woman just coming to that age when pregnancy is paramount in a female life, I was very relieved. The notion that desperate young woman, scared, financially trapped, perhaps even raped into an unwanted pregnancy, could be jailed for obtaining an end to a condition that would so horrifically alter their lives simply infuriated my young self. Not that any women were ever sent to jail for such a thing, or at least none that I knew of, it still was a possibility and an American female public undergoing a transformation to an exciting “liberated” status was ready for freedom from the ravages of an unwanted pregnancy.

With the passage of time and as I closed in on my age as of this diary entry, 63 years, myself and many other formerly pretty and young women grew horrified with each passing year at females who cavalierly aborted one of their gestating triplets that they not be condemned to a life shopping at WalMart. Babies are now being pulled from the womb up until a mere week from birth, this after their heads are pierced by a long surgical instrument that shuts down their brains lest they live after being yanked from their womb.

Babies of the wrong sex, babies with a birth defect or even babies believed to have a birth defect, can all be aborted and without fear of breaking the law and I can hear the howls of damnation across the land, the cries of the infants, helpless as helpless can be defined, as they are denied a life those of us now out of the womb obviously did not suffer.
What started out as a simple procedure that would take place, almost effortlessly and without pain within the first trimester of a sudden and unexpected pregnancy ballooned into a horror that has shocked so many of us who once thought abortion on demand to be a fine thing.

It’s the law of unintended consequences, to put a more sophisticated turn of phrase on it. I call it the “slippery slope” and this term applies to any situation which might have seemed good at the time but granted, legislated or given without a complete thought, can be that terrible thing we should have been careful in wishing for.

“But you said I could stay out until midnight on a weekend night,” my daughter Shelly, Mary Louise’s mother told me the night riots raged in a nearby city. Another night an icy rain started off and on and again, I’d told Shelly that she could stay out late, all because she harangued on me that I treated her like a baby, that all her friends could stay out to watch the midnight cult movie. In desperation to stop the pleas I threw out that casual promise about weeknights and riots and I spent many evenings going against my own parental ruling when a simple “as I determine” addendum would have given me room to get around bad weather and nearby riots.

It might be a simple example but we all learn from it, whether we are supervising assigned employees, trying to properly parent our children or even setting rules for the family pooch regarding begging for food at the table.

Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile.

It’s not that I am especially “political”. I only vaguely understand the difference between a liberal and a conservative. I am a registered Democrat but I daresay I’ve voted Republican as often as I have Democrat and on more than one occasion I’ve voted for some crazy 3rd party candidate or another. Granddaughter Mary Louise knows this and, in fact, she just last year registered to vote and she registered Independent rather than being a hypocrite by not voting for her registered party’s candidate. I tried to explain that back in my day unless you were a millionaire or a son of a Republican, you just automatically registered Democrat but Mary Louise just snorted.

Like most Americans I suspect, I do pay close attention to issues that concern me. Abortion of course worries me no end and I’d sure like to see some limits put on abortion. I don’t suppose that it should be outright banned as this would never work but a) there’s no good reason for an accidental pregnancy any more as darn, they even have little patches you only need put on once a month and poof, no babies. And b) pregnancy tests are now available that reveal pregnancy like a few days or so after conception. So why are so many near-term babies being yanked out of their mother’s womb when it would have been so easy to avoid some nine months earlier? Plus, do we really, as a country and a compassionate people, want to go killing babies if they are not the sex of choice? And so-called “birth defects”, again, do we really want to be God and decide who should be born and who should not? Is possible ugliness a birth defect?

I know I don’t have all the answers and sometimes it seems like I have all the questions.

Of late I have become alarmed at yet another social trend in this country and I ponder that it will take more than my diary entry to avoid a slippery slope that will have us, some many years later, all regretful and bereft of how to go back and change the outcome.

“But Grandma, you met Bob and you know as well as I do what a nice guy he is. He and Michael adore each other. Why can’t they know the joy of being married, the security and commitment of it, just like Alan and I?”

This was how Mary Louise presented her argument about same-sex marriage and, indeed, I did know both her “fiancé” Alan and his, ahem, homosexual brother Bob. That’s the problem when discussing the tricky subject of same-sex marriage. This is an era when stepping out of the closet is considered good form and, in fact, our homosexual brethren, both males and females, make no attempt to hide their sexual orientation in any manner.

Which I do not think should be the norm, for homosexuals have the right to pursue their happiness as guaranteed by our constitution and folks like me just have to get used to Bob holding hands with Michael.

But marriage?

Like Mary Louise says, why not?

I wonder if some thirty years ago I’d have presented my scenario about babies being pulled from the womb a week before birth, or about babies being aborted for being a triplet when the mother only wanted twins, or babies being stabbed in the head and allowed to slip out of the womb because they were not the right sex…well I wonder if I had somehow envisioned such a thing and managed to write it down as I have above, would it have changed a thing?

For my argument against same-sex marriages I will not be caught off guard again. For now, yon reader of this humble diary, we have YouTube.

===========

It took quite a while to convince my daughter to help me with this endeavor. Shelly is an English teacher at the local high school and she does assist with the production of the annual senior play. But she finally agreed and for now I compose the screenplay until Shelly and I can get this up on YouTube.
=================
Scene opens. MSNBC TV News anchorman stands outside a residence, microphone with network call letters affixed around the mouthpiece.

“Hello I’m Mark Roehmer and I’ll be your host tonight on this MSNBC special …”The New Marriage, How It Affects Our World.”

I’m here in front of the Todd Bulling household. In a minute we will be going inside to meet Todd and his family. We’ll discuss his marriage, a marriage that is quite different from the marriages we knew back in the 2010 era. For now, let us meet a couple of the pundits who will be discussing and debating the various issues and accusations. Representing the Conservative Party, formerly the Republican party, from Delaware, we have Mary Louise Morrison. Representing the Progressive Party, formerly the Democratic party, we have Bob Morrison, actually Mary Louise’s brother-in-law, who has been married to his husband, Michael, for some twenty years now, as long as Mary Louise has been married to her husband and Bob’s brother, Alan. Good afternoon Mary Louise, Bob.”
=========
Scene changes to talking heads. Mary Louise nods a greeting, Bob mouths a soft “Good afternoon.”

“Mary Louise, the head of your party, President Sarah Palin, vows to introduce a bill to override the current definition and return it to the old biblical definition of marriage being between a man and a woman. Palin says that the new forms of marriage in this almost mid-21st century have hurt both this country’s economy and social welfare. Do you agree?”

“I do,” Mary Louise says when camera is on her. “Home ownership has dropped to half the levels that they were in 2015, the year following the end of the great depression caused by President Barack Obama. In that year, fully 80% of America owned a home or condominium. That rise was caused by Obama’s defeat and the dismantling of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. With each new definition of marriage put on the books, home ownership has dropped until now, in 2039, only 45% of Americans own their own home.”

“Why is this, Bob?” the MSNBC anchorman asks, turning to Bob Morrison.

“Home ownership has simply dropped down to the more normal percentage that it was at before the Obama caused second depression. The difference in the definition of marriages as has evolved in these last 20 years has nothing to do with the percentages of Americans who own their own homes.”

“That’s not true, Mark!” Mary Louise Morrison shouts. The MSNBC host tries to go on to another issue but Mary Louise keeps shouting. Finally, in exasperation, the MSNBC host says, “Why not?”

“The Conservative party has done many surveys of various banks and bank presidents over the past ten years. Many of the results are published online at Conservative.com for verification and details. The consensus is that the confusion and chaos by the many definitions of marriage have virtually eliminated the concept of “tenants in the entirety”. This now old-fashioned notion was used for mostly married couples that had each one owning a house completely in fusion with his or her spouse. The bankers say that they simply cannot use this term, and the resulting financial security the concept brought with it. There’s too much deceit and uncertainty in the notion so mortgages are now almost always based on the ability of only ONE partner in any marriage to pay it off. This has effectively brought down the number of people who would have, in the age when marriage was defined as strictly between one human man and one human woman, to half of those who would have once qualified for a mortgage.”

“Let us go and visit Todd Bulling and his family,” the MSNBC host says with no comment or further questions about home ownership issues in America.

“Hello,” a big and friendly fellow says upon opening the door for the MSNBC host. “Please come in and meet my family.”

The door opens and the viewer sees about ten children from toddlerhood up to adolescence. Seated upon the couch are three women.

“These are my wives, Sarah, Nancy and Willamena,” Todd says, pointing in order to the appropriate of the three adult women by name.

“Mr. Bulling,” the MSNBC host says. “Please call me Todd,” Bulling says.

“Todd, how much easier is your life now that you can legally be married to these three fine women than it was when you all had to live your life in secret?”

“Life couldn’t be better for us, Mark,” Todd says, extending his arm and swinging it around to show the expanse of his large and beautiful home. “My children are relieved at not having to hide their lives. Men are allowed multiple wives in my religion and before it was nothing less than blatant discrimination to not allow me the sanctity and social credibility of a legal marriage.”

“How do you like no longer having to lie about your father and his wives?” the MSNBC host asks one of the teenagers sitting on the couch. “It’s just so much better,” the adolescent girl of around 17 years of age says. “Our religion has just recently made a change in the by-laws by the supreme leader and now I will be able to marry both of my current boyfriends. Having such sensible marriage laws in America has finally made this a country I can be proud of.”

The MSNBC host stays inside the Bulling house for about ten more minutes, the film crew making a tape of the three wives happily cooking while the many children play board games at the dining table. The host exits the house and again addresses the pundits.

“So you see, Mary Louise and Bob, some Americans that until the redefinition of the marriage laws who were kept deep and unhappy in the shadows, overlooked by those who would insist on their narrow world view in the definition of marriage. The Bullings are Mormans, for the record, but let us not forget the many Muslims now living in America whose religion also allows for multiple wives. Religion is supposed to be kept apart from state in America so why did the marriage laws intrude on a person’s religious belief?”

“Just because someone has a religion that preaches it is okay to murder doesn’t mean America as a country has to accept it,” Mary Louise shouts quickly in response to the MSNBC’s host rather silly argument.

“What do you think, Bob?” the MSNBC host says, ignoring and now mad at Mary Louise for intruding on what he thought was a dynamite roll.

“You’re absolutely right, Mark. Between our Muslim citizens and the many Morman citizens who follow the teaching of multiple marriages, we used to force many millions of Americans to live a life of shame, not to mention a loss of benefits by those who rightfully deserve health and other benefits once only given to those covered by the ancient marriage definition of one man and one woman.”

Mary Louise tries to inject a thought but the MSNBC host moves on, happy with Bob’s summary of the manner.

“We will now visit the home of Jane Snyder and see yet another happy marriage once forbidden by the evangelical zealots of Sarah Palin’s voting base. But before, let’s discuss the continuing accusation that the new definitions of marriage has somehow undermined this country’s social setting. Mary Louise?”

“Mark, almost every state reports an almost bankrupt economy due to covering the descendents of folks just like Mr. Mulling who you just interviewed. In addition, child support payments are down. Seems that with so many different sorts of marriages now legal, many men are not bothering to marry the mother of their children. They are also not supporting their offspring. Many are claiming that they were but one of several husbands of their wives and getting DNA samples is not so simple anymore. Ever since the failing public health care system implemented by President Obama, private businesses no longer provide health insurance for their employees. Folks like the Mullings suddenly have a multitude of wives and husbands and children until no one can keep track of it all much less the government. We have millions of people collecting double on hospital bills, actually making a profit! And the public is footing the bill for more children of the lazy and thoughtless.”

Bob laughs loudly. “None of this has anything to do with the new definitions of marriage, Mark, as my good but misguided sister-in-law would have you believe. Whether or not the Mullings were married or all three of his wives were single, they would be eligible to government health care…”

“…many of them file double…,” Mary Louise tried to interject.

“Here we are at the home of Jane Snyder,” the MSNBC host cuts off further debate on the matter and knocks on a door. A women of about 50 years old opens the door. Using a white cane she opens the door and invites the MSNBC host in. It is obvious that she is blind. Her German Shepherd guide dog leads her to a couch.

“This is my husband, Rusty,” Jane says, wrapping her arms around the dog’s big head in endearment.

“How does it feel to finally be married to the one living thing on this planet you love with all your heart?” the MSNBC host asks.

“It’s positively wonderful and I can’t thank the congress enough for finally making me and people like me complete. Plus the free health veterinary care for Rusty keeps me financially solvent. He’s saved my life a few times and without him my life would be a real horror. Now he’s my husband and receives all the benefits thereof.”

“Were you and Rusty able to buy a house, Mrs. Snyder?” Mary Louise asks.

“I tried. Soon we’ll have to have congress start punishing those banks for their so obvious discrimination. I could have bought a house but the bank wouldn’t let me put Rusty down as tenant in the entirety and of course I’d want him protected in the event of my death and both of us to be safe from lawsuit. Further, Rusty should be counted as having an income same as mine because without Rusty I’d have no income at all. The American Kennel Club as well as PETA are lobbying furiously to get equal rights for animal spouses the same as human spouses under the law.”

The MSNBC host stays around the Snyder house, filming scenes of Rusty and Mary Louise eating a dinner at the same table as well as playing together in the yard.

“As you can see, folks, these two living creatures love each other as much as any human male ever loved a living human female. And Bob you and your husband Michael have been together for what, almost 20 years now?”

“Yes, Mark, and we love each other as much now as we did the day we married.”

“President Palin is considered too old to run for a second term,” the MSNBC host says to the camera now focused on him. “Her first term might not allow enough time for her efforts to tear down the new definitions of marriage. In fact, tune in tomorrow night. For if Rusty and Jane Snyder love each other, who are we to deny Cathy Spitzer and her llama the legality of marriage they deserve? As you shall see, Charlie, Cathy’s beloved llama, serves as Cathy’s ears. Cathy was born deaf. Charlie has already saved Cathy from death by a sudden fire in her home as well as chasing off a bunch of burglars who might have killed Cathy.”

The camera pans to a picture of an American flag waving strongly from a breeze.

“For America is truly a great land, a land of the free and the brave. Why should the benefits of marriage be denied to so many of our citizens? We’ll see you tomorrow night when we investigate more happy marriages and joyful Americans who have all emerged from the shadows where they had to live before the redefinitions of marriage our maturing country has enacted.”

TV screen fades to black.

=========

Dear Diary,

It’s Mary Louise. We buried my grandmother today. About 3 hours ago I found this diary. Such an old-fashioned concept, a hand-written diary. Well actually this diary is on Grandma’s computer but she printed out the pages and stored them in this folder. I know she wanted me to find it.

At first I laughed, through tears admittedly for Grandmother’s death was sudden and too soon, at the stories of my childhood, her own struggles with life and her health issues, the loss of grandfather.

Then I came apart this section….The Slippery Slope of Marriage as Grandma called it.

I am just shocked.

Grandmother is right. As much as I love my brother-in-law Bob and respect his right to pursue his happiness with his friend Michael, I think it’s best we keep marriage as defined between a man and a woman. A HUMAN man and a woman, of course, I write with a smile.

I plan on continuing this diary and maybe someday a child born of me and my beloved fiancé Alan might too continue this document of life ongoing here in this great country.

My grandmother planned on creating a YouTube type of amateur production of a mythical future and how changing the definition of marriage evolved through the years.

I intend to work with my mother to make this happen.

Only my fiancé has some contacts in the movie industry and I am going to take Grandmother’s idea and make it in to a big screen movie, maybe even 3-D.

Look for it, coming to a theater near you.
=============
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He was gayer than a spring primrose. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

But it got old and the colored hair didn't help. Now The Next Food Network Star is down to four and let's discuss this cranky judge who maybe needs a man, you think?

All with pics and video you'll find nowhere else on the Internet.

HERE
============
Bachelorette Jillian encounters a man with, ahem, problems that only a man can have.

It's all double entendre and euphemisms but the funniest part of all….she actually gives the fellow a rose that he can continue on.

All with pics and video you'll find nowhere else on the Internet.

HERE
============
A rant on that Social Security luxury retreat. They learn how to dance on our taxpayer dime and this after Obama sicced his Acorn buddies on AIG for doing the same thing.

Plus the horror of Obamacare. How about that bit that will require all Medicare recipients to file a report every five years about how they'd prefer to die?

HERE
============

She Used a Toaster As a Pocketbook and a Trash Bag for a Poncho. She Was a Fashion Hit in this Fine Fiction-"The Empress Wore Weird Clothes"

2009-07-05T15:08:00.000-07:00

The toaster-pocketbook was Drew Parker's fashion idea. She also came up with the living crucifixion of a town smoker as example of what happens to those who dare light up.

Here's a funny fictional(?) story of the discovery of the genius of Drew Parker and how she'll go far from the outrageousness and satire she brings to cherished political ideals.

It's "The Empress Wore Weird Clothes".

Pic of the Day

"The Emperor Wore Weird Clothes"

I just didn’t know where to begin when the local yokel newspaper phoned me up for some inside information on my cousin Drew. Drew has been an oddball all her life and anybody who knew her could tell a nutty story about her.

She was always engaging in some stunt all through school and on through college. For my cousin Drew, my closest friend no matter our biological relation, has a self-professed purpose in life and it’s to make fun of everything that is stupid, dumb, hurtful, selfish, wasteful and up to no good at all.

This is all by the judgment, of course, of Drew herself.

What got the local newspaper suddenly interested in Drew was her Youtube production that had her giving out “pills” for depression to folks who complained about, well, being depressed.

It was a mock commercial and I knew just as soon as Drew jumped out of her chair in the sudden and often scary way of hers after a pharmaceutical commercial featuring allegedly depressed people who suddenly get happy and gay after taking one of these little pills, right here… that something was up.

Understand that Drew was right as she often is. If Drew is not right all the way, she always, but always, has a point of view that causes most around her to nod their head affirmative, as in…”yes, that’s true.”

“Those people are ACTORS, for God’s sake!” Drew shouted. I was busy clutching my heart from the sudden scare of Drew interrupting a peaceful evening with an ascent onto her imaginary soap box to express her flash of brilliance.

“This must be how Joe Blow drug company defines depression for God’s sake!” Drew continued her shout. I’ve changed the name of the actual pharmaceutical company to protect innocent druggists everywhere. “They dress up some woman in wrinkly, crabby clothes, no make-up, looking all boo-hoo. They recommend she get some of these miracle pills and boom!”

All the while Drew is practically screaming her hurried summary, this while bouncing around the couch with the joy of her released truth and frustration. “THEN…” Drew practically seethes as I shift myself to comfort that my heart has stopped racing and I’ll probably live. I watch my cousin and roommate as I have so often in the past, in a state of amusement and exasperation. I could only hope that she’d be done before American Idol came back on.

“They dress her in nice clothes, put on some lipstick, tell her to smile and there you have it!” Drew finally bounced down to a seating position but I got her point.

So Drew makes a Youtube movie where she gets some of her friends to dress real ugly. She gets her current unsuspecting boyfriend to be the pitchman for Joe Blow’s drug company. “Tell your doctor,” Ted says in response to Drew’s directing. “Depression affects everyone around you. Make-Me-Happy can help. Ask your doctor today.”

Then Drew had her friends, including me, dress up in ridiculous frocks, all froufrou, lace and tulle. We get our hair curled up and makeup applied and we all look like we are celebrities on Dancing With the Stars. We all smile and dance about merrily, again in response to Drew’s directing.

It’s a hoot, actually, something Drew likes to do. Drew did take some theatrical courses in college and she hopes to get a job on TV soon but goodness knows in our hick town she’ll probably not go too far. As I saw it, Drew would have to move to New York to get proper recognition for her “talent”.

Only problem is, I don’t know exactly what Drew’s talent IS.

Drew’s Youtube mockery of the Make-Me-Happy anti-depression drug captured the amusement of many of that web site’s visitors. Drew was, but of course, making fun of the notion that people wearing ugly, wrinkled clothing are depressed and with but a few Make-Me-Happy pills (ASK YOUR DOCTOR TODAY), clothes suddenly become ironed, smiles magically appear, loved ones smile with joy that their beloved is no longer depressed.

