Note: The following is an alternate take on the action in the previous post. And yes, this one is twisted. Things happen when you can’t leave the house…
Saffrogette, left: “And then you bounce the ball like this and you try to grab the jacks before it bounces only one time. First you grab one, and then you grab two, and then you grab three, and then you grab five.”
Moppetina, middle front: “This is so exciting! I love not going to school during the Current Teen. I don’t ever want to go back. My teacher smells like bathrooms.”
Henrietta, middle back: “The stupidity exuding from your pores is going to destroy this nation.”
Saffrogette: “Hey! I think you’re being mean. Momma said you can’t be mean just because we’re prettier and you’re jello-ish.”
Moppetina: “And we’re not stupid. You’re stupid. Reading that stupid book about stupid stuff. It’s stupid.”
Henrietta: “Do you realize that the more you talk the more you prove my theorem that somebody screwed up in the delivery room with the two of you? Or maybe they screwed up with me. I’m still doing research.”
Saffrogette: “What’s research?”
Moppetina: “And who’s Theo?”
Henrietta, sighing: “I don’t have the strength to even care enough to explain. You go back to your mindless grabbing and I’ll go back to reading this book.”
Saffrogette: “Wait a minute. That’s not a regular book. That’s Momma’s diary!”
Henrietta: “No it’s not.”
Moppetina: “Yes, it is. I wreck and nice it. I tried to look at it once but I couldn’t break the lock.”
Henrietta: “Honey, there’s no lock. You just… open it.”
Moppetina: “Oh. Well, maybe I don’t know how to open a book. Reading is hard.”
Saffrogette suddenly races toward Henrietta and snatches up the diary, hurling it across the room with an agility that is quite surprising in someone who can’t properly count to five. (Said diary slams against a wall smothered in velvet wallpaper, a decorating option that should never have happened, ever.) “You know you’re not supposed to touch that!”
Henrietta: “That kind of behavior is not going to help you find a good husband. And you’re going to need one. Trust me on that. And I was just getting to the good part.”
Moppetina: “Momma has good parts? She makes me eat broccoli. I have nightmares.”
Henrietta: “Yes, it was a good part. I had just found the entry where she talks about her fantasies.”
Saffrogette: “You mean like that Walt Disney movie?”
Henrietta: “Um, no. Not like that at all. Although she apparently likes to have classical music playing when they have sex.”
Moppetina: “What’s a sex?”
Saffrogette: “And how do you have it?”
Henrietta: “You know what? I just realized that I’m playing to the wrong crowd here. It’s going to be years before you have the processing capacity to deal with this, if ever. Let’s just say that Mother and Daddy play games just like we do, but those games are just a bit more complicated than ours, even if some of them also involve bouncing balls and getting as many jacks as you can. And if my spidey sense is correct, there’s a game going on right now just over yonder, in the parental playroom. I distinctly heard someone biting an apple.”
Moppetina: “I’m very confused.”
Henrietta: “That surprises me in no way. Let’s just say we have to pretend that this conversation never happened. And that we didn’t read Mother’s diary. We have to hide the evidence before Daddy finds out. Mother will forgive us, because she takes happy pills, but Daddy is more anal retentive.”
Saffrogette: “I never read anything. So they know I’m not the one who broke the lock on the diary.”
Henrietta: “There’s no lock, Sister. Anyway, you need to sneak the diary back into Mother’s room before they get done playing jacks in the next room.”
Saffrogette: “Why me? I didn’t do anything wrong. Not that I remember.”
Henrietta: “Well, I remember you playing with that croquet mallet in the living room when you shouldn’t have.”
Saffrogette: “Fine. I’ll sneak it back. And I won’t say a word if you won’t say a word about what really happened to Granny Greta’s urn.”
Henrietta: “Run with the wind, sister from a possibly other mister.”
Saffrogette grabbed the lockless diary and scampered.
Moppetina: “I’m still very confused.”
Henrietta: “As are the folks reading this post who didn’t read the previous post. Still, everything will be okay if you just keep your mouth shut. Pinky swear?”
Moppetina: “Swear.”
Meanwhile, in the adjoining room, after the dismount…
Babs: “Well, then. That was festive. We should argue more often.”
Hank: “Any time. I tried to stifle my jubilation, but that field goal was spectacular. Do you think the offspring heard anything?”
Babs: “Of course not. They’re just children. But if questions arise, we lie. Pinky swear?”
Hank: “Swear.”
