Previous ||| Next
The Deconstruction of Falling Stairs
We figured when the walls started to bleed brown goo that it was time to call in a builder. The house had a track record of ceilings caving in and walls crumbling at inopportune times so maybe not taking preventative steps was where we'd been going wrong previously.
The builder surveyed the gaping hole and the oozing brown scunge bubbling forth.
"Buggered if I know what it is mate. Cost you five big ones to get it fixed up though"
"How can you fix it if you don't know what it is?" I felt compelled to ask.
"Well if I say I can't fix it you get some other johnny-come-lately to show up and claim he can fix it without knowing what it is either. Easy job, clean out the gunk, blast the void with expanding builder's foam, slap a new bit of wall on, all done. Wonderful stuff expanding builder's foam" he said, raising an eyebrow to the audience as if this was the set-up to an obvious joke.
But I refused to play ball and instead he got to work.
The scream didn't come until maybe an hour later. The builder ran out of the house clutching his hand and leaving behind his expanding builder's foam in its compressed air gun, the camera lingering on it just long enough to clue you in that it might come in useful later. We heard the sound of a van tearing away down the street and went to investigate the structural damage he'd left. The gash in the wall was twice the size now and the ooze had started to harden. There was a bloody handprint slowly melting into the matte brown surface texture.
That was when my beloved noticed that the breadmaker fuse had shorted out, and that a packet of gingerbread mix was missing.
"Wait" she said, pausing to gather her thoughts in the cutest way possible (for she is not only terribly smart but also devilishly pretty), "if this was one of your stupid stories, what would the link be between brown goo pouring out of the walls and the breadmaker having shorted out mid mix-cycle?"
It didn't take us long to discover that our house had become possessed by a gingerbread demon.
"We need a priest" she said
"We need a baker" I replied
It was about this point when things got even weirder when two Eastern European children showed up at the door saying they had felt an uncontrollable urge drawing them towards our house. The little girl pointed to our house number and gasped.
"Zuh number auf zuh yeast!" she said in a thick Lithuanian accent.
"Oh God, this is one of your stupid stories!" wailed my beautiful girlfriend "will it never end?"
So it did, just as I was about to implement my plan to use the builder's expanding foam mixed with icing sugar to tame the gingerbread demon.
Jan.30.2007