“My cousin thinks that the commercial over-simplifies the concept of clinical depression. She understands that there’s only a minute to make the point but how many fools watching that thing will get it into their heads that with but a couple of Make-Me-Happy pills their life will turn joyful, all with neatly ironed and pressed clothing, naturally?”

“Has your cousin participated in any other kind of humorous satire in the past? If so, can you give us a good example?”

The reporter at the local yokel newspaper sounded bored and evidently, per her question, wanted more examples of Drew’s zaniness.

My mind raced. I thought of the time she had us all dress up as dogs, greyhounds if she had them, and chase a real rabbit all around the lawn of the state capital.

This was Drew’s effort at mocking a state referendum on dog racing up for vote.

I thought the one where Drew actually had us hoist her on an actual cross at a major intersection in our town might be a turnoff for this sudden interest in her talent that might, who knows, take her to places where her “talent” will be valued, even give her a job with a future.

Drew carefully painted the words “TOWN SMOKER” above her head and had a foot-long cigarette dangling from her crucified lips. This was a Drew stunt put on in reaction to our town’s short-lived vote to prohibit smoking in our own damn apartments. Drew didn’t smoke but this was just Drew. She saw smokers as being the victims of everyone in town with absolutely nothing going for them except that they did NOT smoke.

“They can weigh 400 pounds, have leprosy, carry around a major case of the uglies and maybe be a serial killer but hey, let’s all get together and beat the hell out of the smokers. This way finally the lepers and serial killers of the world can carry around their own sense of self-righteousness.”

Then I remembered the incident of Senator Marklin.

Actually it wasn’t Senator Marklin. It was Senator Marklin’s daughter. Which is not Senator Marklin’s name, or his daughter’s, as I’ve changed the names to protect innocent senators across the fruited plains.

Drew, or Andrea Walker as is her proper name, has always resembled Jane Marklin, daughter of four-time elected senator of Wisconsin.

“It’s not that she’s unattractive,” Drew would lament at yet another comparison of her crystal blue eyes, pouty lips and thick brunette hair to the Senator’s daughter. “But she’s got no “soul”, no,” at this Drew would look up to the heavens for the right word, “sustenance,” Drew would finish. “She considers clothes to be what makes her and I would hate to think that I was like my Doppelganger and fashion was my reason to live.”

It was true that Elizabeth Marklin was known for her fashion savvy and I suspected that Drew, definitely no slave to fashion, ahem, resented not only the surprise at her physical resemblance to the senator’s daughter, but surprise that Drew was such a direct opposite to her ersatz twin in terms of any kind of fashion sense.

“I’ve got an idea,” Drew said one night. We were both attendees at the University of Wisconsin at the time, along with Elizabeth Marklin who used to draw all eyes as she attended classes wearing her latest fashion concoction that would be worn by hundreds of other young coeds the following day.

One day Liz Marklin showed up in gym class wearing a pair of black leggings. What was odd was the leggings, worn under a pair of gym shorts, as is often the case, had a line of fringe down the calf causing the fringes to bounce all about during normal physical education activities. It was just the strangest thing but it got plenty of attention. The next day almost every female coed enrolled in phys ed showed up wearing leggings with fringe down the back of the calves.

Another time Liz wore a rather pretty pink top that was outlined with feathers. You guessed it. Hundreds of coeds showed up the next day wearing tops outlined, accented or totally covered, with feathers.

“If the females in this school are so dim that they think wearing feathers around your torso or fringes on your legs is so cool, let’s give them some REALLY dumb stuff to copy and show how cool they all are.”

Drew really worried me when she started to talk like this. I got even more worried when, after jumping up and running into the kitchen, she came out with our toaster held oddly at her side.

“So what do you think?” she asked.

She was standing at the doorway to our little kitchenette, in a pose that would be interpreted as, well a pose, definitely a pose. Our little two-sliced toaster was held in her right hand, the arm hanging at her side. She held the toaster by gripping it with two fingers inside of the designated holes for bread slices to be toasted. My quizzical look was enough to inform Drew that I had no idea what she was doing.

Drew held up the toaster high in the air. “It’s my new pocketbook!” she shouted. Before the concept of a toaster as pocketbook could register on my brain, Drew continued with her explanation.

“We’ll have to find out when Liz Marklin won’t be on campus, of course,” Drew said to my mental query as to just who are these “we” people. “When she’s not around, I’ll fix myself up in fine fashion and pretend to be her. I think I can get away with it.”

Drew danced around with her toaster “pocketbook” and I had to duck for fear of a head injury. “Of course,” Drew said with a conspiratorial wink, “I’ll add a few odd fashion choices of my own making. All the while with Liz Marklin getting all the “credit”. And we’ll begin with this fine toaster pocketbook.”

Drew affixed a ziplock sandwich bag type thing inside of the toaster holes and managed to store her makeup, wallet and other assorted purse essentials inside and we then painted the thing red with a can of spray paint. I tucked the electric cord inside of the holes as we were not rich and after the toaster’s career as a pocketbook we would want to put it back to work as its original purpose. Adorned with a plastic flower, it looked right fine.

It took a little detective work but I did obtain Liz Marklin’s class schedule and it only took a quick peek at her Dad’s web site for me to ascertain that Liz would be accompanying her father on a campaign trip. She would not be expected to be on campus for an entire week.

Drew didn’t over-do it, I’ll give her credit for this. On the first morning of Drew’s unveiling as Liz Marklin, she dressed up in a happening pantsuit. It had a black cropped cotton jacket, covered a discretely low-cut bright red blouse for that pop of color, with pants that were straight-legged to a perfect length topping red sandals. She accessorized with a small gold necklace with matching earrings and, of course, that painted toaster as a pocketbook.

The females at the college went nuts. All day Drew attended Liz Marklin’s classes. Her outfit was smashing, as Liz Marklin’s outfits always are. Drew wore large sunglasses to further her disguise and she spoke as little as possible lest her secret be discovered. Drew would enter the class with a panache that was associated with Liz Marklin. She’d sit down quietly, place her book on her desk, and as quietly as possible she’d place that toaster alongside her desk, accessible but out of the way. All eyes, males, females and professors, were glued to that toaster.

At the end of each class, Drew would grab the toaster, pull it up on her desk and get busy searching for something inside, perhaps a lipstick in one bread hole, perhaps some change in another bread hole.

As hard as it might be to believe, the very next day a legion of female students showed up with, you guessed it, toasters to be used as purses!

Some females got clever and used a four-slice toaster for the purse and many affixed a strap to the things that they may be less awkward to carry. They were painted or had stickers on them or were simply polished to a very high, proud shine. Every class had two or three female students, all carrying toaster pocketbooks, all proud of their ingenuity, fashion-forward sense and hip style.

Two days later, Drew comes out the bathroom wearing a trash bag over her torso. “What do you think?” she said, giving a pirouette worthy of the finest Paris runway. I eyed that trash bag with more than a little skepticism.

“Of course I’m going to doll it up,” Drew explained as she pulled the black 20-gallon trash bag up a bit off her hip and pinned it with a flowered pin. “I have a few items I am going to put here,” Drew continued her fussing with the trash bag, pointing to an area below her neck. She then pulled out some unusual items, a flowered eyeglass case, a little zippered purse, other things. With panache she artfully pinned these items here and there and then filled them with necessary items, sunglasses in the eyeglass case, a little umbrella in the pretty zipper purse, that kind of thing. I pitched in and helped a bit, moving the pinned items hither and yon so that Drew would not look so much like a walking mini-billboard.

Drew regarded her self in the full-length mirror. “See?” she asked me, also regarding Drew in that full-length mirror and still with much skepticism. “I have everything I need with these handsome accessories, which add both practicality and decoration to my happening poncho. I am protected from the wet rain and as the piece de resistance,” Drew paused in her fashion assessment for drama, then pulled out what was a hood from her winter coat if my memory served me.

“A fine hood that can be pulled out of my pocket and affixed quickly right here for further protection from the elements.”

First, the hood was very inappropriate for that trash bag poncho as it was made from a heavy cloth with a fur facial outline. Second, where the thing was to be stored on the trash bag poncho was inside of a slit in the thing, held on by a safety pin. Third, where it was to be affixed on this landfill contraption was yet another safety pin behind the head hole of the trash bag. I expressed my considerable reservations to my cousin Drew. THIS would surely be too over the edge and would make her fashion masquerade totally unbelievable.

“Nonsense,” Drew pooh-poohed me with a wave of her hand. “They’ll love this fashion forward poncho and the next day trash bag ponchos will be all the rave.”

She was right, damn her. Drew wore that awful thing to all of Liz Marklin’s classes two days later, awaiting a rainy day just to show the practicality of this fashion invention. The next day females showed up with plastic ponchos fashioned from such as painting tarps to shower curtains, all sewed up and decorated with various elements to hold glasses, umbrellas and protective head hoods.

So I told the newspaper reporter this story of my cousin Drew and Liz Marklin and that’s when all hell broke loose.

Drew’s career as a fashion maven ended, of course, once Liz Marklin returned to class. The toaster pocketbooks and trash bag ponchos showed up for a few more days after that but with Liz denying any knowledge of these weird fashion accoutrements, the fads faded away.

Once my story hit the newspapers, however, Liz Marklin, daughter of Wisconsin’s Senator and now an up and coming politician in her own right, remembered the whole story. She got hold of Drew and now my once brainy cousin is an assistant to Liz Marklin, currently running as a representative in the 33rd district of Wisconsin and touted as both a female with happening fashion sense, fine looks and a political background that taught her all she needed to know to work up to a possible presidential bid. My cousin Drew is now part of all that and I don’t suppose there’s anything wrong with having a job, however much it sells out your principles, and pursuing that American dream. I just miss what cousin Drew could have been, the minds she could have influenced.

I don’t see Drew much these days. Her job title is “First Assistant” to Liz Marklin and it would seem that Drew does a little of everything. On occasion Drew does serve as a sort of press agent for Liz Marklin. Marklin is only at the beginning of her political odyssey, wherever that may lead. I imagine that paid employees are expected to do a little of everything depending on the need.

The other day I saw Drew speaking to a reporter on behalf of “Joe Blow’s” drug company. Evidently they are supporting a bid for the House for Liz Marklin. “I myself was experiencing some severe depression. Once I had my doctor prescribe me some Make-Me-Happy pills I perked up so much that my dog and my family are glad to see me back to my old self.”

A week later Drew was being interviewed by yet another local yokel paper about the pending ban on cigarettes in the 33rd district, which Liz Marklin is going to support and the impending law was part of her platform. “Smokers are polluting the world and killing themselves,” I heard Drew say to my complete astonishment. “They should be crucified for the damage they cause the environment,” Drew finished up the interview with and now I was holding back some serious chuckles.

Yesterday I saw Drew show up at some campaign event wearing a huge pair of bunny slippers, complete with floppy ears and a big bow for a mouth. She walked around wearing those bunny slippers and of course no one asked about them as she was, after all, just a mere assistant and it was more important what Liz Marklin was wearing after all.

But I noticed plenty of reporters would have the camera somehow zoom in on those bunny slippers. Well hey, Drew was Liz’s First Assistant after all, right? Surely Liz Marklin influences her female employees in terms of fashion, right?

Could Liz Marklin be espousing some sort of fashion forward statement by having her First Assistant wear the next latest and greatest thing? After all, as I pondered the raised eyebrows of those reporters and reporterettes covering Liz Marklin’s campaign, those plastic ugly shoes with the holes and recessed heel called Crocs became all the rage against all fashion odds.

None of this is happening, even as I write this, in the state of Wisconsin. There is no 33rd district, at least none that I know of. There is no Liz Marklin running for the House of Representatives.

I smile as I warn yon reader to keep an eye on the news. For somewhere out there is a pretty, young woman, not a daughter of a sitting senator but with impressive relations in the congress, maybe the White House, now running for an important elective office. That pretty, young and very fashionable female has an Assistant.

I suspect this Assistant will be in the news, big time, right soon.

I can’t wait.

=============
It's time for yon readers to put their money where their mouth is. We have genuine odds on the remaining contenders for 2009's The Next Food Network Star" along with my own sure bet recommendation.

Teddy the liar finally went home and we narrow down to a field of six in this summer foodie contest that has us all rooting for....who?

With pics and video you'll find nowhere else on the Internet.

HERE
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Heh. Surely the producers of The Philanthropist meant this show to be a comedy. Surely?

It's a liberal's dream show, as far removed from truth and reality as…well most liberal ideas.

We've got a tongue-in-cheek, pokey-fun review.

Also, America's Got Talent continues on and the acts being sent through just boggle the mind. 75 dancing little girls donned in little orphan annie wigs? The judges think they can win this thing?

HGTV's "Showdown" quickly review and dismissed.

All with pics and video you'll find nowhere else on the Internet.

HERE
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The Bachelorette Jillian's down to four finalists that might be her husband in the near future.

One of them is a snake but fear not, I've got the reason why this guy remains even though he readily admits, on camera, to his snakiness.

Also, he left and now he's back and again, my inside scoop on why Ed bailed out precisely during Home Town visit week.

All with pics and video you'll find nowhere else on the Internet.

HERE
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In THOUGHTS this week we follow a couple of local Delaware yet very national political players.

Mike Castle, Mr. Republican Cap and Trade, is our Bad Guy of the Week. Our President-to-Be sometime in our future, Beau Biden, gets in his first pot of hot water and we're following this young man as he prepares for the Oval Office.

A couple of Quips of the Week that'll leave you in stitches and we know that young women in bikinis sell stuff handily. But fireworks?

HERE
=============
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FICTION-"CAN OF PEAS"-A Simple Can of Peas Changes the Lives of Immigrants and Their Children

2009-06-14T14:15:00.000-07:00

The protagonist of this story "Can of Peas" grew up believing that a humble can of peas saved her parents from certain death on the rocky immigrant boat of their passage from Italy to America.

But was it a can of peas or something that sounds like a can of peas that saved the lives on that vote and changed the fortunes of the believers soon to be born of the survivors?

Pic of the Day

Can of Peas
==============

I held the yellowed, crinkled piece of paper tightly in my fists. I did not, literally, know whether to laugh or to cry. I could, given any tiny impetus, have screamed to the gods above, raised my fist in a strange combination of hilarity and anger and irony and, screamed and screamed and….

“It is a can of peas,” I remember my mother telling me in her sing-song English with her funny Italian accent. I was only five or six years old and had somehow climbed up to the tiny window above our small kitchen sink to reach that round object that had captured my toddler fancy since I’d been born. Or at least so my mother told me. I bowed my head and did a quick sign of the cross in reverence to my dear departed mother who’d so carefully cultivated and passed on the history, wisdom and sobriety of the family’s cherished can of peas.

“You can learn a lot from a can of peas, Nina,” my mother told me. By then I was holding the can in my little girl hands, twirling it round and round, ready to roll it across the floor as if the toy I thought it surely was. My mother’s hands prevented me from abusing the can of peas in any fashion and my childish self was frustrated. I wondered about all the adoration of this can and for what? I couldn’t even roll it across the floor, watch the faded and old-fashioned label rotate as the can rolled over the cracked linoleum, maybe catching one of our cats’ eyes in the action?

Mama chucked me under the chin and carefully removed the can of peas from eager fat hands and for about five more full years I never gave that odd can of peas sitting in the alcove of that little window another thought.

Then my father opened his factory canning peas and tomatoes. For this was America after all, home of the free and the brave and in our case, the well off who’d finally found their riches in pursuit of a happiness that found an eager market selling a product for which people were willing to pay.

Oh we were not fabulously wealthy, the Biancos of Bianco Canning Factory fame. My family’s canning factory was located right outside of Baltimore’s Little Italy. We canned two products: tomatoes for the tomato sauces that would dress the pizzas in Little Italy or cover the huge pasta bowls for which this part of Baltimore was famous. Also,
Bianco’s Canning Factory was also the only place in the state of Maryland that canned peas.
~~~~~~~~

“Hi Mom. Has Donnie been out yet?” I looked at my beautiful daughter then asking about her brother and wondered for a second just where I was and why.

“He’s in the back,” I said distractedly to Bennie, short for Bernadette. “He’s giving a private tour to some local bigwigs. He’s hoping to get some funds to finance a world wide tour featuring his art.”

Bennie’s eyes glowed. She was so proud of her little brother. I noticed a crowd of people behind her and I smiled. Bennie said she was bringing everybody she worked with to Donnie’s private art show and it looked like she had.

“Come on, guys. Let me give you an upfront and personal tour, all special by the sister of the artist whose work you will be seeing tonight. He’s taking bids on EVERYTHING so don’t hesitate to ask for a price quote if you see anything you like. If all goes well Donnie will be going on a world tour with his art. I’m betting none of you has ever seen the lowly pea presented in so many forms and fashions.”

Bennie’s voice faded off as she led her entourage off for their personal tour and I had to smile. For Bennie was right. My artist son Donnie had always been infatuated with the family’s business icon and he’d painted, drawn, penciled or sketched cans of peas, boxes of frozen peas, peas still on the vine, peas sitting on a plate swimming in butter and, in one very controversial work of art that first brought Donnie to the attention of the Baltimore Sun, a beautiful green pea actually nailed to a cross, a spear piercing it’s round middle, ruby red blood dripping from the wound.

I was the first one to get angry about that picture. It was a sacrilege as I saw it. I’d tolerated Donnie’s unusual fascination with peas since he was a toddler, even the drawing of a pea wearing a sexy yellow bikini. Donnie was an artist, my husband, sweet Sal now departed for ten years, and artists do not think like most of us, so Sal explained to my dismayed self. For myself I’d just as soon Donnie take a few accounting courses at Baltimore Community college, maybe minor in this art stuff but get a degree and a normal life and pursue that artistic side as more of a hobby.

Both of my children had enough money in a trust fund established by my parents that they didn’t have to work a day in their lives if they did not want to. I however had not been raised in a huge house with a live-in Nanny, a cook to make my meals, with money enough to pursue hobbies and obtain the latest technological baubles. I knew what it was like to live in a tiny home in the projects, to have the winds blow cold through cracked doors on winter nights, to listen as my parents worried about rent, food, shoes.

I looked at Donnie’s huge oil painting of a box of frozen peas that hung above my head and sighed.
~~~~~~~~~~

As I understood it, the can of peas was considered some sort of divine revelation in my side of the Bianco family. The Biancos were originally from Sicily, a dirt-poor clan that dabbled in crime although nowhere near the glamour of the Godfather. My grandparents somehow bribed a ship’s captain to board a bunch of us in stowaway for a trip to America, back in the day when such things were possible and when immigration authorities willy-nilly stamped new arrivals’ fake passports as if genuine, often giving them new, more pronounceable names in the process. There were eighteen Biancos on that boat for a trip to America. As I understood it there were cousins, second cousins, third cousins, uncles, aunts. Few kept contact with each other once on land but my grandparents were on that boat as was my 14 year old mother and her secret love crush at the time, her 16 year old boyfriend.

The boat hit a terrible storm while at sea and the story was told to me many times through the years, by my mother and my father, but their English was heavily-accented and it all happened when their memories were young and fresh and told when their memories were older and half-forgotten. As best I understood, it was a can of peas that saved everyone on board, the same can of peas that occupied that special perch in the kitchen window of my early childhood as I believed.

Now just how the can of peas saved the lives of all passengers on that horrific journey is not clear. As I remember my mother’s tale of the event, and as I splice it in with my father’s version of the story, all were asleep on the boat, including all stowaways then hidden deep in the bowels of the boat. Suddenly the sound of a can rolling around on the oak flooring of the ships bottom woke up one of the babies on board. The baby started crying and soon its parents woke up. The sound of the can rolling around grew louder although I’ve concluded that maybe it was the sobs of the baby accompanied by the movement of the awakened parents that woke all the stowaways but soon everybody was up and about and my father grabbed the can of peas to stop the noise. In short time somebody went up on deck and found the captain of the ship passed out cold.

A storm was tossing the ship as if were a toy on that restless ocean and this is how that can of peas likely got dislodged although no one knows how the can of peas got down on the lower level in that all foodstuff was, obviously, stored in the galley, clear on the other end of the ship. A couple of the adults managed to get the captain awake. He had an awful hangover and worse, his crew of five were totally missing.