Two minutes later, Saffrogette is in the midst of skillfully returning the diary when she spies something confusing in the drawer of Momma’s nightstand. What on earth would she need THAT for? Hmm.
Categories: Humor
Bonnywood Manor 
Oh, you are soooo twisted. ‘Wreck and nice’- that sounds like Donald’s blueprint for firing, then hiring. Is this becoming a serial? If so will Saffrogettes discovery eventually come to some satisfactory conclusion?
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I certainly had fun with the “wreck and nice” bit. (I admittedly spend far too much time with wordplay than one should.) And I actually HAVE been thinking about doing a full-on serial, but that would require at least some degree of planning, and I’m sure you noticed that my normal MO is “whatever spills out, run with it..”
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Well, I never feel like its time spent at wordplay, its more a rewarding vacation. As for MO ain’t it odd how you can plan on writing something, the blueprint is right there, yet you wind up a million miles and points away from where you started. Maybe it is the journey?
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It IS the journey. 97% of the stories I scribble are not what I intended them to be when I sat down with a cup of coffee and a vision…
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Why are those urchins up at this hour? Didn’t they get their teaspoon of rum in the hot chocolate? I guess Barb was too busy eating apples. 😉
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Time loses some of it’s dimension when you have to look at the same people every day, so we’ll have to excuse Barb for her lackluster home-management during this staycation…
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This is painful for me. My memory of jacks is treading on the ones my little sisters forgot to pick up. Ouch, ouch, ouch!
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Those little suckers could take your breath away if your foot landed just right…
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I love your twisted mind! I do wonder what new doors Saffrogette’s discovery might open😉
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Oh, I’m sure she’ll need therapy at some point, but she’ll get over it. We all do…
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Good one, Brian – and I particularly loved your picture of the little girls with the jacks!
Happy Easter!
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Thanks, Sheila! I love how the photographer captured the ball in mid-air…
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I have been (perhaps unnoticeably) silent during the Corona Camp Frolics. But this one I felt compelled to comment on. For one thing it brought back somewhat traumatic memories of me and conversations with my siblings, who were playing “Match cars” and not jacks, being they were male. Neither admired reading as much as I did though and still don’t. One is addicted to biographies from sketchy politicians and keeps trying to encourage me to read them (not EVER happening. 1) Boring and 2) fiction ought to be fun. Those biographies? Lies dressed up as reality. I can get that just watching the news. Who needs to read about it?) and the other likes reading. Sometimes. But rarely does because he has too much else to do all the time. Reading is a luxury. I got off track. ANYWAY. This post also evoked the possibly mentioned before time I almost caught my parents In flagrante delicto one afternoon. They claimed to be napping, even though it was the middle of the afternoon and neither were wearing any clothes.
I tucked the scene away and didn’t haul it out for examination until years later when my libido suddenly blossomed and certain things clicked and I realized what I had almost witnessed. The subtle sheen of sweat, the rosy cheeks on both (FACIAL cheeks), the slight air of breathlessness, the weird smell… Yeah. No privacy in that house. I suppose the only time for frolics of a boinky nature was when the children were safely in school.
Later I learned the prudent thoughtfulness behind locking the damned door. My father caught myself and my now deceased hubby in much the same compromising situation. I never knew, but my mother thought it was wildly funny and told me. I was mortified and always made sure the damned doors were locked if hubby got frisky.
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I have noticed your silence, and I did wonder a bit if you were going through a situation. On the flip side, I have once again been sporadic with my own comments on your site, so I just hoped that you were busy doing other things as I was. (Besides, you may not have cared for my prying, if I had asked. Personally, I tend to “process” situations in a silo, generally, unless I throw it all out there in a post, opening up the discussion. Of course, on the other flip side, you may have posted about it and I’ve just missed it.) Dang, that’s two of us off track.
I also have experienced the utter shock of walking in on my parents when my doing so was clearly not on their bucket list. Multiple times. And I could probably get multiple posts out of that mess. Fodder for another day.
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Whoa… starting to connect posts! How positively daring of you! And fiendishly clever as well. I, for one, loved seeing the action from the other side of the door.
Also, I sooooo loved playing jacks as a kid. I even won the Rainy-Day-Schedule-Second-Grade-Jacks-Tournament of 1971.
Admit it. You’re jealous.
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I AM jealous. I was all about competitions as a student, something that should not surprise you. Of course, one thing I gleaned from my efforts is that if you win a lot of competitions, you lose a lot of friends. Because children can be little assholes.
As for the post connections, obbverse has me pondering a multi-part serial. Ideas are percolating. Stay tuned!
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