It Happened One Night, Sans Gable and Colbert, Unfortunately
’Cause that sure would have been oodles better than this
It was my bedroom, but it was not my bedroom.
Striding into my room, wearing my Dr. Denton jammies after a bath, getting ready to settle into a story or two or three before drifting off to noddy-noddy land— or was it nodding off to drifty-drifty land? — something was amiss.
First of all, in the middle of the room was a tuffet.
A big fat round velvet tuffet the color of aubergine. That’s eggplant for the Anglo Saxons among us. Where did that come from? It almost completely covered the small braided rug my great, great grammy made me.
Well, she didn’t make it for me. We never met. But she did make it and it was in my room so I don’t have to put my bare feet on the cold wooden floor.I could barely see the rug peeking out from under the tuffet.
Not being familiar with tuffets personally, but having heard tell of them, I decided to try it out. What could it hurt? I put my hand on it gingerly at first. Then pushed down. Nice and firm, and soft given the velvet. And fairly clean.
So I plunked my bottom down fair square in the center of said round tuffet. So far so good.
Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, along came a huge spider. I mean the size of a king crab with almost as many legs. And hairy! Like a giant tarantula. Came right up looking like it wanted to sit down beside me and my brand-to-me new tuffet.
That might have been okay but then it gave me the evil eye like it wanted to sit on top of my brand new-to-me tuffet. Or even worse, on top of me.
I screamed and jumped on my bed.
Then I reached over and grabbed my stick horse. And started swinging. I didn’t want to kill it. I just wanted to shoo it back wherever the heck it came from.
It ran into my closet. I ran after it and slammed the door shut. And stood there shaking and gasping for air.
When I turned around, there was a huge candlestick. Burning. With a flame I mean. Sitting right on top of the tuffet. What in blazes was going on?
We’re not allowed to light candles.
Not even when the ’lectricity goes out. Too dangerous. We have flashlights and battery lamps for that. So I went to blow out the candle on the candlestick.
All of a sudden, the closet door flew open, knocking me down from behind. And this little elfen guy flew across the room and leaped over the candlestick. Then he turned and ran and leaped over it again. He did it three more times before he slowed down to catch his breath.
Jack! I screamed. Your pants are on fire!
That must have been his name ’cause he looked and started screaming and running around the room.
No, duck and roll! I shouted, grabbing a blanket off the bed to roll him up in. Like Mommy told us about. You never run if you’re on fire. You smother it out with a blanket or braided rug or something.
I threw the blanket over Jack. His arms flailed. I grabbed the stick horse and knocked him over just like he’d done to me.
Now roll you bugger! I yelled at the smoking blanket blob. I bent over him and pushed him back and forth till the smoke stopped. Then I grabbed last night’s glass of water from my nightstand and dumped it on the smoldering part of what was left of my blanket.
Thanks a lot, Jack!
I unrolled the blanket to make sure he was breathing in there. When he was able to speak, he moved his arms wildly, and yelled, look out! He grabbed me and shoved us both to one side, hard.
Splat! The baby-laden cradle barely missed us.
The baby started wailing as pieces of broken branches rained down on all of us. Just then the closet door opened and the spider, looking even bigger than before, pranced over and started spinning silk strands around the baby, cradle and all — from its butt. Like a fly trapped on a web.
Then the candlestick burst into flame again. It was lying on its side under all those fallen branches. Soon there was a raging bonfire where the tuffet used to be. As I dashed through the door, Jack was leaping over the bonfire screaming. It must have caught on a sock or sleeve or maybe the baby.
I slammed the door shut on my way downstairs, yelling Mommm!
Marilyn Flower writes humor to laugh the changes she wants to see and make. She’s the author of Creative Blogging: Ninja Writers Guide to Character Development and Bucket Listers, Get Your Brave On. Clowning and improvisation strengthen her resolve during these crazy times. Stay in touch!
LOL that was awesome! Nice work!
This is hilarious ! You brought us on a wild ride.