The story is that the adults all pooled their talent and resources and managed to bring that ship to shore. The rest of the crew, it is believed, fell overboard from their drunkenness but thank God, as my father would tell me after making a thoughtful sign of the cross, the captain didn’t fall off the boat as even with all the stowaways helping, nobody knew how to pilot that boat.

I think that there might not even have been any “crew” on that boat, that the captain was the only guy in charge and once he got drunk and passed out, well the can of peas rolling around did somehow, according to the stories, wake everyone and save the day.

But this is all just speculation on my part. My parents were young teenagers, it was dark, they were terrified. They lived, they married, they did well in their new country. And they figured they owed it all to a can of peas.

Stranger things have happened is how Sal would phrase it with a playful mocking wink at how much my parents respected a damn can of peas that Sal figured probably had nothing to do with nothing.

Sal didn’t much appreciate our own son’s obsession with all things pea related but for the most part he would shrug. “He’s got talent, Nina. He’s got a nice trust fund. What else is money for but to give you freedom to do what you want to do?”

My parents, Donnie’s grandparents, didn’t help much. Through the years the lowly pea, either canned, frozen or raw in the garden, became an icon for all wisdom, for deep thought, for meaning religious.

“Peas mature in a pod, maybe five, six…even seven or eight them all in a pod. The snuggle next to one another and they don’t argue or fight. They get along until as a group the peas mature until they, as a team, burst the confines of the pod and are free.”

“When peas are frozen they take on a totally different texture than when they are canned. Their skins remain firm and a pea eaten from a can is a whole different thing than a frozen pea, both of which are far removed from the raw pea from which they all started. Shows the ability of the pea to be many things, depending on the need.”

“The vine of the pea is a most beautiful thing. It twirls around, using tendrils to attach itself to anything nearby, climbing high to allow its pods to hang far from the dirt and to quickly dry from the rotting rains.”

Of course I paraphrase the above statements given through the years by either my mother or my father. My father did raise peas in our backyard but as far back as I can remember, we never ate a pea one in our house, Italians that we were we had no particular allegiance to the humble pea that could be better used on a beloved zucchini. In fact, I think my Dad took a loss on the line of canning peas and most of his profit came from canning tomatoes. Peas grow better in cooler climes so canning factories up around the Great Lakes made money from canning peas while tomatoes love Maryland’s heat and humidity.

But the legend of the peas grew like the sweet pea vines in my Dad’s garden and while I could have laughed it off and left it behind with my childish things, my son’s fascination and obsession with the vegetable wouldn’t let me leave it alone.

Now I held the crinkled letter, left at the front desk for me by my cousin Sabrina. She found it in an old suitcase in her grandparents’ attic. Sabrina phoned me earlier in the day, excited at her find.

“It’s neat, Nina. Did you know that the old boat they cross the Atlantic in almost sunk?” I told Sabrina that I’d heard that story often. I asked her if she knew that everyone on board was saved by a can of peas.

“Yes!” Sabrina responded with zeal. “It’s the neatest thing, isn’t it? In fact, my grandparents had one of them at their wedding!”

I was busy this morning but the notion that my cousin’s grandparents, however on earth they were related to me, had a can of peas at their wedding did stop, briefly, in my mind, as I tried to imagine the concept. Sabrina, who I think was probably my fifth or sixth cousin, said she would leave the old letter she’d found from her grandmother’s sister in Italy to her grandmother at the front desk of the gallery when she stopped by to see Donnie’s show. She wanted me to get a price for archiving the thing. Sal dabbled in the art of archiving and Sabrina felt that this letter was valuable and would be cherished by the Bianco descendents of the day and the descendents to come.

“Dear Cassie.” I read the Italian greeting, all I could understand, from the yellowing note written in the small neat handwriting of what was obviously of a woman’s script. Sabrina’s Great Aunt wrote the letter in Italian but Sabrina had it translated. I held the original document in one hand and the translated version in the other. I pondered that errors in translation might have caused what had to be a huge error in how it all originally came down.

“I am so glad for you and your new American husband Benjamin. It is so wonderful that he has a good job selling outdoor furniture and how you influenced him to that career. Your little boy looks just like you!

“It’s been so long since I saw you. I pray to the Virgin Mary that Rocco makes enough money that we can come to America to visit you. I worried for so long if you made it safe to America and I wonder if I made the right choice in staying behind. But I had little Rocco and you were only ten years old. You could start a new life in a new land. I had a husband and two little children.

“It’s just as well that I didn’t know how harrowing the trip was. That awful storm! How you had to hold onto the ship’s canopy to keep from being swept overboard. How the baby’s bottle rolling around in the ship’s hold woke you up. I cannot imagine a ten year old child going through such a thing.

“I am sure that Jesus forgives that you got pregnant before you married Benjamin as His own mother was not married when He was born, do not forget. Besides, neat how you remembered how that ship’s canopy saved you, how you talked Benjamin into taking a job selling lawn chairs, awnings, canopies. It’s wonderful how well you’ve done and your house is huge. And gorgeous!

“Yes, Maria, a canopy does cover and protect. There is a symbolism there. Look at how well selling them has served you and your family!”

The letter went on for two more pages but it was just the more normal verbiage of an older sister from the old country writing her lucky young sibling living happy and rich in the great country of America. My eyes would read, then stop and stare, at the story of the ship’s canopy, how Sabrina’s grandmother remembers holding onto it during the raging storm. Ships do have canopies, as my research indicated. But surely it was a coincidence? Perhaps it was a flag pole that Sabrina’s mother called a canopy? Or the whole story got confused and interchanged in the translation?

But it was a baby’s bottle rolling around the floor of the ship that stormy night, according to Sabrina’s grandmother. It was not a can of peas as my parents believed. The “can of peas” was a canopy that saved the lives of those on board. Or maybe it was the baby’s bottle that saved the lives. Maybe there was no canopy. Maybe there was no can of peas. Maybe my parents’ version of events was right and Sabrina’s grandmother got it all wrong. I didn’t know. I knew the ship went through a storm. Something rolled around in the dark of the hold. Either a canopy or a can of peas were given attribution for saving the stowaways.
~~~~~~

“Mom!” I quickly folded up the letter from Sabrina’s grandmother and its translation. My son was hurrying toward me and he looked excited.

“They are going to finance my tour, Ma,” Donnie told me. “Tomorrow I am packing and on Thursday, I am heading to Europe! And every single painting has a bid on it, Ma. Before the night is over I will have all my artwork sold. But don’t worry Ma,” Donnie told me, a twinkle of joy shining bright in his eye, “I am only too happy to paint more peas. It was a can of peas that saved the day for my grandparents and it will be a can of peas that will make my future. Hell I could paint anything but an artist needs to have a symbol, something that keeps him different from the rest of the pack. The humble pea is my symbol.”

Of course I did not say, or will I ever say, a word about that letter to Sabrina’s grandmother from her sister.

My father’s factory canned peas. My son painted them. Sabrina’s grandfather sold canopies.

This great country blessed us all. There was a belief, a talent and the willingness to work at it.

In the end, it’s all that really mattered.
=============
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In this TV post we take a look at NBC's newest summer offering-"The Listener". The main character's cute and has ESP. But does this make a hit show?

Also, HGTV's $250,000 challenge where families win even if they lose. It's fun and on a subject ALL females are concerned about.

BravoTV's The Fashion Show reality contest continues on and it intrigues. But a "jock" look with fringes on stockings?

Finally, Dancing With Stars sexy Marini has new role and how did Kris Allen really win American Idol 2009?

HERE
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"The Pursuit of Something Better" is a story of a small cellular service company that rockets from the bottom of the pile when a new and visionary CEO joins the team.

Read this story by David Esler and Myra Kruger about how paying attention to ALL employees and good leadership brings results in both employee morale and the bottom line.

Plus, how could my local Walmart benefit by a lesson from Rooney's "Dynamic Organization"?

HERE
==========
The protagonist of this story "Can of Peas" grew up believing that a humble can of peas saved her parents from certain death on the rocky immigrant boat of their passage from Italy to America.

But was it a can of peas or something that sounds like a can of peas that saved the lives on that vote and changed the fortunes of the believers soon to be born of the survivors?

HERE
======================
Food Network begins its annual foodie contest "The Next Food Network Star" and it began with a bang and intrigue.

Plus some boring dishes, some lying contenders, some awful desserts and questionable personalities introduced to an eager public looking for the next Guy Fieri.

HERE
===============
So okay Michelle Obama wears an outfit obviously created by a bedazzler and a handy glue gun. What the hell was she thinking? We've got pics, natch.

Also, Bad Guy of the Week, David Letterman, and his hilarious liberal talkinig points and Republican Good Guy of the Week, Sen. Grassley, who didn't let President Obama get away with protecting his child pervert California political patron.

We've got it all in Thoughts of the past week.

HERE
===============

Saving Mom From Uncle Guido

2009-04-26T14:27:00.001-07:00

"Saving Mom From Uncle Guido" is a fiction story from "Mystery and Mirth, excerpted for yon enjoyment.

For the Micky Mouse head helped her overhear the murder plot and the door disguise helped her stop it in its tracks.

It's short and a smile.

Pic of the Day

Saving Mom from Uncle Guido

Detective Barlow says I shouldn't quit my day job. His humor isn't lost on me though I must fume a bit. I did, after all, discover a murder was about to happen; this while disguised as Micky Mouse. Then I chanced into the actual murder-for-hire transaction; this while disguised as a door. Neither of which was easy, I might add, and definitely not intentional.

Then while encumbered with such strange disguises, add to the argument that I'm not even any sort of trained detective. Who I am is the daughter of Mom, Rosa Bianco, and niece of Uncle Guido Barrani, the man who plotted to murder Mom.

Technically, Uncle Guido is not my uncle. He is my mother's cousin, which makes him a cousin removed from me. Since he is the same age as Mom, I always, out of respect and on penalty of maternal slap, called him Uncle Guido. Though my Mom had another cousin, Bennett, also the same age as Mom, who my brother and I simply referred to as "Ben".

In fact, it was this dearth of living relatives that caused Mom to almost be killed by her own cousin's hand. It's rare for Italian families to have so few offspring but this was indeed the case with the Barranis. Grandmother Barrani was expected to expire within a month when Uncle Guido and Ben came back into my life after a long post-childhood absence.

"I still don't like Uncle Guido," I told Mom the night we were all scheduled to meet at the hospital to visit Grandmother Barrani. "He's got bad teeth, grunts his answers and wears high-waters."

"High Waters? These are some kinda of boots?"

Mom, she had this sorta, kinda Italian accent that she likes to put on now and again.

"Pants that can be worn into high water, Ma," I began in explanation. At Mom's blank look, I gave it up. How could I explain a geek to Mom? And a creepy geek at that?

It'd been rumored since I was a tyke that Grandmother Barrani had over half a million dollars she'd be passing down to the remaining three cousins. Thus when Grandmother Barrani fell ill, I found myself having to deal with creepy Uncle Guido and cousin Ben, another odd one.

"It's supposed to be evenly divided amongst the three cousins," Maria, a genuine first cousin of mine, told me.

"I'll bet Uncle Guido will do everything he can to legally, then illegally, get his hands on the money," I blurted. Maria's response surprised me.

"That guy, he's creepy, you gotta?" Maria said, shaking her hand in a "get loose" manner and resorting to the Italian-English of our mothers. I was surprised because until then I thought it was only me that got the creeps around Uncle Guido.

In fact, Grandmother Barrani passed away five days after her admission to the hospital. Before she died, Uncle Guido worked furiously arranging to have Mom join her.

It had been established early on that the cousins and other assorted relatives and friends of Grandmother Barrani would meet in the hospital snack room after appropriate death vigils.

"You see these things," Ben said one night, pointing to a package in the snack machine.

"Which number?"

"14. You see it?"

I peered into the window. Number 14 contained a small packet of "hot fries", those cheese curls type of food shaped like french fries and allegedly hotly seasoned for further distinguishment.

"So?"

"Amazing, huh? They make french fries that they can sell as snacks?"

I took a long glance at Mom's cousin Ben to ascertain if he was pulling my leg or did such a thing really fascinate the man.

"I saw tortilla chips in the grocery shaped like little spoons," he said, still amazed. "You actually can use the things to scoop up the dip."

It was a jolt, but I realized Ben was serious, not that it should have been especially surprising. Ben easily weighed an excess of 300 pounds and did seem to be always eating.

"He's an oddball," Uncle Guido whispered into my ear, causing me to jump almost a foot. A hospital janitor had been mopping the floor and the sounds of Uncle Guido's garrulous voice startled him to dump his bucket. Of course Ben then slipped on an errant soap bubble and next thing we were all in the emergency room.

Which becomes part of the reason I overheard Uncle Guido plotting to kill Mom and also explains the Micky Mouse costume. For Mom was determined to stay with Ben while I had to leave and pick up the Micky Mouse costume. I was supposed to wear the costume to Maria's daughter's birthday party. Only Mom wouldn't leave when we had planned because of Ben's accident so I arranged to go get the costume, come back and pick up Mom, then head on over to Maria's. Only Maria and her daughter show up at the hospital because of cousin Ben, at the same time I saunter in as Micky Mouse. Except for carrying his head under my arm. At the sight of little Becky I quickly put the Micky Mouse head on because I didn't want her to know it was me under the costume. I know it wasn't like Santa Claus or anything but I figured it would ruin the mystique. So I wandered around the hospital dressed as Micky Mouse which delighted Becky, who I figured would be even more surprised when the same Micky Mouse showed up at her party.

I was at the point of throttling Maria, who prolonged her stay the whole time knowing I was trapped in that horrid, hot costume. Micky Mouse or no, I needed a Coke.

While I was feeding quarters into the machine, I heard Uncle Guido growling into his cell phone.

"I got everything arranged. I hate for anything to happen to her either but that's a lot of money. Yeah, yeah, I've got the guy. It'll be painless. She's my cousin after all."

Of course, Uncle Guido's only female cousin would be my mother. And his reference to her in the phone conversation seemed ominous. There I was dressed as Micky Mouse getting a Coke but evidently he didn't know who I was. And why should he have what with my big black ears and everything? Then again his voice tended to carry and while most folks might not derive any meaning from his conversation, I, of course, understood it all.

Running into the police station dressed as Micky Mouse was a bit stupid not to mention I completely forgot I still had on the head.

Initially the desk sergeant's eyes twinkled which only infuriated me. Here Mom was about to murdered by Uncle Guido and this guy thought it a hoot.

"What's your Mom's name-Minnie?" the sergeant asked. Dawn broke over my mouse ears and I reached up and pulled them off of my head. Guy was lucky I didn't pull off his.

I was huffing and puffing by the time I blurted out my story and it's a given that the tale might have been a bit muddled. The sergeant shook his head after one last go through with the bit about the cellular phone, Micky Mouse and the Coke. He introduced me to Detective Barlow and by this time I was sweating, breathing heavily, and still dressed like Micky Mouse but with his head under my arm. Not to mention I was frantic with worry about Mom, still back at the hospital with the murderous Uncle Guido

Detective Barlow seemed nonplused about it all

"Listen, why don't you let me check into all of this?" he said, slamming his little notebook shut without what appeared to be any worry. "You get back to the hospital and act like nothing happened. Meanwhile, I'm going to try to and catch somebody in the act. It's very important that you trust me. We won't let either you or your mother out of our sight. You may not think we're around, but we will be. Nothing will happen to your mother, I promise."

It wasn't easy acting so nonchalant over the next few days. Uncle Guido seemed to be constantly on the cell phone to someone. Anytime I caught wind of suspicious conversation I would immediately call Detective Barlow. Always he was unfazed, assuring me he already knew about it. "We're on top of it," he'd say calmly, snapping his gum to my complete irritation.

It was three days after I overheard Uncle Guido's plot to murder my mother that I became an eyewitness to the actual meeting of Uncle Guido and the hit man who was hired to kill Mom. This time I was disguised as a door. Again, this was quite unintentional.

I'd stopped by Grandmother Barrani's to pick up her dentures at Mom's behest. It was no use arguing with Mom that most likely Grandmother Barrani would never need the false teeth again.

"I make her pretty when she wakes," Mom said, still hoping her mother would emerge from the coma. Poor Mom, dealing with the death of her mother and poor Mom's daughter dealing with the possible death of her mother if Uncle Guido got his way.

While admiring one of Grandmother Barrani's lovely ceramic teapots I accidentally dropped it. I rushed through the swinging doors into Grandfather's old workshop, searching for something, anything, to fix what might have been a valuable antique, I didn't know.

Sure enough there was a tube of crazy glue but the tube was old and badly crinkled. While pushing open the swinging doors with my shoulder I was squeezing on the tube, hoping the dried glue would burst its seal by the time I got to the teapot. The tube did burst open but well before I removed my shoulder and hip from the swinging door. In an astounding combination of timing and logistics, I'd somehow managed to glue my body to the swinging door.

I cursed and screamed a bit but this didn't seem to help. Pulling away hurt like the dickens and I feared I'd seriously injure an epidermis or something. Problem was, I was far from a telephone, or a window to summon help and any source of water for, I didn't know, sustenance. So far as I knew no one was expected to stop by Grandmother Barrani's house in the near future. Though I considered perhaps Mom might eventually come looking for me. Since I had no idea how long this would be and since I already had to go to the bathroom, I realized I would have to use my wits to escape.

It took some contortions but with a severe twist of my left torso I was able to reach the hinges of the door to which I was adhered. The rusty bolts of the door pulled up easily. At least I was free, albeit still stuck to a door.

I was delicately maneuvering myself around the kitchen, hoping to avoid more teapot breakage, a task made more difficult by my door encumbrance, when I heard the unmistakable growl of Uncle Guido.

"You sure this will go okay. You've made all the arrangements?" I heard Uncle Guido say to somebody as he entered Grandmother Barrani's front door.

"Everything's fine, I tell you. Get the money handed over and that'll be the end of it all. You've arranged for the money, right?"

How I managed to avoid breaking a teakettle in the middle of this dilemma I'll never know. Uncle Guido and somebody would be entering the kitchen soon and my options were limited. Either these guys catch me direct in the act of overhearing their death plotting or I find some way to hide.

Just as Uncle Guido's foot climbed the first step of the three that led to Grandmother Barrani's kitchen, I managed to hide myself in the most unlikely of places: directly in plain sight.

Of course I was glued to a door so it was a bit easier to hide my body. It was the door that was the problem here. What I did was to situate myself and attached door in a corner, diagonal to a window. Only the door faced the room; my glued body was wedged into the corner. The idea was that I would be perceived to be some sort of Japanese screen standing proudly in plain view and ostensibly to hide clutter behind. These sorts of room divider screens are generally colorful and decorative, hardly the ugly battered brown I was. I prayed Uncle Guido or his unidentified friend were no connoisseurs of home decor.

"What time you expecting him to get here?" Mr. Unknown asked Uncle Guido.

"I wonder how this got broke," I heard Uncle Guido say. I cringed in fear that he would figure out someone was still in the room.

"Soon," Uncle Guido replied. "You think we can get this over with tonight?"

Maybe it was those words. Maybe it was enduring a tense three days, praying that Detective Barlow was on the case as he professed, Maybe it was the fact that there I was, glued to a door as these two creeps discussed killing Mom. Maybe it was because I was about to sneeze anyway.

Whatever the reason, I chose to reveal myself dramatically. I figured no way Detective Barlow knew I was here stuck to a door in the company of two dangerous men. If I was to save Mom, not to mention myself, I had to act.

I spun around, the door stuck to my hip dislodging several teapots and a few potted plants. Me and the door bent down to retrieve a shard of broken teapot for defense.

"Don't either of you move," I warned through clenched teeth, eyes narrowed to effect a menacing look. I held my teapot shard high that my lethal intentions would not be misunderstood.

"Cara, goodness," Uncle Guido exclaimed. "What are you doing here and why do you have a door on your back?"

"Don't mess with me, Uncle Guido. The cops are on to you and your little scheme to murder Mom. You're not going to get away with it."

Before Uncle Guido could respond, cousin Ben came in through the kitchen entrance.

"Ben!" I screamed. "Run and get help. This guy and Uncle Guido are planning to murder Mom."

Ben regarded the scene for a few seconds. Then he did, in fact, run. Were it not for his bulk he might have gotten beyond the threshold before Mr. Unknown tackled him.

There was nothing else for me to do but scream at the top of my lungs. Ben was my only hope and he was down.

Who should come running through the door but Detective Barlow himself with a slew of cops behind him.

Only they were handcuffing and pulling Ben to his feet while Uncle Guido and the hit man remained perfectly free. Furious, I twisted my entire body in such a way as to bring the full force of my attached door directly to the heads of Uncle Guido and his accomplice. Once I began my rampage there was no stopping me. The door to which I was attached became a deadly weapon.

"Everyone's going to be fine," Detective Barlow told me and Mom in the hospital snack shop. "Guido has a nasty bump, Hokes might have a broken nose. Ben's being booked now. And you have been safely removed from the door. Young lady, you should never be allowed to possess a door again."

I wanted to smack him. All along it was Ben plotting to kill Mom. He'd approached Uncle Guido about arranging a hit. Uncle Guido told Mom and they both decided to go to the police.

"Seems Ben had a wonderful idea for making spaghetti on a stick. Only he needed money to get his little venture going. He figured the less cousins getting an inheritance the more he would get. We also discovered he had plans to get rid of Guido just as soon as they both were done with your mother," Detective Barlow told me.

Mr. Unknown was really Detective Hokes, undercover as a hit man, intending to catch Ben directly in the act of soliciting murder, up to include handing over the money . Mom had been in on it all along. She said nothing to me because she didn't even know I thought Uncle Guido was the would-be murderer. Detective Barlow had everything under control I suppose, though he forgot to factor in that I might get glued to a door and blow the whole scheme wide open with my misunderstanding.

Grandmother Barrani passed away two days later. Uncle Guido recovered from his fight with the door enough to attend the funeral. Ben wasn't released from jail and Detective Barlow told us he'd been eating the whole time.

"Everyone always pegs me as the bad guy," Uncle Guido growled the day of the funeral. He greeted me and Mom with an affectionate peck.

A few days later both cousins and a few other relatives gathered for the reading of Grandmother Barrani's will. Turns out Grandmother Barrani had a modest bank account, nowhere near the rumored half million dollars. She had only two things of any value: her extensive collection of antique teapots and the swinging doors that separated her kitchen from Grandfather's tool room. Turns out they were from the ship that brought Grandmother and Grandfather Barrani from Italy.

Some of the teapots were salvaged and the other half of the swinging doors was not yet glued to any personage.

Still, Mom was alive and safe. Uncle Guido might recover from the constant headaches, hopefully in time to give me away in my wedding to Detective Barlow. Ben's happily eating his way through jailhouse food and Maria's daughter Becky thinks I'm the greatest, either as Micky Mouse or a door.
============
To the Main Blog…Over a Million Page Views

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We've been watching "Hell's Kitchen" 09, or what I call the Cooking and Cussing Show.

It's down to three and I think I've got the winner picked.

The Donald's "Celebrity Apprentice" 09 continues on and this should be called the Joan River reality show.

The cooking challenge will never make Hell's Kitchen but the bickering and cussing might.

All with pics and vid you'll find nowhere else on the Internet.

HERE
=============
It was Disco night on American Idol 09.

Two contenders got sent home. A personal favorite disappointed and the boring one bored again.

And who the hell said Freda Payne was a disco singer?

All with pics and video you'll find nowhere else on the Internet.

HERE
===========
The big guy got the boot on "Dancing With the Stars" week ending 4/26/09.

The contest tightens and one who seemed likely to win slips a big. Another who started rough gets better every week.

All with pics and video you'll find nowhere else on the Internet.

HERE
===========
In Thoughts, we've got Obama shirtless and right there you must tune in.

Plus, heh, the Good Guy of the Week with a sarcastic reasons why Dick Cheney made Obama look like a fool this past week.

Also, Quip of the Week and You Can't Make This Stuff Up…much more.

HERE
============

The Fattest Prom Queen

2009-04-14T13:24:00.000-07:00

It's Fiction, Winner of Contests, With a surprising ending that will leave you in thought.

Presenting "The Fattest Prom Queen"

The Fattest Prom Queen

My daughter stood before me, as pretty in pink as a teenage girl could be. I added a little spit on an errant curl, then stood back to admire my creation.

"You're so beautiful, Cindy. You take my breath away."

Cindy wave a disdainful hand to my praise then turned to survey herself in the full-length mirror.

"So......," she said, almost off-handedly. "When are you going to tell me about your prom night?"

I'd been picking up discarded clothes from around Cindy's room when I heard her words. They caused me to stop still. At first, I wondered to whom she was speaking.

"I didn't go to my senior prom, Cindy. I've told you this many times," I replied, realizing there was no one else about and my daughter had to be addressing me.

"Mom," she said, turning from the mirror and throwing her lovely arms in the air in exasperation. "I don't know why you tell me and Kelly that you didn't go to your senior prom. I don't know why you lie about this. We've both known for over ten years that you DID go to your prom. We found a picture of you and your date over at Grandmom's house. On the back, Grandmom had written,'Shelly's Prom Picture-1968'. And you looked wonderful, Mom. Now tell me why you keep denying this."

Cindy plopped down on the bed directly in front of my shocked self, crossed her arms in defiance and gazed directly into my lying eyes in search of the truth.

Only I couldn't tell her the truth. In over thirty years I still can barely tell myself the truth. How does a mother ever tell such a terrible thing? How could I ever tell my daughters, even though they probably knew, that I was elected prom queen but for the worst of motives? My classmates elected me queen of the prom so I could take a bullet directly in my head.

My crime?

I was too fat.

I've always been fat. My birth weight exceeded ten pounds and it went uphill from there. By the time I was a teenager, I carried almost 200 lbs around on my smallish frame. And though life as a fat child had never been a pleasant one, it wasn't until my senior prom that I realized just how much my school chums, indeed everyone in my world, really hated me for being so fat.

Cindy regarded me calmly as these thoughts raced through my head. In fifteen minutes, her boyfriend Calvin would come to claim her. And he would be getting a treat, indeed.

Her honey-brown hair was upswept in an elegant chignon. It was caught in the back by a simple gold clasp. The bangs flirted with her eyebrows in a soft manner that was both fetchingly childish and sexually alluring. It required only a modicum of makeup to enhance her wide-set emerald eyes and high cheekbones.

The pink gown that I'd originally thought to be a bit garish caressed her curves perfectly. I considered that I'd eschewed pink the day Cindy tried on the gown because my life was spent in the endless search for a slimming black. On Cindy, the bright pink shone soft but with statement against her creamy, lightly tanned skin. Those emerald eyes glowed even brighter above the pink satin frame.

"I was elected queen of my prom," I said, slowly, with no happy emotion that such a statement would suggest. Cindy's emerald eyes didn't change as she continued her steady gaze. She knew my statement also not to be a happy one.

"I guess you know this wasn't a good thing?" I asked rhetorically, sitting on the dressing chair to better muse.

"Because whoever got elected prom queen was going to be executed," I said with no emotion shown that these words would indicate. To Cindy's credit, she didn't flinch. She'd been expecting this, I pondered. Someone's told her something. Now I'd tell her straight because, since she was so beautiful, I knew she had nothing to fear.

"I'm fat, Cindy," I said in a firm voice then jumped from my seated position for emphasis. At this Cindy's emerald eyes did react and it was kind of sad. For the merest fraction of a second she cast her eyes to the floor in that manner of people hearing a truth that made them uncomfortable. Though she quickly regained her bearing, I saw the movement. It didn't make me angry. Hell, a surreptitious casting down of the eyes at my obesity was the least of crimes committed upon me. It did sting a bit coming from my own daughter.

"And I've always been fat. I'm smart, mind you, and was always able to earn a good living. But no amount of money could make me be thin."

"I can't believe that's important, Mom. I don't even think of you as heavy. Neither does Kelly. We love....."

"Yeah. I know you love me. Everybody loves me. Except those kids in my high school class who voted for me to be murdered."

"Aunt Lil told us something....."

"I'm sure she did, Cindy. I'm sure she did. But I don't think she told you everything."

Cindy remained silent. Calvin would be arriving in a few minutes. She wanted to hear ‘everything'.

"I graduated high school back in the sixties," I began. "The Vietnam war was in full swing. Young people all over the country were protesting this war, and civil rights and women's liberation. It was a tumultuous time, Cindy. Even a fat girl like me got caught up in the spirit."

And this was true. In this late 1990's year of Cindy's senior prom the media exploded with the onslaught of anorexic models and ultra-thin actresses. There was also an epidemic of eating disorders in this era that either hadn't been so prevalent in my teenage years, or nobody talked about it. My own daughters were naturally thin and at the sight of my beautiful prom girl I knew I'd made the right decision.

During the sixties, it was cool to dress in fringed vests, long granny dresses and smoke dope until no one cared. The "in thing" was to be involved in any radical group, whether environment, anti-war or feminism. For myself, I belonged to an informal group of students that actively sought to end that ridiculous Vietnam war.

"We bombarded the newspapers with letters against the war, marched in front of the draft board, held sit ins on the White House lawn," I continued for Cindy, who'd heard all this before but was nonetheless polite.

"It was a wonderful time. There was nothing more important than making our country better. Everyone loved everyone else. We had pot parties and discussed communism. We all crammed into a volkswagen to head down to the nearest nuclear power plant. We made love and not war. Ours was a society that cared only for the greater good. At least that's what I thought."

I glanced at Cindy's bedside clock and considered the wisdom of continuing. Though Cindy noticed my action, she made no effort to move.

"I really didn't want to go to my senior prom. In those years, silly things like proms and school dances were almost politically incorrect. We were a generation out to change the way the world sees things. Such as gowns and tuxedos were for the vapid. Only Chuck Wilkerson asked me if I wanted to go to the prom with him and I immediately agreed."

I knew Cindy didn't know Chuck Wilkerson. No reason she should. He was only one of the guys in our crowd, a tall long-haired freak that considered the prom thing a joke. This is the lack of seriousness on which his request to be my date was premised so it isn't as if Chuck Wilkerson were anyone important in my life.

"I even went out and bought a halfway decent looking dress. Black of course, but pretty."

"You looked really nice in it, Mom."

"Actually, my whole crowd decided to go to the prom. It was a hoot kind of thing. So we all formed boy-girl teams and decided to shock the school and turn up as if perfectly normal students wanting to enjoy the festivities. Only we had some interesting plans for our senior prom, though it turned out more horrible than our original intent."

"Aunt Lil said you all planned to burn the flag."

My sister would tell Cindy this. In fact, we made no plans to burn the flag at our prom. Our only plan was to change into bell-bottoms and fringe vests in the middle of the prom and ruin everyone's nice pictures by insinuating our hippie selves into all photographs. It was supposed to be our method of crapping on their stupid party while young men died in that dirty little war. I clarified this misunderstanding for Cindy.

"Word got all around school about our intended plans. The thing ballooned into something no one activist faction controlled so the things that happened the night of my prom did apparently just sort of happen with no preconceived plan. It was brutal though."

I blew a breath wind up my face and rested my voice. My mind wandered back to my prom night. Chuck Wilkerson showed up at my house on time and even bought a corsage. I'd spent hours fixing my hair and makeup and adjusting my size 22 prom dress. Lil fussed over me and my mother was excited. I was miserable the whole day. The prom meant nothing to me and having to try to make myself look pretty while I was also fat seemed a futile task. Long granny dresses, torn bell-bottoms and large men's shirts were my outfits of choice and I realized on my prom day just why. Besides making a political statement, my hippy clothes kept me from any attempt to be pretty. The generation and my self-image blended homogeneously.

"It was almost a normal prom, too. Everyone showed up, properly dressed. The principal was popping his buttons that his students looked so all American, even the hippies and radicals in his school. About two hours into the prom and at some unknown signal, things began to change. For me and Chuck, we just slipped out to his old Mustang and changed into our hippie clothes. Our whole gang wanted to wipe that smug smile off of the principal's face."

"When did the police get called?"

I sighed. Aunt Lil again. No police were ever called. What happened next was confusing and chaotic. But there were no police. At least not that night.

"When Chuck and I got back to the hall, only half the students remained prom clothed. The rest were dressed in any variety of t-shirts, bell-bottoms and colorful headbands. Chuck and I hardly got through the door when Sam Epstein jumped onto the stage and grabbed the microphone. Now Sam Epstein didn't go to our school but most of us knew him. He was head of the local college's SDA ..."Students for Democratic Action" and was always into some mischief. In fact, Chuck and I laughed that somehow this guy got into this rather innocuous high school prom but then there had been so many rumors . What he did next was shocking."

Again I glanced at the clock on Cindy's night stand. Again she ignored my action. I heard no knock at the door so Calvin hadn't arrived. To imitate Sam Epstein, I stood up in front of Cindy and assumed an oratorical posture.

" ‘Don't nobody panic,' " I said as if I were Sam Epstein to my daughter's audience of one. " ‘This is a takeover. And all of you are hostages', " then relaxing from Sam Epstein to just Mom I added some background for Cindy.

"At first everyone was laughing. It looked as if it were a big joke. Even Chuck Wilkerson asked me if I was behind any of this. I laughed too and told him I wished I was. This was great. But then Sam Epstein took out a machine gun and everyone stopped laughing. "

Then back to a Sam Epstein persona, I continued. " ‘Don't anyone leave the room. Don't anyone move. On behalf of the SDA, I am holding you all hostage. Just as soon as everyone settles down, we're going to call the police ourselves. And if they don't release Tom Combs from jail immediately, your prom queen's going to take a bullet in the head.' "

"Jesus," Cindy said quietly.

" ‘Okay, who's your prom queen?' Sam Epstein asked. By this time we all were scared out of our minds. This looked to be real. Sam's gun looked to be real. The whole room, teachers, kids, hippies...everyone...didn't utter a word. No one knew what to say and besides, we didn't yet have a prom queen. At our school, there was a special ceremony in the middle of the prom. Everyone got handed a special ballot and voted that same night for the queen of the prom."

Cindy nodded at this. Indeed, her own classmates would be voting for the king and queen of their own prom in the same manner. I thought Cindy would be a shoo-in for the title and knew that she hoped so too.

"Finally Sam starts screaming and waving that gun around. ‘I SAID.....WHO is your damn prom queen,' he yelled. Excuse my language, but that's what he said. Finally Mr. Bannister, our formerly smug principal, said that the prom queen had not yet been elected. Then Sam waved that gun some more and asked him just how we could elect a prom queen. Mr. Barrister mumbled something about ballots and how it worked and to everyone's surprise, Sam's gang went around the room and handed out the ballots. ‘Well vote for your fucking prom queen now,' Sam yelled and we all took the papers handed to us and didn't move."

At this point, I assumed Cindy knew who got elected prom queen. If it weren't for Sam Epstein, it was widely believed that Sharon Hofstetter would get the nod. Sharon was the prettiest and most popular girl in our senior class. And on this prom night, she was especially stunning in a long ice-blue gown embellished with diamond crusted straps.

"So Sam starts to scream and tell us he would put a bullet right through Mr. Barrister's head and then proceed to shoot us all, one-by-one, until we turned in our ballots. Then he waved the machine gun around as if seeking a suitable first victim and with this action we all took our pencil stubs and got serious about voting."

I paused in the narration and looked to the air to form my next thought.

" It was weird. Everyone in the room was holding onto their pencils tightly, poised a half inch above their ballot. It's as if a collective thought formed in the atmosphere which, given these unusual circumstances, begged for protocol as to the appropriate way to pick such a queen."

Cindy's eyes shone with a sparkling layer of tears. She knew I won the vote and surely she knew the horrible burden I've carried these many years. This is precisely why I'd never went into this brutal story of my senior prom, though my sister apparently was not reluctant. I sat down sensibly in front of my beautiful daughter. Our dog Lucky went into a paroxysm of barks just then followed by several tentative knocks on our front door. Calvin was arriving.

We both listened as Mason shushed Lucky and opened the door. I took Cindy's hands in mine.

"Don't be upset," I smiled and told her. "I didn't win the election outright. Marsha Miller and I tied, actually. Sam made a real dramatic show of counting the ballots and I got to tell you, it was if I were physically slapped each and every time he called out my name. " ‘Shelly Langston,' he would call, laying the ballots with my name on it in its own pile. Sometimes he would call out my name ten times in a row and if it'd been only my name on the ballots it might have been better. But at least every third ballot had Marsha Miller's name on it, and after five minutes of Sam's ostentatious counting of prom queen ballots, it became obvious to everyone in the room what was going on. Sharon Hofstetter got five votes. One of them was mine, and probably the other was Marsha Miller's. Three other kids probably thought like I did...go with the original vote. What else? But the logic of the pressured votes became all too clear. And funny, as Sam called Marsha's name then my name, everyone in the room looked to the floor. In fact, all thoughts of Sam's machine gun were forgot as Sam mercilessly read either Marsha's or my names."

Again Cindy and I listened to the murmurs of Calvin and Mason's voice down the stairs. There seemed no urgency in their voices.

"Dad was in your class," Cindy said solemnly.

Yes, her father was in my senior class. Mason Howard was, in fact, the valedictorian of my class; an extemely handsome youth now matured into a distinguished man. And I did love Mason though I will never be sure of his love for me.

"This all came later," I waved off the distraction. "For then, Sam continued to read the names and it ended up that Marsha and I tied. So Sam decides he's going to take a tie-breaker vote and let me tell you there was no way I was going through that again. I ran right onto the stage and told Sam that I would be the prom queen, to go ahead and call the police."

I stopped and looked at my daughter pointedly, wondering if she could handle my next revelation.

"Frankly, I was ready to die. Sam could have put a bullet through me right then and I'd have died happy. "

Cindy didn't flinch.

"Right after I volunteered, some guy ran through the room...completely naked and screaming that the cops were coming. Sam Epstein started laughing and ran out behind the streaker. Turns out the whole thing was a joke."

"Well I didn't think it was funny," Cindy, my loyal daughter, said. "I hope they put him in jail."

I smiled. "Oh they arrested him all right. Waving around a machine gun, even as a joke, isn't funny. I think he had to pay a fine or something. But Sam Epstein's situation wasn't important to me those days after the prom. What was important to me was knowing that my classmates, my comrades in protest, these people I thought liked and respected me.....these same people chose me to take a bullet in the head."

I slapped my hands on my knees to indicate finality to the story. Of course there was much more to it and Cindy wouldn't let me go that easily.

"But you married Dad," she barked before I could turn and head back down the stairs.

I turned once again to face her. Before speaking, I admired her emerald eyes, perfect figure, creamy skin. Yes I did marry Mason Howard though he was one of dozens I could have had. For those days after the prom I found myself suddenly quite popular. So many guys asked me for dates or flirted with me, I didn't know what to think. Given time and a three-digit IQ, I soon figured it out. These were the guys that voted for me to be prom queen! They felt guilty!

I did the only logical thing. I considered all my newfound beaus and made my choice. Mason Howard was not only intelligent, he was of sturdy but lithe build and had the clearest emerald eyes that sparkled with beauty and wit. It was no matter my political passions, intelligence, wisdom, sparkling personality. None of these would get me a guy like Mason Howard but for the guilt. I made the most intelligent choice that my daughters would not suffer as I had. It proved to be a wise one, given that both of my daughters are beautiful just as I planned. Cindy wanted to know why I married one Mason Howard, a man who most likely, though he claims to have voted for Sharon Hofstetter to this day, voted for me to take a bullet through the head. But I could think of no way to explain this to the daughter I loved and planned her life even before birth. That I married her father for his perfect genes?

"I fell in love with your father, Cindy," was all I said.

We both, mother and daughter, looked into each other's eyes, the unspoken acknowledged on the television of the pupil. Mason called up to Cindy that Calvin had arrived. Still we did not drop our steady gazes.

"They had to put somebody's name down, Mom," Cindy said after the eye thought but maintaining the stare. "There's no telling what the criteria was." She then dropped her eyes at this statement in the manner of the untruthful.

I called down to Mason that Cindy would be down shortly. I pulled my daughter close to me and held her tight. Over her shoulder and loud enough for her to hear, I said, "Cindy, Marsha Miller was also fat."

The Syndrome

2009-04-14T13:21:00.000-07:00

The Syndrome

"She's upstairs," Marian whispered to her husband.

"So what are we going to do with her?" he whispered back.

"What can we do, Reginald? She's a distant cousin. She's been a source of shame to this family , but we all take turns taking her in."

Reginald programmed the dishwasher, requesting the computer to set up for low-water levels for moderately soiled dishes. It should start during a time of low electric use yet not before 10:00 pm. The dishes must be finished and dried before 7:00 am the next morning. Marian studied her husband as he keyed in the instructions for the machine.

He's a good man, Marian thought. He would know what to do.

The quiet was shattered by a burst of noise. Their son, James, carried his Unipad into the room and was busy keying in data.

"James," Marian shouted to her son, "Turn that thing off."

Surprised by his mother's voice, James flipped off the music but continued, intent on his tasks.

"James," Marian said again, "I know you have to use that thing at school but you need to rest now. If you don't rest, you'll never heal."

James paid his mother no mind. He just received email from his buddy that Veronica Poule was scheduled for an Internet chat later in the evening. He still had to fax his homework to his Math teacher and he wanted to leave an air phone message to his girlfriend. In addition, he still had not keyed in the orders to properly park his car. Tonight he wanted to key in a command for a car wash.

A cool hand pulled James' hand from their frantic tasks.

"James," his mother said softly. "I said to give it a rest. You will not heal unless you rest."

Marian reviewed James' wound, retrieved a tube of panmedical salve, and began to clean the sore. James winced in irritation.

When his mother had finished her ministrations, James grabbed his Unipad and stomped from the room.

"Don't program in a car wash tonight, son. You'll only be disappointed. I've programmed for dish washing tonight."

James stopped outside of the doorway. This was just his luck. He'd key the command in anyway, although he knew the house computer would ignore it.

At the soft whir of the elevator's ascent, Marian raised her eyebrow to entertain comments from her husband.

"Does that wound look to be getting better?" Reginald asked at this opportunity.

Marian busied herself keying in the Videovision's selection for the night. She hated the anxiety in Reginald's voice when he inquired about James' wound. Would he hold her forever in low esteem due to the defective gene in her bloodline?

Reginald sighed, picked up the Videovision keypad, and accessed the Internet. He would check his stocks first and maybe call up a replay of last night's ball game.

"You know Marian, we can't keep her here forever. And she's got three kids, right? All of them defective?"

Marian nodded affirmative.

"They can't even get through school, Marian. We've been through all this before. Studied it. Debated it. Nature took care of most of the defective but there will always be people like us with defectives hidden in our attic and left to deal with the problem as best we can. We can't possibly keep them here for the rest of their lives, you know that?"

Reginald grabbed his Unipad to send off an email to his boss. He forgot to mention that he would be late the following morning. The car was due for a shell re-fitting. This time, Reginald thought, he might have them pull off the shell and put on a new one. The thing was scratched and dented in such a manner that the yearly re-fit could not cover the blemishes. It's been three years, Reginald considered. Cost extra, he thought, but worth it.

"I know we can't keep them here, Reggie. But just like everyone else in this world, I have to do something. I thought you could help me with this."

"So how come your distant relatives sent her and her defective kids to live with us? Oh don't tell me. They don't have fire privileges, right?"

Marian nodded. Only a few had fire privileges and Reginald was one.

Reginald grabbed the Videovision keyboard and keyed in his responses to a survey currently on the screen.

Marian left Reginald to his activity and went to the kitchen . She keyed in the code of the refrigerator compartment she wished to access and pulled out food to prepare the meal. After keying in the code, the door to the meat compartment slid open and Marian pulled out a package of three chicken breasts. Just as the door slid shut, Marian realized she would have to re-enter the code. For a while, Marian's meals would have to be doubled to feed her distant cousin and her three children now hiding in her attic. Marian keyed in codes that allowed her to retrieve additional chicken, some fresh produce for a salad and potatoes for baking.

I just don't know why this has to happen to me, Marian thought as she set the food in front of the microrange cooking center. She keyed in the code to start the broiler. She removed the lettuce and tomatoes from their self-destructive wrap and placed them on the appropriate holder in the cutting bin of the microrange. Such was her anger at her terrible situation that she shoved the cutting bin too hard and the handle became dislodged.

"Be careful with that, honey," Reginald said. Marian jumped at the sound.

Reginald fiddled with the handle of the cutting bin and only when he had it properly repositioned did he notice his wife was crying.

He pulled her into his arms. "Aw, Marian, Marian," he said softly. "I know it's unpleasant and truth is, we are lucky that we haven't had to deal with this problem until now." Reginald pulled away from Marian and ran his fingers through his hair.

"We've done nothing wrong, Marian. We are a generation that has to deal with the problem like no other has. So many of the defective are still left. They just can't cope, damn it, and it isn't our fault!" Reginald exclaimed and pounded his fist on the table.

Marian placed the potatoes in the peeling bin, pushed it into the cooking center and keyed in the code that would activate the mechanism. She held back tears as she continued to prepare the meal. Pulling some trays down, Marian prepared to transport four meals to her attic guests.

Sharon answered the door immediately at Marian's tentative knock. The children were occupied with the extra Videovision Marian had moved into the attic for their entertainment.

"I can't tell you how grateful I am. We are all so hungry."

Marian placed the trays, each with a meal of chicken, fresh salad and roasted peeled potatoes, on the small table. The children put their Videovision game on pause and ran eagerly to the meal.

"I need to know how to open the window," Sharon said. "It gets a bit stuffy in here at times."

Marian pulled a Unipad out from under the sofa and gave Sharon the code to raise and lower the windows. Sharon struggled to enter the commands and Marian winced. Sharon was only 35, but her defect made her unable to cope with even this small task. Her youngest son, Timothy, took the Unipad and entered the access code and command with ease.

It was an effort for Marian to hide her tears. He looked so healthy and robust right now. In ten years, he would be as defective and useless as his mother.

It was bad enough that people like Sharon had managed to hang on, but how on earth had she managed to reproduce? How could anyone be so irresponsible to bring children into the world when they know they are genetically programmed to a premature death? If this bit of selfishness was not enough, Sharon and her ilk forced normal people like Marian and Reginald to deal with THEM.

The family ate their meal. Marian marveled that they looked for all the world like normal people. Sharon, of course, had to be helped with her food.

"So how are they doing?" Reginald asked when Marian returned with the dirty plates. Marian could only shrug a response.

Reginald put the dishes in the dishwasher and keyed in the code for the Multisink to dispense a glass of water.

"It's a hectic time of year to be dealing with this," Reginald commented. "I'm working on the election campaign you know? All day I'm busy with citizen complaints, sending email commands to time stoplights, get potholes fixed, investigate thefts. I feel especially busy because I'm keyed in for the preliminary vote next weekend. Nothing I hate more than having to deal with this. I hope my constituency understands".

"They will, Reginald. Everyone understands and everyone has either been there or knows someone who has. We do it to be kind."

Reginald put his glass in the dishwasher and pulled down a can of peaches. "Let's have some peaches and ice cream," he said. "That'll make us feel better."

Marian grabbed a few bowls from the cupboard while Reginald keyed in their personal code that allowed the electromagnet to release and open the can.

"Remember the time the grocery store entered the wrong code on all of our cans and we couldn't open our own food?"

Marian stifled a laugh. "That was terrible."

Reginald reached across the table and placed his hand on Marian's.

"As funny as this was, Marian," he said told her, "it was a little bit like what it's like to be THEM. They can't even open a can of food, Marian!"

Marian nodded her quiet acknowledgment.

"Just think what it was like during the great shakeout," Reginald said, scooping a mouthful of vanilla ice cream into his mouth.

"That's so irreverent, Reginald. It was a Syndrome Plague and it was worse then not being able to open a can."

"Call it what you want. Those that could, coped. Those that couldn't, died."

Marian nodded. Sometimes when she helped James with his homework, she saw the histovideo of the worst years of the Syndrome Plague. People died by the millions. Yet though so many died, many lived to thrive and prosper. It was a repeat of Dickens' best of times and worst of times. The historians have had time to digest the great shakeout, as Reginald and many other pundits called it. The general conclusion is that as horrible as the changeover was, it was a natural phenomena and the fittest who survived had no reason to feel guilt.

As with most major plagues of history, some of the defective survived. While Reginald and Marian lived in a time when the Syndrome Plague was a distant memory, some survivors have lived on to leave good people like them to do the right thing.

"Got some guests in my attic," Reginald responded to his assistant's greeting the next morning. His assistant regarded Reginald soberly.

"I know, I know. Next week's the preliminary election. I'll do what I have to do, Mike. Let's hope the public's as liberal on this issue as we think. I'd like another term as Public Service Commissioner. So we'll see. I'm having a new shell put on my car today, Mike. Think you could pick it up for me at about three o'clock? Will my car, collapsed of course, fit in your trunk?"

Mike laughed. "It's supposed to, according to the hype. And it's about time you had that shell replaced. Thing was getting shabby."

Reginald gave a quick chuckle and went right to work. There was much to do.

He spent the morning at his Unipad, sending email in response to citizen questions and complaints, faxing civil documents to the attorneys for review and sending air phone press releases to the media. At 12:30, Reginald air phoned his request for a fire permit.

"I've got some visitors in my attic," Reginald told the governor. The air phone was silent, then the governor keyed in the command and faxed the permit to Reginald's Unipad. Mike came into his office just as the permit flashed across Reginald's screen. Reginald flipped the Unipad to overhead so Mike could see.

Mike scanned the fire permit and nodded. "It'll be all right, Reginald. These things are never pleasant."

Reginald turned off the Unipad after keying in his order for lunch delivery from the delicatessen across the street.

"How's the son doing?" Mike asked just before exiting Reginald's office. The question bought another concern to Reginald's immediate conscience.

"They almost never go back," Mike said in response to Reginald's furrowed brow. "It's so rare, believe me. James will be all right. Keep putting on panmedicine. It'll cure anything."

Reginald held Marian tightly as their house burned brightly.

"It's for the best, Marian. It's better than dying slow. We'll rebuild the house in a few days and life will get back to normal. They didn't suffer. I made sure."

Marian burrowed her face in her husband's shoulder and pulled James in close. With a force of habit, she examined James' fingers. The wound had healed nicely. The webs between his fingers had become infected, that was all. Since James' wouldn't give them a rest, he couldn't heal. Finally, at Reginald's constant anxiety, Marian took James' Unipad from him and kept him from school. In a few days the sensitive webs that allowed his fingers to perform the repetitive tasks demanded of them with no damage to the nerves, had completely healed.

Marian looked at the blaze that was once her house. All of their precious memories and important documents were stored in their Unipads. Reginald was right. In a few days life would be back to normal. The attic visitors, with their defective hands that ceased to be useful after ten years, were gone.

A flash of Sharon's horrible claw hand streaked through Marian's mind. There was no way they could have survived.

Reginald pulled Marian close and whispered into her hair. "Carpal Tunnel. I was so worried about James. I'm so glad he's not defective."

2009-04-14T13:18:00.001-07:00

To Hell and Back

I'm not a writer. I'm an executive. But the time has come for me to sit down and write this story because no one believes the telling. Not that I tell the story to just anyone, mind you, because it's just too strange and would most likely get me committed than have me received as purveyor of wisdom now mine. My therapist says the thing was just a dream, but I know better. Because I have in my possession an object that came directly from Hell and there is no mistake in this.

At any rate, I will just take the chance and tell the story because it is true and I would be remiss to not pass the warnings I received from my little visit to Hell.

So how did I happen to end up in Hell, one might ask? I must respond that it was a result of a concerted effort on my part. It happened at the turn of the century, New Year's Eve, 1999. My neighbor Art is the one that told me all about it.

"Jay, I swear on my life, I'm telling the truth," Art swore to me on that hot and sunny July day. "During the turn of a century, you can really visit Heaven. My Aunt Betty went there at the turn of the nineteenth century. Before she died, she told me all about it...and get this," Art elbowed my chest in preparation for the coming revelation. I just chugged another sip of beer. Art was amusing, in the right place and at the right time, but in larger doses than this occasional shared beer at our neighborhood tavern, he can wear thin.

"About a week before she died....I guess I was about fourteen...she called me into her room. She took down this dusty box and told me it was her souvenir from Heaven." Art paused just now to take a beer sip of his own, and I smiled in anticipation of the description of the souvenir from Heaven.

"Guess what it was?" Art said after a sip, then continued with no hesitation for my guess. "It was dried angel wings."

Art stopped speech and took an especially long sip of beer. Well, I just had to take one too with this interesting revelation.

"You know how I know it was true? That they was dried angel wings, I mean?"

Indeed I did not know why Art knew it was true, but what the hell, I had another hour to kill before my wife got home to complain about the unmown lawn.

"The smell, Jay. The smell was like nothing I have ever smelled before on this earth. I know you think this is crazy, but the second that smell hit my nose I knew that what was in that box was something real special. Something that had not come from anywhere on earth. It was like...." with this Art stopped and arced his head all about to survey the tavern world. His eyes were rolling all about as if seeking words that didn't exist. I stopped in mid-beer-sip. This was most unusual for Art, to be lost, indeed, enthralled, in thought. While Art was a nice enough guy, he wasn't in the top ten in his class if you get the drift.

"It was like what clouds would smell like," Art finally found some words. Words that did, in fact, cause me to re-assess my Art neighbor. If you had told me yesterday that Art would use clouds to describe a celestial odor, I would have laughed and told you to go home. Then again, I also had to consider the concept of what clouds must smell like. The new literary Art at my right proceeded to attempt just such a description.

"Like...lilacs...multiplied by a thousand. Then combined with Poison perfume...just a little. Then add in the waft of about a thousand Spirea bushes in full bloom. You know how it is when the bushes bloom? Like the smell isn't always there, but a breeze will sometimes pick up the odor and carry it past your nose?"

By now I was holding my beer by it's stein handle, elbow resting upon the bar, head turned to face Art, and mouth hanging open. This description was so unlike my neighbor, who gazed upon my pansies one glorious Spring and responded to my exhortations of praise with a simple, "Oh, them things." But Art was not done.

"It was like all these aromas hit my nose, engulfing...just beautiful...taking me away even for a minute." Art then stopped to take a sip of beer, his brow still furrowed in thought. I admit to not even moving my beer stein, so amazed was I by Art's description.

"Anyway," Art said, thumping his glass beer stein down on the bar, "my Aunt then closed the lid of the box, which had some feathers in it, and the smell went away, just like that. Man, I ain't never forgot that."

I then asked Art where was the box of "dried angel wing" now...maybe he could let me smell for myself.

Art snapped his fingers and said he thought he knew where it was. He told me he was going to check it out, and if he is right, then he would give me a call...let me come over to take a whiff. Then I would believe, Art said.

That evening Art did give me a call. He was real excited, said he had found the box, but that he wouldn't open it until I came over. Since my wife was in a royal snit over the unmown lawn, even Art would prove better company. I headed over to his house.

"I can't believe that for all these years I never thought to check that old chest my Aunt Betty had. She used to call it her "hopeless chest", Art narrated, as he led me up the pull down stairs to his dusty attic. After we hoisted our middle-aged bodies up to the tiny roof cubbyhole, Art grabbed a small box that looked for all the world like a box in which a new wallet had once been packaged.

He held the box in his hand and gave me a warning. "Jay, be prepared, because if the aroma is like I remember, ...well...just smell for yourself."

The odor of a thousand Spireas, in full bloom, wafted in air rivulets past my nose. Before I could grasp this, I felt as if I were in a pillow of lilacs, not stifled but surrounded by the flower as if blooming in the early Spring sunshine. A tickle of blooming Paperwhite odor teased, then...the heady smell of Poison perfume? I thought that this might be how clouds smell...but no. As the spirea aroma tickled my nose, I knew that this must be how Heaven smells.

Art put the lid back on the dried angel wings and we clambered down the rickety stairs. There was no need for further proof. I was the Controller of a small manufacturer in the little town of Elkridge, Maryland, and not given to flights of fancy. But I believed there was something very special in that box and I wanted Art to tell me just how he got it.

"I told you, I didn't get it. My Aunt Betty said she got it from heaven. She told me that on New Year's Eve, at the change of the century, you can visit Heaven. What she said you do is...precisely at the strike of midnight....you hold a rosary and ask the Virgin Mary to let you visit her in Heaven. You say three Hail Marys...then...well Aunt Betty said she was in Heaven. She told me all about Heaven, Jay, but you know, I was fourteen and she was an old lady. It wasn't until she opened the box that I started to believe. By then I wished I had listened to her story because...well you know.....that smell! She got sick soon after and died a week later...so I dunno just what she saw in Heaven. But, hey, that's it...three Hail Marys. This year, Jay...the change of the century. I'm going to try it. Aunt Betty said her grandmother went to Heaven when the 1700's changed into the 1800's."

I listened with half an ear to Art's harangue. I was a Presbyterian, and we didn't say Hail Marys..but heck, I would learn it. I'd scout down a rosary too. It was six months to the year 2000, so I figured I had time. What the heck, I thought, there WAS something unusual about that box and the smells. I don't think the odors were something Art could have concocted. Chemistry wasn't a required subject in vocational school.

Only when I said the three Hail Marys at the stroke of midnight on Jan. 1, 2000, I didn't exactly end up in Heaven. I ended up in Hell.

I had read plenty of descriptions of Hell in my lifetime that included lots of fire and glowing embers. Hell is nothing like that. In fact, Hell resembles a little coffee house, like the kind in the "Friends" situation comedy. There were couches all about, with all sorts of people sitting and doing all kinds of activity.

I admit that initially I thought it was Heaven. I wasn't real pleased with the place when I thought it was Heaven but when I found out it was Hell I thought it was a bit of all right. For Hell, I mean.

I was greeted by a very obese woman with a very dark mustache.

"We have heard your Hail Marys and it is the turn of the century. We don't get any living souls down here except at the century change. There are a few other visitors here that learned the secret of the rosary and Hail Marys. Your friend Art is right now visiting up in Heaven."

I then asked this lovely lass that if Art is in Heaven, just what was this.

"This is Hell. Come on, let me show you around."

It must be stressed here that the discovery that I was in Hell had me momentarily nonplused and full of questions; the prime one being just why was Art up in Heaven while I was down here in Hell. There was no time, of course, because my mustached female guide was giving me a grand tour.

"This is Wanda," the chubby guide said, and pointed to a small lady then sitting on an overstuffed couch and tatting a doily. Wanda looked to be quite content, with her needles and string to occupy her. She looked quite obsessed with her task, I noted, and didn't seem to be in any sort of fiery state.

So I asked my guide just why this was Hell if you could sit on overstuffed couches and tat.

"Wanda hates sewing of any kind. She always did...in her mortal life. Now she gets to spend the rest of eternity knitting, crocheting, tatting, darning and sewing buttons. This is Hell! You don't get to do what you want you know."

We walked on past the tatting Wanda who was bent over her doily in furious concentration.

"This is Ted Bundy. I'm sure you must remember him."

Indeed I remembered Ted Bundy, the serial killer who I surely thought would be in the middle of some serious flames. Instead, he too sat on an overstuffed sofa and....well, it looked to me as if he was watching television.

"Ted hated television. Now, he gets to watch it all the time. And he is only allowed situation comedies, which he especially hates."
I was beginning to see a pattern here, but was full of questions. I mean Ted Bundy in Hell watching endless "I Love Lucy" re-runs was not the punishment I thought he deserved. Of course, I ran some of these thoughts past my guide.

"Hell is pretty much like we learned when we were alive. Forget the flames though. Burning forever...that's not Hell's style. Hell is about eternity...forever and ever and ever. With a consignment guaranteed to make every second of every day miserable. "

I asked my guide just who metes out this punishment and while we're at it, just what was her punishment. This guide thing seemed to be a cushy job.

"Punishments are meted out by all of us. The punishment is not meant to be physical...again, forget the flames...Hell isn't about physical pain. Too many of our members caused enough physical pain in their mortal lives. Hell is about misery...just misery after misery...mental anguish that will never be assuaged. I suppose you thought the punishments would be more original?"

Yes, I had thought that. Just then we passed a teenaged boy who was reading a book. I figured he was one who didn't like reading in a life before he ended up here in Hell. Still, to spend eternity reading a book?

As we walked on, I heard a loud growl coming from my guide's stomach. It was the dangest hunger pang I had ever heard.

"Yeah, I'm hungry. Yet I am never allowed to eat. None of us eat really..here in Hell. Except some of the Bulimics maybe. My punishment is to spend my eternity hungry, never to eat, never to stop the hunger pains...and worst of all....never ever to get thin even though I eat nothing."

She said this with resignation. This was weird, no doubt about it. I knew I had to be dreaming this.

Besides the people sitting around on the couches, there were large rooms full of people. There were parties even. As I was beginning to understand the concept here, the parties attendees, I could see, were those that once hated parties. A football stadium was filled with a crowd of women, all watching the game and hating every minute of it. Just this strange kind of atmosphere going on right here in Hell.

It was strange, this Hell place full of people forced to spend eternity doing what they once hated to do. And I wasn't at all sure the fire idea wasn't a better punishment. My guide explained it further.

"It isn't the punishments that matter, really, " she explained as she stroked her mustache. "The punishments, as I said earlier, are given by the inhabitants of Hell. We are, after all, evil people or we wouldn't be here. No...it's more just having to live, breathe and think...forever and ever...in this world where there is no life really...just...living on. All of us who end up in Hell find ourselves soon wishing fervently that there was no life after death, that we would have just rotted in our coffins after our rotten lives, as we originally planned."

I asked my guide what about Heaven, and also tentatively questioned just what I was doing in Hell when my original plan was to ascend to Heaven.

"The concept behind the New Year's Eve of the century change is that the person who knows about the Hail Marys will go to the place more appropriate with their lifestyle at the moment. I don't know much about you, but "Someone" has determined that you are following a direct route to Hell."

You could have knocked me over with an angel feather. What on earth had I done to deserve to end up here in Hell? Not that I was any epitome of goodness but I felt rather strongly that I shouldn't be lumped in with the likes of Ted Bundy. Yes, there was that little affair I had with the dancer a few years ago during a weekend CPA convention. And I most regretted that little indiscretion although I never told my wife. I had, if I gave it any thought, acknowledged that a higher power than me most likely knew about the affair. But I regretted it and isn't that what it's all about, sorrow and a vow to do better? It seemed to me that there should be no inhabitants of Heaven if mistakes were not allowed.

"But would you?" I heard my guide ask, to my muteness. "Would you do it again, if opportunity knocked? Sure, you can make mistakes....I made plenty to include shooting my husband with his own hunting rifle. And you can vow to do better...sure. But they are only words. Best I can advise you is that there is a good and evil mindset. "Good" being defined as , well, I don't know...or I wouldn't be here in Hell, would I?"

Indeed, I thought, would I do it again? And you know, I couldn't absolutely say I wouldn't because that weekend of lust was a lot of fun and....well, given the right circumstances I might do it again. My wife didn't find out the first time, I might reason.

"That's just it," my guide continued, leading me into a strange room bathed in a red light that appeared more in keeping with my concept of Hell. "It's not about getting caught. It's about...well think about it. I am sure no expert."

We moved into the little room and I was most amazed. It was as if carved from a granite wall. Streams of water poured from the makeshift walls. Directly in the middle of the room was a large granite chair, unsoftened by any pillows.

"This is the room we have reserved for OJ Simpson. All of the inhabitants of Hell eagerly await Mr. Simpson. And scuttlebutt has it that there is lots of plans for OJ. I heard that Ron Goldman and Nicole were scheduled to pay OJ regular visits from Heaven while he sits in this chair in his lonely Hell."

Now I was even more surprised. First at the concept of "scuttlebutt" in Hell, and second that OJ Simpson would have his own room, although when you think about it.....

So what about Heaven, I asked my guide.

"We don't know anything about Heaven. No sense in asking me, cause I don't know. None of us do. It's just another part of our punishment...this not knowing."

I shrugged my shoulders. Fine, I thought, I would ask Art. Who, I was reminded, was supposed to be spending this century-change New Year's Eve in Heaven and I wondered why was this.

And I did ask Art. Who thought I was nuts, denied any visit to Heaven, and remembered nothing of any box with the heavenly smells.

Because New Year's Eve, Dec. 31, 1999 did change into New Year's Day, 2000 and brought me back to my own mortal life.

It was a bittersweet revelation when Art denied any trip to the other life. Now I could toss the whole thing off as a dream. I could not, however, ignore my ponderings.

Art was a nice guy, IQ notwithstanding. I bet he never cheat on his wife, not that he was overwhelmed with opportunities. I looked down at my own pot-belly and ran my fingers through my thinning hair. Heck, it wasn't like I had a whole lot of opportunities either. The honest truth was that the dancer of my indiscretions was more interested in the fifty bucks I gave her after our day in bed than my own handsome self. There are always opportunities. My guide in Hell was right. It wasn't about getting caught, it was about...well... honesty and integrity and a whole bunch of other stuff they talk about in Heaven.

So I haven't been able to forget my little visit to Hell, although it's been five years and my Therapist says it was just a dream and to quit obsessing.

Only I can't. Because on any day of any year I can walk up the steps to my bedroom. I can open my dresser drawer, full of underwear, socks, and a little box that looks for all the world as if it once served as packaging for a new wallet. I can then open the box.

It is the smell of a thousand dead cows, rotting under a hot sun and providing food for the vultures. It is the odor of rotten eggs and dirty feet. It is the smell of death, rot and decay. Anytime I want, I can climb the steps, retrieve my box, and take a whiff of Hell.

My Five Unicorns

2009-04-13T08:48:00.000-07:00

The Best Short Story Ever Written

Winner of many writing contests, feature story for an entire book. Read and enjoy. First time this story's been published on the Internet.

My Five Unicorns

March 1, 1960

Dear Mom,

Sister says we all have to get ready for the St. Patrick's Day show. Everyone has been asked if their Mom can supply a costume. And guess what I did? I raised my hand and when Sister called my name, I said I would be able to bring the unicorns. Course, Sister said I only needed one unicorn but I told her I had five! She seemed happy and put me down to supply the unicorns.
We read a real good story today in class. It was about two cousins and they each got to plant a garden in their grandfather's yard. Beth was the oldest and she planted all kinds of flowers. So did her cousin Mary. Only Beth kept picking her flowers and giving them to people as bouquets. Mary wouldn't pick any of her flowers because she wanted them to stay in her garden. Then, Beth's garden started growing even more flowers! Lots more flowers than Mary's even! So Mary starts to complain to her grandfather that Beth's garden shouldn't be prettier than hers because Beth keeps picking her flowers and giving them away. Then grandfather explained to Mary that flowers actually SPREAD when they are picked because they try to grow more flowers. He told Mary that by keeping her flowers in the garden and letting them go to seed, she was really helping the life of her garden to come to an end. Gardens, the grandfather told the cousins, want to grow flowers and go to seed. After this, their job is done and flowers stop blooming. By picking the flowers, Beth was keeping the garden from finishing its job. Anyway, I thought it was a good story, although I had already read it.
Sister says I am a very good reader and she says I write well too. This makes me glad, because I want to be just exactly like Anne Frank. She was 14 when she wrote her diary, and I know I am only 11. But I will keep writing my diary, only in letters to you.
Aunt has not been feeling well lately. She sleeps all the time. If I can get her awake I will make her some dinner, maybe some soup or cereal, if we have any.
Well, I miss you Mom. Got to start getting my unicorns ready.

March 7, 1960

Dear Mom,

Been working on getting my unicorns ready. You'll never guess what they are. Cats! I have five of them although Aunt doesn't approve. By the way, Aunt went to the hospital because she was so sick. She told me to just go on as normal and that she would call. It's been three days, but there are still plenty of hot dogs in the refrigerator and I saw some oatmeal in a cupboard.
Anyway, about the cats. I just felt so sorry for them, all living in an alley. I had been feeding and calling them for almost a year. They used to live right in that little alley between St. Patrick's school and the rectory. You remember it? I go right by there to go to school.
So I started bringing the cats home one at a time. Each time Aunt complained and told me it would be up to me to feed them...that it was all she could do to keep me fed and clothed.
Mom, do you think maybe you could send Aunt some money? I'd ask Dad, but no one knows where he went. Nobody really knows where you are either but I intend to send you these letters just as soon as you tell me.
After a while, I managed to get all five cats in the house and just like I promised Aunt, I find food for them. Most times I get food from the poor table at St. Patrick's, although Sister caught me one time and slapped my wrist with a ruler. I really felt bad, not just because the ruler hurt, but also because all I was taking Jane Cartwell's cruddy bologna sandwiches which she never eats. All the cats like the bologna except Tiny Tears. She had a hard time eating things sometimes. I think something is wrong with her stomach.
The cats are doing fine and I know they will make swell unicorns. Barbie is the best and doesn't even try to get the cardboard cone I made off of her head. Joan does good. Ken and Jerry try to get their cone off, but I pet them real good when I put it on and they like that. In case you don't remember, the cats' names are the same as the dolls I used to have. You know, when you and Dad and I all lived together? All except Jerry. I never had a doll named Jerry. He is named after Jerry Lewis because he makes me laugh.
Sister caught me scribbling on a scratch pad when I was supposed to be reading a story. I wish I could make her understand that I had already read all the stories in our readers and sometimes I get bored if I have to read them again. But she is a nun you know, and you just don't talk to nuns like you do normal people.
Anyway, she made me stand on a chair in front of the room and smacked my backside with a ruler. It didn't hurt really, but I hated the snickering, especially that Susan Polk who I call Susan Puke.
Now we got to sell Catholic Reviews. This is supposed to all be part of the big St. Patrick's day celebration. I do kind of like all the fun, and like to make fun of the kids who have to go to stupid Sacred Heart which does not have a holiday named after it. But no one EVER buys any Catholic Reviews from me. Sister says that every student who sells a Catholic Review will get a night with no homework. Last year, I was the only kid in the class that didn't sell a Catholic Review and guess what? I was the only one who had homework. I normally don't mind homework, but when all the kids make fun of you, you kind of feel like you are being punished. Sister says it is a reward for the kids who sold Catholic Reviews and not a punishment for those that didn't. Which was me.
THIS year I am going to sell a Catholic Review and don't forget my surprise of FIVE unicorns.

March 9, 1960

Dear Mom,

I ate the last hot dog last night. Then I only got a tiny bite of it because the cats were hungry. I got the oatmeal out of the cupboard but don't have no milk or anything to put on it. I can snatch pieces of other kids lunches and sometimes Mrs. Brown next door gives me some leftovers. But the cats don't have anybody to help them like I do. I am more worried about them.
There is supposed to be a big snow storm tomorrow. Sister is all worried that the snow will cause a problem with the St. Patrick's day show. That's almost 9 days away! Sister just likes to worry.
And speaking of the St. Patrick's Day show...I can't wait. All of the cats have learned their roles well. I am going to have to find some hot dogs though, because that is how I trained them. It isn't easy to get a cat to do what you want and Ken and Jerry always get into fights. Tiny Tears seems to be getting skinnier. I hope she is okay.
We're going to be doing the song..."Green Alligators"...you know it? I remember we used to sing it together sometimes. It had green alligators and long-necked geese? Remember? Then it ended with never finding a unicorn?
Sister didn't like us doing that song but Father Parks said it would be fine. We all really like Father Parks. The Fathers are always so much nicer than the Sisters.
Anyway, Susan Puke tells me her mother made the best humpty-back camels. Then Jane Cartwell says HER mother made the best chimpanzees and then Jimmy Radizwell says we are never going to believe the rat his mother made. But you know what? I didn't say anything about my unicorns. Because no matter how good their mothers made the animals, MY unicorns are LIVING.
I read a real good book by Betty Callahan. Got in a lot of trouble though, because I borrowed it from the library at school and forgot to bring it back. Sister told me I was irresponsible.
Going out to sell some Catholic Reviews tomorrow night. And maybe find some hot dogs for the cats.
Have not heard from Aunt. I hope she is okay. I am doing like she said and going on with my normal business.

March 10, 1960

Dear Mom,

We got to get out of school early today because of the snow. Only there wasn't any snow so I went out to sell Catholic Reviews. As usual, nobody wanted to buy any from me. I think most of the kids in my class sell Catholic Reviews to their parents. Since I don't even know where my parents are, I guess that's out of the question. I went door to door for almost three hours when it finally began to snow. It makes me mad that I will once again have to be the only one to have homework when I almost froze my toes off walking in the cold for three hours trying to sell one. I bet I worked harder than anyone in that class and still have to be punished by having homework.
Pretty soon though I might not even have a school to go to. Sister told me today that tuition would be due next month. Dad used to come over and fix something in the convent or the rectory and they would give me free tuition. Only Dad isn't around to fix anything anymore. Sister told me the rectory needed a new door and could my father come in and fix it? I didn't want to tell her I don't know where Dad is. Sister then reminded me about tuition.
While I was out trying to sell Catholic Reviews I had to steal some food from the grocery store. I guess I am going to have to tell about this in confession. And I will, Mom, but only about the stuff I stole that I actually ate. I figure God isn't going to send me to hell for stealing food to feed the cats.
Now I don't think the heat is working because it is very cold in here. When I first got in, I didn't notice the cold because it was so cold outside. Plus I had some beef jerky and crackers for the cats and they were so excited. I am wearing my coat and as many clothes as I can find but I think I can see my breath.
I also have another problem and it feels bigger to me than having no heat or food. I wrote on my desk in school. I don't mean I just wrote on the desk, I actually took a pen and carved my name on the desk. I don't know why I did this. I was bored I think. And I think Sister knows it because she keeps walking past my desk. I kind of fold my arms around my desk when she does this so she won't see but I am sure she sees it when I go home. I am really scared and wish more than anything I could go back in time and NOT carve my name in the desk.

March 11, 1960

Dear Mom,

There was no school today which is not such a good thing for me. At least it is warm in school and sometimes I can get some food from the poor table if Sister isn't looking. The cats and I slept all huddled together under as many blankets as I could find. They kept me warm so I really wanted to go find them some food. I am a little hungry, but I am a human and can ask for food. The cats can't so I feel like I should get them some. This time I did a little digging in the trash cans and had no problem. No one goes outside in the snow, so I didn't have to worry about being caught. Mrs. Brown had thrown away almost a whole loaf of bread and I found half a bag of potato chips in Mr. Denton's trash can.
I found a book by Edgar Allen Poe in Aunt's room. It was hard for me to read but I really loved The Tell Tale Heart. It was really scary.
I liked The Raven too.
The cats ate the potato chips but didn't really like them. Tiny Tears wouldn't eat anything. Anyway, since it was so cold in the house and the cats needed the practice anyway, we all played "Green Alligators". The cats part was to be the unicorns and they really did good Mom. Course I think they thought I was going to give them some hot dogs but....
Haven't heard from Aunt.

March 12, 1960

Dear Mom,

Got a whole pack of hot dogs today! Joey Simpson's Mom gave them to me because she heard my cats liked them. Loud mouth Joey had to tell her. I ate two of them myself just as soon as I got home. I gave the cats two. I have six left and I got to make them last until St. Patrick's day or the cats won't be good unicorns.
Sister said something to me today that really scared me. She said that she hopes 'no one wrote on their desk' because they will be severely punished. Oh why did I write my name on that desk Mom? I have nightmares now about it. Sister also said I was going to have to wear cleaner clothes especially if I wanted to be in the St. Patrick's day show.
I got to be in the St. Patrick's day show Mom! I don't care about anything but this. The unicorns are ready and I am saving my hot dogs.

March 13, 1960

Spent all day today trying to wash my clothes. I don't know much about Aunt's old washing machine. Aunt always washed the clothes. Anyway I found some soap powder and pushed some buttons. For a day after the snow storm nothing was coming out of the faucets except a drip, but now there seems to be water. The weather has gotten a lot warmer and if I turn the jets on the stove it heats up the kitchen. The cats and I sleep in there.
Only everything I washed got smaller. That real nice sweater you gave me for my last birthday Mom, now only fits Tiny Tears. I always loved that sweater, with the fabric rose buttons. Two of my uniforms faded real bad. I just know Sister will be so mad.
The cats had a wonderful meal of tuna fish! I managed to swipe two tuna fish sandwiches off of the poor table today. I wonder why they call it the poor table and why I don't qualify.
I found some old True Romance magazines in Aunt's room and read every one. I know I could write as well as some of those stories Mom.
And next week....ta da....the St. Patrick's day show.

March 14, 1960

Dear Mom,

I went to church today. I go to church every Sunday. Sister says Catholics go to Hell if they don't go to church on Sunday. Last Sunday I put two pennies in the collection basket. This Sunday I didn't have any money to put in the collection basket.
I stole some ground beef out of Mrs. Brown's refrigerator. I confessed to Father Parks about the hot dogs I stole, but like I said, only those that I ate. I intend to do the same thing about the ground beef. The cats and I were so hungry that I didn't even try to do anything with the hamburger but to fry it up in the frying pan. Then the cats and I sat down at the kitchen table and ate hamburger right from the pan.
Cindy Baker came over and we played jump rope. The weather is getting real nice. I was so happy to play for a while that I almost slipped and told Cindy about my unicorns. I even had fun though Cindy sometimes cheats. We did "fudge,fudge...call the judge...mama's got a newborn baby....wrap it up in tissue paper...send it up the elevator...first floor....STOP". The idea is that the person turning the jump rope tries to trick the jumper. So I went "second floor....." then I waited a long time while Cindy jumped even if I winked an eye. Then I went "JUMP" when Cindy least expected it and she stepped on the rope. Only she says she didn't. We got into a fight and Cindy went home. I didn't care, I was tired of her anyways. I hope Cindy confesses to Father Parks about her cheating and lying. I wonder if I could confess for her.
Still haven't heard from Aunt. If I don't hear from her soon I am going to call somebody. I may as well wait until after the St. Patrick's day show. Then I guess I will call the police. I would ask Sister to help but she is still mad at me about the writing on the desk. She hasn't done anything yet. I wish she would just punish me or whatever she is going to do.

March 15, 1960

Dear Mom,

Since we ate all the ground beef, I had to go through Mrs. Brown's garbage. She caught me and gave me a really hard time about it. I told her I was looking for food for my cats, that Aunt says I have to feed them myself. I was kind of scared. I figure if she knew Aunt was gone she might call the police or worse, Sister. No matter what I want to be in the St. Patrick's day show.
But Mrs. Brown told me I should get some sort of job to feed my cats, that going through people's garbage was not respectable. She did ask me how was Aunt, and I told her she was fine.
With Mrs. Brown on to my garbage taking, I had to go out of the neighborhood. It was kind of scary. I went picking through some trash cans and this really ugly guy yelled at me. Finally I found some food in the big bin at the Gino's down from Aunt's. Some real good food, too. I got right down in the can and picked up every hamburger bit or roll I could find. When I got home, the cats were really happy. Even Tiny Tears ate a hamburger roll.
I saved a whole bunch of hamburger bits and we all practiced being unicorns. My hot dogs are still in the refrigerator, waiting for St. Patrick's day. Sometimes I get real hungry and think about eating them. But I couldn't eat the cat's food. They depend on me.
Anyway, the unicorn practice went well. What I do, I have them all stand in a line and follow me. Course I have to drop some pieces of hot dog in just such a way that they know where to go. They don't even bother with the cone horns any more and they do look so cute. I just can't wait I just can't wait.
Father Parks talked to me today. He thinks I spent my collection money on a doughnut and chocolate milk at the bakery. I did do that one time before and confessed my sin to Father Parks. So since I didn't have any money for the collection plate, he asked me if I might have gone to the bakery again. Which I don't think is real fair, since I don't think the Father is supposed to talk about stuff you said in confession. Father told me he knows Aunt always gives me collection money and since I didn't have any, I must have spent it. Father told me I would go to Hell for spending God's collection money. I decided that if I was going to Hell anyway I may as well not even go to Mass on Sunday.
Found a whole bunch of newspapers outside of the school. Nobody appeared to own them so I brought them all home. Read them all...even the classified ads.
Sister still has said nothing about writing on the desk. I wonder if I will get away with it.

March 16, 1960

Dear Mom,

Had to use a hot dog today to practice with the unicorns...I mean cats. Hahaha. Still have plenty left for the St. Patrick's day show. I tell you, Susie Puke's humpty backed camels have nothing on my unicorns!
Going to bed early. Starched my uniform for the show tomorrow. It is really really shiny. Am excited. Weather is warm so I probably can sleep in the bed tonight. Had dinner at Cindy Baker's house. I ate so much Mrs. Baker thought I was hiding food. Which I was. Managed to get three pieces of chicken out of there, hidden in my socks.
Talk to you tomorrow, Mom. St. Patrick's Day!!!

March 18, 1960

Dear Mom,

Miss Virginia is downstairs right now and waiting for me. I begged her to let me write this letter because, well, I don't know when I might be able to write to you again. And Miss Virginia says that when she finds out your address, she will definitely let me send you all my letters.
I took the cats to the St. Patrick's day show. Only things didn't turn out quite the way I thought they would. I guess it's probably okay though. Miss Virginia seems nice enough.
After I got home from school last night I changed my clothes. I did not have anything real nice to wear, so I took some clothes out of Aunt's closet. I had to put a belt around the skirt to hold it up but it looked pretty good. Then I had to take the cats to the school. The show was held in the combination lunch room and auditorium. Anyway, I hadn't figured the cats would be so hard to transport. Actually, I hadn't thought about it at all. And it was a problem.
You really can't make cats walk on a leash. And they don't especially follow you when you want them to. So I carried them all in a cardboard box except Tiny Tears. I had to carry her on my shoulder because she is so sick. It was hard walking along with four cats in the box and Tiny Tears on my shoulder. And my skirt kept slipping so I almost fell a couple of times. Anyway, I finally made it to St. Patrick's Elementary School and was ready and real excited.
Each grade got to do a little act and sing a song. All the parents were there. Except you Mom. I hope you come home soon so you can go to the school shows like the other parents.
Anyway, it was our classes' turn. The green alligators were really cool.
Joan Petrucci's Mom made them. Joan and her sister both did a duck walk under the green felt. Course I couldn't watch the show because I was so nervous and because the cats were getting hard to control. They hated being in that box.
Finally it was time for "there is no unicorn." I got all the cats out of the box, put on their horns and put Tiny Tears down from my shoulder. Only she could hardly walk. I picked her up and carried her on the stage.
Mom, even though I had practiced for so long with the cats, I forgot that there would be so many people at the show. I was dropping the hot dogs real nice and they all followed me from behind the curtains. It was when they saw all the people that they freaked out.
Jerry ran first. He ran off the stage he was so scared and ran right up Sister's habit. Sister was real mad and was screaming to get this cat off of her. Someone in the audience had to take off her habit to get the cat because he was really hurting Sister. It was kind of funny really, because Sister had on this great big pair of underwear. I have never seen underwear this big, it was like they were pants or something.
Ken just crouched down at first, then he took off when Sister screamed. Barbie and Joan each ran off the stage, over and through people. Soon everyone in the place was screaming and the cats were screaming too because people were stepping on them. It was so crazy and I couldn't do anything but hold on to Tiny Tears because she was so sick. The screaming and running went on for almost ten minutes but even with all this I couldn't think of anything but Tiny Tears and how worried I was. She depends on me and I let her down.
Then the police came.
Then I started to cry.
I couldn't help it Mom. I know you told me to be a big girl, that tears don't help a whole lot of things. But I just knew the police were going to take me away.
At first I thought they were going to take me away because I wrote on the desk. But then I realized that having the cat run up Sister's habit was probably worse than this. For a moment, I thought maybe they were picking me up because I spent the collection money at the bakery.
Then I knew the truth was that I was the one who brought these five cats and caused all these problems. And it didn't matter anymore whether I wrote on the desk or bought doughnuts with the collection money or stole from Mrs. Brown's trashcan. Because I knew I was going to be put in a home even if I wasn't sure which one of my many crimes was the reason. So I just started to cry.
And right then I didn't care what they did with me because Tiny Tears counted on me and I had to get her help. When the policeman came up on the stage he asked me what was wrong.
So I told him to please, please, please get all my cats. And to please, please, please let me take Tiny Tears to the doctors because she was real sick. I told him that we didn't have any heat during the snow storm and I don't think I have been getting Tiny Tears enough to eat. I just cried and sobbed and told the policeman that I will pay for the desk and I promise to leave Mrs. Brown's trashcans alone. I was just real upset Mom.
The policeman had me sit in a chair and promised me he would get help for Tiny Tears and he would find all my cats. He was real nice. He told me to just sit in a chair.
That's when Miss Virginia showed up. I had stopped crying right now, but I was ready to start again. Tiny Tears just lay on my shoulder. I just felt so bad she had counted on me to take care of her and what a lousy job I was doing.
So Miss Virginia took me to this real nice place last night. She had a brother that was an animal doctor and he came over to get Tiny Tears. He told me he thought she had a stomach blockage and that if it weren't for me she probably would be dead by now. That made me feel better. Miss Virginia took the other cats home with her and promised me she would take care of them.
So I am back here at Aunt's house and am packing all my stuff. Miss Virginia says I will go live with some nice people and she promises me I will be very happy. I told her I was pretty happy right now.
I probably won't be going back to St. Patrick's school. Miss Virginia says I will probably go to another school as nice, or nicer, than St. Patrick's. And she did let me write this letter and she says when she finds out your address she will let me send you the letters.
Miss Virginia promises that she will take care of my cats and just as soon as I go to a new home she will try to let me take one or two of the cats with me. But she is so nice Mom, because she said I could visit them anytime.
Which is so important, because they really depend on me.

Bye, Mom.

More Smashing Fiction HERE

Happy New Year! A New Year's Fiction and Kaitlyn Celebrates a Fourth Christmas

2008-01-01T15:34:00.000-08:00

She had given up men.

At least that is the firm assertion of the protagonist in this New Year's fiction short story.

She ended up alone on a mountain with two men. One of them was evil. One was a hero.

Would she choose the right one to save her?

Pic of the Day

A New Year's Eve Double Date

I was through with men; drop dead, honest-to-God, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die, through with men. I still liked men, mind you....very much. I still had some hope that there might be a man out there for me. But for New Year's Eve, 1994, and as a result of my resolution for 1995-I was definitely through with men.
It was time to reconnoiter, I had decided, as regards the men issue. In 1995, I had resolved, I was definitely going to seriously scrutinize that sign over my head that said "Weirdos stop here." For the three semi-serious relationships that I had with the males of my species in 1994 all ended up as disasters to have me examining my judgement of people, men in particular.
So when my friend Danielle called me about ten days before New Year's Eve and invited me to her drop-dead, neato New Year's party in a ski cabin located on a mountain near Aspen, I accepted eagerly, with no compunction for my total lack of any sort of date object. I was through with men and since this party would start in one year and end in the year of my resolution, I figured this was the perfect occasion to begin to be through with men. I accepted Danielle's kind offer, told her I would be dateless, then explained that I was through with men.
Danielle chuckled and informed me she would be taking bets on how long this resolution would last.
"Maybe I'll get all the stews to start up a little pool to see how long Marianne Josephine Grabinski will remain through with men," my friend and stewardess on the same airline with which I labored, said.
"You just go right on and do that, because I will be flying out to your mountain for a New Year's party followed by a day of skiing, unfettered and unencumbered by any man. And you know what" I continued, "I simply do not care and am not worried about it. No man is sure better that the ones I have been getting lately. You'll see.....this lady is through with men."

Danielle was still chuckling as she hung up the phone. But I vowed that she would see. Marianne Josephine Grabinski was through with men, at least for one year. Little did I know that this New Year's eve party would be the occasion that I would finally meet the man of my dreams. And I would have TWO to chose from.

"So, I heard you were going to Danielle's little party," Eileen said in that gossipy way of the female. "I also heard," Eileen said, as she poured more coffee for the pilots, "that you were through with men. Could it possibly be?"
I busily arranged the Danish on the platters and pretended to be nonchalant. "You heard right, Eileen my good buddy. I am through with men. I can't believe you are even surprised. Or have you forgotten my last boyfriend, the charismatic Al, who stole everyone's wallet while pretending to be a magician. Or let's not forget the wonderful Ray, the drug dealer. Yup...this lady ain't bothering with any male type of beings until she figures out what is going wrong."
Eileen giggled, wished me luck, and carried the coffee to the pilots. I followed behind with my tray of Danish.
I was quite sure that Eileen remembered my former boyfriends, not to mention the pilot who ended up to be very married and very determined to stay that way.

New Year's eve, as well as New Year's day, were the happening holidays for airline personnel. While almost everyone in America had somewhere to go on Thanksgiving and Christmas, there was very little travel on the New Year's holidays. Many airline personnel postponed their Christmases until the New Year span, just to be insured of being with their families. For myself, I intended to hop a flight to Colorado the day before New Year's Eve, spend a quiet evening at the airline hotel, then have a rollicking New Year's Eve followed by a day of shushing down what Danielle assured me was a wonderful slope. When my co-workers, many of whom would be in attendance at Danielle's party, saw me without a man, then they would believe. Marianne Josephine Grabinski was through with men.

I couldn't believe my eyes when the hotel van dropped me off at the base of the mountain on which sat the little ski lodge that Danielle had obtained from a pilot for New Year's eve party use. The setting was spooky as all get out; a large mountain looming directly up from the curving road. What looked to be a rather ancient ski lift was rigged up, ostensibly to carry residents up the mountain to their lodges or to ski.
Danielle had given me instructions earlier in the day. "Just hop on a chair, push the button on the pole, and you will be delivered directly to the door of the lodge. When you hop off, push the button to stop it. It's the only way up."
I looked up at the mountain then surveyed the raggedy ski lift. This equipment had most definitely seen better days. I lugged my skis and pole to the lift chair adjacent to the button pole and pondered the wisdom of this trip.
"Hey, wait up!"
I heard a male voice call from somewhere, and turned to ascertain the source. A tall man was struggling up the little incline to the lift chair, dragging skis and poles behind him.
"I guess you are going up the mountain to the party?" the voice's owner said, huffing and puffing from his recent jog.
The fellow required some serious scrutiny.
He was a little over 6' tall, I judged. A shock of wheat-colored hair fell to completely cover one eye . His other eye was a very deep brown. Since I was through with men, I cut my appraisal short.
This guy, I thought, was no doubt an axe murderer and here I was at the base of this spooky mountain about to ride up with him on a rusty ski lift to some lodge in the sky.
There was, however, just he and I, and I had to consider my options.

"I wonder where all the other party people are?" I asked my breathless buddy. "Seems to me there should be other people here ready to go up."
"Beats me. I'm a co-pilot with National airlines, and I didn't know about the party until this morning. Caught the first flight from Philadelphia to get here. But, hey, this must be the right place cause you and I are here, right?"
Both of us studied the lift chair, then decided to jump on. Only I heard yet another male voice in the distance.
"Wait up!" the voice shouted.
Walking up the incline was yet another handsome male, calling for me to wait.
This particular fellow was wearing no ski apparel and carried no poles or skis.
"Wear you party clothes under your ski gear. And bring your poles and skis!" Danielle had exclaimed during her instructions. "Cause we will be sleeping over in the lodge then spend the next day...skiing!"
"You going to the New Year's party?" my Philadelphian called to the man loping up the slope. He wore a pair of jeans, a button-down shirt covered with a burgundy sweater, and a pair of tennis shoes. I could have smacked my city of brotherly love friend. Suppose this guy was the axe murderer?
The fellow finally reached the chair lift and introduced himself as Jack Roberts. My Philadelphia friend, who had introduced himself as Chad Rubinski, asked Mr. Roberts just where were his skis
"I don't ski, man," the Roberts fellow answered. Again, it was incumbent upon me to perform some serious female scrutiny. He was also over 6' tall, about 35 years old, I estimated. His hair was cropped close to his head in the manner of the then popular George Clooney of ER. He certainly had a set of interesting eyes.
They were cobalt blue and sparkled like...well like George Clooney's of ER. His chin was very square, resolute, I thought.
"I just came for the party. No skiing for me."

I was a little annoyed with Danielle, who did not warn me of this spooky setup. And where were the other people? Last I heard, there were over forty people expected. It was 9 o'clock, the time Danielle said to head up on the lift. Then again, I reasoned, maybe they will arrive in dribs and drabs, .just as had my two male companions. If we waited much longer, more would probably show.
Our trio observed the lift chair, and figured three of us could ride up together. If Jack had ski gear with him, we would not have fit. As it was, I felt better riding up with the two of them.
Chad reached over to push the button. The three of us had snuggled, a bit tightly I thought, into the lift chair. We held our breath that after the effort the thing wouldn't work. The lift began to move. Not that it was the safest transport in the world. The thing creaked and wheezed and bounced as it struggled up the mountain. I almost decided to jump off while I could without death, when it stopped.

Chad, Jack and myself sat in the lift chair and surveyed the quiet mountain. There were no lights visible that would indicate cabins or lodges or any human life. We all looked down. We were almost a hundred feet in the air, Chad estimated. To jump, even with a snow cushion, would not be wise.
Jack reached inside his sweater and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He lit one up, and stretched his arm around the lift chair back directly behind me. He crossed his legs and shifted himself to comfort in his lift chair corner.
"Ain't this a fine mess," he said, exhaling a cloud of smoke. I figured a cigarette to be in order, and pulled out my own pack of smokes.
" Do you guys have to smoke?" Chad whined, pulling his head away from the smoke clouds.
Strike one against Chad, I thought. Doesn't like smokers.

"I don't know what to suggest here guys," Chad said, looking at the drop below and surveying the mountain in front. "We could just wait until someone else comes to get on the lift. Should be a crowd of people here soon, I would think."
It was obvious to me there wasn't any other choice. We couldn't jump. A pole, with spikes to climb down, was about fifty feet in front of us. In a life or death situation, I surmised, we could hang on the wire and go hand-over-hand to the pole and climb down to safety. It was dangerous though. The wire was covered with ice. We would just have to wait. I looked at my watch. It was ten after nine. There should have been loads of people about.
To make conversation, I thought I would quiz these fellows as to their occupations and hobbies. Chad I already knew to be a co-pilot with my own airline. I asked Jack what he did to earn a living. I figured there had to be an airline connection some how.
"I'm a mechanic, " Jack responded to my query. Ah, a mechanic. Airline mechanics make good money. And were stationed in one place. Good for families and wives. Although Chad, my co-pilot buddy made a handsome living too. He had a strike against him with the cigarettes already. Other than that, it was neck in neck.
" I wonder why nobody's here yet," Jack shouted in frustration.
Almost forty five minutes had passed since the lift stopped, and no one had showed up yet. The cold was getting serious, even with my ski clothes. Jack, I knew, had to be very cold. I had to admire his stamina. Not once did he complain.
Chad once again surveyed the surround and once again pronounced it hopeless.
Jack was getting to be positively jumpy. His lips were starting to turn a slight blue, and he was shivering.
"We are going to have to get help," he announced with a resolve that matched his chin.
I was impressed, very impressed. For by this time, I saw that as the case also. Another hour in that cold, I wasn’t sure we could make it. Jack definitely had a problem with his lack of warm clothes.

"I'm going to go hand-over-hand on the wire, get to the pole and climb down," Jack finally announced. "I'll get out to the road and flag down some help or I'll walk until I find help. You two just stay put. You should be okay for a while with your warm clothes."
Chad nodded solemnly, content to let Jack take the risk.
Jack climbed out of the chair lift, shaking the thing silly and scaring both me and the spineless Chad half to death. He managed to walk hand-over-hand over the icy wire and reached the pole safely. He placed his foot on the first spike on the pole and it held his weight safely. Slowly and carefully, Jack climbed down the pole. About five spikes down, a spike broke. Jack lost his grip and fell to the ground.
Other than a quick yelp of surprise, Chad and I did not hear another sound. Furiously we yelled to Jack on the ground below. He did not answer. Chad and I both leaned as far out of the chair as we could, beseeching an answer from Jack, or at least to see if he was all right. We could see nothing from our angle and through the wispy fog below.
"We have to help him, " I finally said.
"I know Marianne," Chad said quietly but made no move.
In desperation and fear, I reached right out and slapped the quiet Chad directly across the face.
"Listen to me! We have to get out of this chair. Jack is down there below, with a broken back or concussion. He needs help quick. And we have to get down sooner or later anyway...."
"I hear you Marianne," Chad answered in a monotone to my hysteria. "But I need to think this through."
I finally decided that I would get down off that thing myself. Chad, baby, I thought, of all the disgusting men I have encountered in this last disgusting year, you are the worst.

"Wait, Marianne," Chad grabbed me in my clumsy attempt to exit the lift. "It's not safe. How are you going to climb down the pole? You saw what happened to Jack. What on earth good would it to do for another one of us to get killed or seriously hurt? Hold on!" Chad shouted, then forced me back into the chair as I tried to exit upon hearing his stupid speech.
"I'm serious Marianne." Chad said through clenched teeth as he pinned me back down onto the chair, forcing me still with the full weight of his body. I stopped struggling. Please don't let me find out this guy is now some kind of rapist and will take advantage of me in this vulnerable position. Although it was so cold and the chair so wobbly I couldn't imagine any kind of lust thing going on in Chad's mind, much less rape on this swinging lift chair.
"Look," Chad began, as I sat up but remained still. "I have a plan. Listen. Our watches are wrong."
I straightened my ski jacket, then paused to consider. He was right! Colorado was two hours earlier in the time zone than from where Chad and I had come. It wasn't 10:25pm, as our watches indicated. It was 8:25pm. You'd think two airline people would have been more careful.
I said just this to Chad, who laughed along with me. He shook that shock of wheat hair out of his eyes, and I found myself gazing into two of the deepest and handsomest brown eyes I had seen in some time. Even Chad stopped his laughter with a thoughtful gaze into my own eyes. My stomach did some weird kind of flip-flop that had nothing to do with the fear I should have been feeling.
No! I pushed Mr. Chad away, firmly and with resolution. I was through. Through. And even if I wasn't, this Chad guy had already proven himself as unsuitable and without the bother of an awkward first date.
"But what about Jack?" I said, after Chad advised that the best thing to do was for us to wait.
"Here's the choice," Chad stated, "we try to get down to help Jack, whereby one of us falls, .just like Jack, and be of no help to him. Or we wait about twenty more minutes until someone shows up. I think it wise to wait."

Okay, so it made sense. This Chad guy still was a coward in my book, but his plan was sound. I would give it a half hour. After that, I told Chad, I was climbing down.
Exactly fifteen minutes later, the first guest arrived.
"Call the police!" Chad shouted as a man and a woman climbed up the incline, ostensibly to ride the lift to the party, only to find two people dangling on a broken chair lift. "Tell them to bring rescue equipment, and tell them that there may be an escaped prisoner badly injured. Make sure they check if there were any prison escapes recently."
I was so excited to see other humans, I almost didn't hear Chad's words. As they registered, I turned to look at him, my eyes filled with questions.
"Sssshhh," Chad commanded. The man and woman acknowledged Chad's instructions and ran back down the incline to seek help.
"I got suspicious of the guy when he put his arm around the back of the chair lift, " Chad was explaining to my mute and shocked self.
"His undershirt had prison numbers on it. When he shifted, I caught a glimpse of it where it stuck out from his shirt. It didn't register that they were prison numbers, just grey letters. At first I thought they were for laundry."
I was still quiet at Chad's explanations. Could we really have been on a ski lift with an escaped prisoner?
"Then I got to thinking why he didn't have any ski equipment. His explanation could have been right, but this with the prison numbers on the t-shirt, well. Then there was his haircut."
"Why didn't you say something?"
"First, I couldn't say anything while he was on the chair. Besides, I wasn't sure. It wasn't until he started to hand-walk the wire that I was fairly certain my suspicions were correct. I definitely saw a gun sticking out of his pants pocket."
"Well, why didn't you tell me then?" I asked in the ten minutes before help finally arrived.

"You were hysterical enough! If my first plan didn't work, and you insisted on climbing down, then I was going to tell you. I realized the time problem almost right away, but didn't want to say anything in front of this Jack guy. HE was operating under the right time, remember. Only he didn't know what time the party was to start. With us stuck with him on that ski lift, I figured it was best to have him believe people would be coming soon. I was quite glad when he decided to climb down, although I was pretty sure he would not send any kind of help. In fact, I don't think Jack is even down by that pole. I think he survived the fall and just took off."

The next few hours were chaos. The snow on that spooky mountain reflected the red, blue and yellow lights of the various rescue equipment and police cars.
They did find Jack, whose real name was Stanford Williams and was indeed, a recent escapee from nearby Waltherford prison. Mr. Williams did have a badly sprained ankle but had managed to hobble over to a nearby copse of woods. When our rescuers called the police as instructed by Chad and told them of Chad's suspicions that an escapee was nearby, the police came right up to the mountain. There had been a recent escape from the prison and the police were instantly alerted when our rescue call came through.
Danielle was beside herself over the incident and in tears over our possible danger. Although, she reminded both Chad and I, had we had the correct time we would not have met up with our prisoner friend, who just happened to consider the whole thing an opportunity for who could guess what.
"I don't know what he was planning," the crusty Colorado detective told Chad and I to our speculation. "Criminals don't reveal what they already did, much less what they plan to do. Most likely he was going to try and get some hostages, maybe even you two when you got up the mountain. Whatever was his plan, it wasn't a good one. The best thing that could have happened was that lift breaking."

We did have a little New Year's party that night, and managed to get it started a few minutes before midnight, Colorado time. At the stroke of midnight, I kissed the man who owned the deep brown eyes and who I had earlier thought to be a coward.
Chad pulled away, fumbled in his pocket, and pulled out a packet of mints. With a smile he stuck a mint in my mouth, then proceeded to kiss me again. We did things with that mint that I would have thought impossible.
I made a “new” New Year's resolution. I decided it was time for me to quit smoking.

===================

TV-Reality show…Clash of the Choirs; The 2007 Annual Fiction Christmas Story

2007-12-19T15:36:00.000-08:00

Plus, the annual Christmas fiction story which is titled, oddly, "The Thanksgiving Rose". It would seem that a world famous dog finally escapes the dogs in her neighborhood that insist on attacking her by flying the skies with Santa as he delivers gifts across the world.

The Thanksgiving Rose
===============

There was no way the mistress of the house in which the sad Belgian Malinois lived could know that her so-called "Thanksgiving Rose" brought a magic to a dog who'd long ago given up any hope of ever seeing the world outside of her household ever again.

"Look," the mistress excitedly told her husband, then cupping something in her hands as if a most cherished object. The mistress opened her hands to reveal a pretty white rose just unfolding from a bud state to its full glory.

"Where'd you get that," the master of the house queried.

"From the garden!" the mistress responded excitedly. The mistresses' voice then filled with such joy did cause Jo-Ann, the home's resident dog, to come out from under the desk to ascertain the source of his mistresses' joy. Jo-Ann regarded the rose her mistress was then showing to all the household cats with such glee and wondered why on earth such a thing was worth all the hoopla.

"Imagine that," the mistress told the master as she lovingly placed the rose in a small jar of water. "Plucking a rose off of the bush on Thanksgiving day! Maybe in Florida but Billy this is Delaware! I'm thinking this rose will bring some sort of magical fantasy to life. Isn't that how it always happens in the movies?"

Jo-Ann didn't know, nor did the mistress and most certainly not the master, that the Thanksgiving rose would indeed bring a magical event to the household. For the minute that the Thanksgiving rose rested proudly in the glass Jo-Ann began to understand the English language in such a way that would have shocked her mistress and master. As it was, the humans who so loved Jo-Ann were busy getting ready for the human Christmas holiday and didn't notice their dog's sudden interest in all things written, including computer screens, newspapers and books laying about the household.

It took the entire six weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas for the Belgian shepherd to understand the various Christmas traditions but in due course, and with the help of the magical Thanksgiving rose, Jo-Ann did learn about the concept of Santa Claus and the dog also learned a rudimentary form of verbal communication. Jo-Ann decided on Christmas eve she would wait up for the arrival of this strange human Santa Claus and armed with a new ability to communicate, Jo-Ann would ask this jolly human elf to grant her a Christmas wish.

Santa Claus arrived at the household on Christmas Eve just like Jo-Ann had read was the tradition. Jo-Ann had kept herself out of the way that Christmas eve as she didn't want her humans to know what she was up to. The humans of the household soon retired to bed, the cats all snuggled wherever the silly cats went at night. The house was quiet and certainly, what with a house of four cats, there were no mice about. Jo-Ann laid under the Christmas tree and awaited a jolly, round human in a red suit. Jo-Ann had a wish of her own that Christmas and with the help of a magical Thanksgiving rose, could ask Santa if he would grand her Christmas wish.

Of course Santa Claus could communicate very well with the animals and as soon as Santa saw the pretty Belgian Malinois waiting under the Christmas tree with excited eyes he knew that the big pup was waiting for him.

"The dogs in the neighborhood keep attacking me," Jo-Ann told the jolly human Santa.

Santa had, by then, carefully laid all the presents below the home's Christmas tree and filled the stockings with various gifts for the cats, dog, the mistress and the master. Jo-Ann had watched this nice human doing these tasks and was so glad that the Thanksgiving rose allowed her to understand the human language and most delightfully, get a chance to visit this Santa Claus that, until now, had been merely a suspicion in watchdog Jo-Ann's imagination.

The language Jo-Ann and Santa shared wasn't the normal conversational speak that the mistress and master would think language would be. Santa Claus, by nature of being Santa, generally understood the "speech" of the animals by interpreting their cocked ears, quizzical eyes and other body movements peculiar to a species. A few, like Jo-Ann that night, had been blessed by some earthly form of magic that allowed their minds to mentally form "words" that a human, magically blessed like Santa Claus, understood well enough to share thoughts beyond the normal greeting and goodbye Santa shared with most pets of the Christmas eve households he visited.

Santa sipped the hot chocolate and munched the cookies left for him by the humans as he "conversed" with the pretty Belgian Malinois.

"I am properly tethered to my mistress," Jo-Ann continued her explanation of the dog attacks on her the prior year, trying desperately to explain to Santa why her special wish this Christmas eve was so important to her. "The dogs all were loose and when me and the mistress were passing their houses, they would run across the lawn, out onto the public road, and attack me."

"Goodness," Santa said. "What did you do?"

"I did the only thing I could do," Jo-Ann dog-shrugged. "I grabbed the attacking dog and held it down. I mean," Jo-Ann continued softly with hope that Santa would not judge her harshly, "I didn't want to really hurt the attacking dogs as most of them were way smaller than me. But I couldn't very well allow them to keep biting me, now could I?"

Santa shook his head negative. Of course Jo-Ann had the right to defend herself!

"The mistress, she knew it wasn't my fault. She was always apologetic to the owners and in one case even helped pay the Vet's bill for the injured Pomeranian although that little rag dog deserved everything it got and more! What would possess a Pomeranian to attack a big dog like me?"

Santa regarded the big dog and gazed into her sad eyes. "So what's your problem?"

Jo-Ann's brown eyes lightened up a little. Maybe, just maybe...

"My mistress stopped taking me for a walk after the attack of the bichon-frise although I didn't bite that little dog because that dog didn't attack me. It just wanted to play with me and I knew it. But the mistress got too worried about all the loose dogs in the neighborhood and began to walk me around our own backyard."

Jo-Ann cast her big brown canine eyes toward the home's backyard and Santa followed her gaze. "So you still get to be with your beloved mistress, right?" Santa asked.

"Yes. And I'm fine with that. It's just that..."

Santa cajoled the big dog until she told Santa of her fondest wish this Christmas season. Santa sat and pondered Jo-Ann's request. He considered many of the problems he too encountered with dogs on his Christmas eve route and the damage done to his reindeer's knees if he didn't get to stop an errant dog soon enough. He decided to grant Jo-Ann's wish.

The Pomeranian was the first thing that Jo-Ann saw as Santa's sleigh landed in the yard of that little dog and its sometimes neglectful owners.

"Now don't forget, Jo-Ann" Santa warned as he grabbed his sack and exited the sleigh. "You can fly just like my reindeer. Your job is to entice the nasty little dogs away from my reindeer and keep them busy chasing you until I get these gifts delivered."

Jo-Ann saw that Pomeranian heading toward Santa's sleigh, then parked on the little dog's lawn as not all human homes have chimneys with handy access to large humans like Santa. This is just one of the secrets Jo-Ann learned as she joined Santa on his sleigh and took a ride around her neighborhood as Santa delivered the gifts. It might be just one night a year, but it gave Jo-Ann a chance to see the neighborhood again.

In return, it was Jo-Ann's job to distract the loose dogs as it seemed that Santa's reindeer too had been subject to the attacks of the little alleged canines that would settle on nipping reindeer knees in the absence of any other animal in the surround. And while the reindeer could fly away, often the team couldn't get off the ground before a few of them suffered annoying but mostly benign nips from the little dogs who wanted to be so big and brave.

Jo-Ann flew around the Pomeranian's yard and she loved the magical night and she loved teasing the hell out of that Pomeranian that didn't quite understand the notion of a dog that would be one minute on the ground and the next minute flying in the air above the ground, right out of reach of the Pomeranian's jaws.

####
Jo-Ann opened her eyes on Christmas morning in response to her mistresses' shout of joy.

"Jo-Ann! What are you doing here? Have you been out here all night?"

"What's going on?" Jo-Ann heard the master call from the other room.

"It's Jo-Ann, Billy. She evidently slept under the Christmas tree all night and goodness she looks like she's been outside all night. She's covered with snow and it looks like she's got leaves and ..." the mistresses' voice faded off as she busily brushed Jo-Ann's bedraggled coat of the debris collected on a late night Christmas eve ride in Santa's sleigh.

"Look at this!" Jo-Ann heard the mistress exclaim.

"Wow. Where did you get all those roses?" the master asked.

The entire Christmas tree was covered with pretty white roses, all of them blooming, all tucked into a vial of water and all of them affixed to the tree via a clip. With the lights turned on behind them, the roses all glowed prettily and filled the air with the perfume of a summer garden.

The mistress and master stood and regarded the sight of their pretty tree and wondered where all the roses then covering it came from. A glance out at the garden revealed that the rose bush from whence the Thanksgiving rose had come had long ago frozen and went dormant for the winter.

"I can only think that Santa left them," the mistress said softly, then reached down to scratch the ears of one happy Belgian Malinois that had celebrated the best Christmas eve ever.

====================

TV Review-ABC's "Private Practice" and "Dirty, Sexy Money"; Fiction-"Clothes Make the Man"-a Halloween story.

2007-10-22T14:43:00.000-07:00

It's coming up on Halloween and we have our annual Halloween story.

Our protagonist had been suspicious of her sister's new boyfriend. Perhaps it was because of his penchant for pink, lacy panties.

It was when he turned up wearing a burka at her Halloween party that all hell broke loose.

Pic of the Day

Clothes Do Make the Man
===================
It didn't take a Psychology degree to know that my sister's beloved boyfriend, Marcus B. Bradford, was a transvestite. The lacy underwear would be a first clue but my sister Angie doesn't know that I know about the panties. Angie also didn't know about Mark's other hobby, which would be robbing local stores and banks while dressed in his favorite female fashion.

Were I to be painfully honest I'd have to acknowledge that I too did not know about Mark's extra-curricular robbery activities until the day he robbed a local bank dressed in a burka of all things.

The burka, that head-to-toe covering worn by Muslim females, is definitely NOT the sort of attire Mark would normally wear what with that fashion's sheet-like covering and drab coloring. In fact I'll go out on a limb here and suggest that Mark only donned a burka just so he could rob a bank and not be identified.

My darling sister Angie was but a child of 18 when she met and fell hopelessly in love with that cross-dressing loser Marcus B. Bradford. And I only include that "loser" title because of Mark's illegal activities. Transvestites have rights too.

"He's so sensitive," Angie positively purred to me after introducing me to her beau. Mark was a very nice-looking fellow, dashing, debonair, well-spoken. He was 28 years old to my baby sister's late adolescence and this fact gave me pause. Angie's a cute thing but she's no beauty. She's bright but not overly so. Her personality is bouncy at times but most times she's circumspect, almost withdrawn. I couldn't for the life of me see what this "older" fellow saw in my sister although it could have been her penchant for pink, lacy panties.

Which panties I caught the debonair Mark walking in all about our house one bright morning when I'd returned home for a forgotten object. Mark was supposed to be looking for an apartment of his own but was staying at Mom's house, allegedly in the space over our garage although I'd caught him several times prancing around my and Angie's bedroom. Angie would often be out of the room in mid of night I'd also noted. Mom thought Mark was a nice guy and a great catch for the somewhat plain Angie.

I had no idea it was Mark out and about in our community robbing liquor stores, gas stations, and once even a library! I was in the dark about this because the local yokel radio station kept reporting the "female" involved in the series of robberies in our area. Indeed Angie and I even laughed at the thought of the allegedly well-dressed woman sometimes caught on tape in the act of armed robbery.

"I'd never have the courage to rob somebody," Angie said. Of course I wouldn't either but I sort of admired the moxie of a woman who would do such a thing. I don't know why, it's an odd thing to admire. But I was nonetheless amused at the spate of robberies in our area, all attributed to this one lone female. It was the sort of thing that women take note of and no, not Mom, me or Angie noted the connection of Mark's arrival in Angie's life to the female robberies.

The female robber's taste in clothes was superb and this fact kept the pundits gossiping. "The robber wore a red linen suit accessorized with a gold starburst pin," one serious news reporter thus described, I am not making this up. Had I been paying attention to the grainy and blurry videos frequently shown on the TV I might have noticed that the infamous "fashionable female robber" was wearing one of Angie's favorite empire-waist tops along with her happening straight-legged jeans.

This is not to say there wasn't speculation that the robber might indeed be a male dressing as a woman. In fact Mom, me and Angie would often speculate that only a guy dressed up like a woman would do such a thing. "I could swear that the person, male or female, was wearing the same baby-doll top I bought just like week," Angie commented.

You'd think we'd have gotten a clue but it was a busy time for all of us. Mark was busy robbing stores all over the city while dressed as a woman. Mom was involved in some medical issue or another concerning our elderly grandmother. Angie was all in love with Mark, going out on dates and even accompanying him to look for apartments. Angie said Mark wanted her opinion because he wanted them both to live in a chosen apartment together. I was busy planning the neighborhood Halloween party in my job as President of the community association.

Hidden Pines residential association had stopped the activity of door-to-door trick or treating four years prior to Mark the transvestite's entry into our lives. The community association had agreed that if the children of the community would all cease that cherished Halloween activity of walking the streets while seeking handouts from homeowners, that the community association itself would put on a Halloween party with plenty of candy at the Hidden Pines Community Association building. It was an attempt to keep down vandalism and unknown dangers to the children.

Actually my mother, the real Hidden Pines homeowner, was the residents' association president but since she was so busy with my grandmother, I agreed to take over Mom's duties.

It was a standard Halloween party affair. We had apple dunking, a sort of Halloween piñata affair, a bogus psychic. I worked feverishly and Angie helped. We usually end these Halloween parties by having some sort of scary scene acted out. Angie was in charge of this part. I had just given the last child an orange and black cupcake topped with a candy corn when the planned drama began. I had no idea what Angie had arranged and frankly I was so tired that she could have had a real hanging for all I cared.

First the burka-clad person entered the room. I had no idea whether the human under that blue garment that completely covered the individual wearing it head to toe with just a small slit for the eyes was male or female. Further, this party attendee sure was a tad late what with almost all of the festivities over. Finally, I wondered who would wear a burka as a Halloween costume.

It was when the police burst into the room that I realized that the burka-clad person was probably Angie and this very real police scene was part of her pre-arranged scary drama. I rocked on my heels and watched the action. The kids who had not already left by that time laughed uproariously as Angie wrestled the cops who seemed determined to bring her down.

"Praise Allah!" a distinctly male voice shouted from under that burka and I'll admit this confused me. Those cops were being right rough with my little sister as well. It was one of the fake police shocked my little sister with a tazer that I decided to intervene. This was one Halloween drama that, while very realistic and interesting, was getting out of hand.

I went over and touched one of the cop's hands gently, just as a gentle reminder that these were just children here and perhaps it was time to end the drama.

Only the fake cop didn't interpret my gentle hand touch that way and before I could utter a word my own arms were pulled behind my back and I felt the cold metal of the handcuffs closing tight.

"All right you guys," I shouted because frankly I didn't like this handcuff nonsense and some of the children began crying in fear. I managed to stand upright, which isn't easy with your hands cuffed behind your back, something I did not know.

It was then that the jolt of electricity shot through me godawful. I screamed and soon the entire room of costumed children were screaming and running around. The person in the burka was shouting praises to Allah and some Hidden Pines resident dressed as a police officer was shouting in my ear to lay still or I'd get zapped again.

So far as I was concerned these guys had carried their reality a little too far. "You get these handcuffs off of me or I'm going to call the REAL cops on you creeps," I shouted. Another jolt from the tazer sent me tumbling to the floor. Once the redness of the pain cleared from my vision, I looked up to see Angie sobbing hysterically over my prostrate body.

"Cathy, it's Marcus," I heard Angie say through her sobs. "He's in the burka. These cops are real. They think he just robbed the bank down on Route 15."

Of course my mind was not processing information correctly what with my body still shaking from the tazer jolts and the nut in the burka still praising Allah. I managed to sit upright and noted the burka was now in a cloth puddle on the association's floor. I also noted Mark, wearing only a pair of maroon women's underwear, was standing by the burka pile, his hands handcuffed behind him. Mark continued to shout praise to Allah.

The Hidden Pines Residents Association settled with the children left so terrified by the incident that their little minds would not rest until their parents were given a few hundred bucks to help make their kids forget the sight of my own fine self screaming, handcuffed and tazered, not to mention Mark and the maroon women's panties.

Mom got her mother settled into the nursing home and sent in notice to the residents association a commitment that when it was her turn to run the annual Halloween party she would not allow her daughters as replacement.

I survived the tazering and no, the cops did not apologize to me even though I explained the cause of my confusion. It seems that due to the recent spate of robberies the local police department had cops staked out at certain liquor stores and banks in the area. When Mark left the bank in that burka, a cop assigned to the bank he'd robbed followed him. Mark had made a beeline directly to our Halloween party, which he'd known about, I suppose to somehow assimilate in with the costumed children long enough for the police to lose his trail, I just don't know.

Mark got five years with a possibility of parole after three years. He shares a cell with a big guy known as "Babe".

It was how this mess affected Angie that is most amazing result of this fiasco. Once Mark was arrested and our family's rather stupid involvement with Mark became publicly known, a local daytime woman's talk show found out that it was Angie's fashions that Mark had been wearing all over town during his robbing stampede. Angie was booked as a guest and what with this attention and, I must admit, Angie's fine fashion sense, an investor came forward with an offer to finance Angie's own fashion line.

"Angie's Apparel" was featured on The Learning Channel, along with the story of Mark the transvestite and her dopey sister of the painful tazers.

Mark's jailhouse lawyer has written a letter demanding equal share in the company. Angie and I both have a tazer gun ready if that nut ever comes near our house.

FOCUS ON FICTION
===============
She wanted a man just like her favorite bird-the cardinal.

Her wish was granted.

So why is she fleeing far away to the west coast?

=================
From Chaucer's Women

We may be breaking the law, but the intellectual property is mine. It's fiction but hey it's blisteringly political.

The story involves a prominent politician and was part of a larger book of such short stories.

Check it out and see if you can guess who it is And the famous incident it details. Hint: Younger folks might not get it but the more mature will recognize it immediately.

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