Feed me, Seymour

October 15th, 2011

 

By Tiber

Even in this economic squeeze, Dad is still loathe to give up Cook. He loves her desserts so much.

Sometimes, when she makes him peach cobbler, he’ll flee with a piece of it and all you can hear is growling and chewing, like a lion, gnawing on a wildebeest.

Dad also doesn’t want to let Cook go because he knows that putting Mom in the kitchen would be like putting a detonator in a dynamite plant.

In this bad economy, however, Dad figured that, at least, he could ask Cook to cut back on the price of the food she buys.

You remember, he tried to get all of us to switch to Spam but that just ended with Spam not so much being eaten as, surreptitiously, stashed under sofas and into light fixtures.

Cook’s buying some kind of less expensive food, however.

Probably exactly like his own friends, Dad doesn’t want anybody to know he’s short of cash so he and Mom are still inviting people over for dinner regularly and Cook is still serving everyone delicious meals.

Of course, neither Dad nor the guests know exactly what’s in the meals now and you constantly hear comments like,

Guest: “This is really good!…What ingredients exactly are…” (trailing off, trying to sound natural).

Mom: “Thank you! We love Cook’s recipe for…” (trailing off too, having no idea what’s in it either).

Guest: (trying to get it out of her), “You must ask Cook to give me the recipe!”

Mom: “Oh, well, you know how cooks are about their work.” (No way will you ever know what we‘re serving tonight).

Nowadays, we may be down to lawn trimmings and chicken chins.

Of course, the reason Mom and Dad’s friends all want that recipe is because they’re probably down to lawn trimmings and chicken chins too.

It’s just that, in their case, it tastes like it.

It’s automated

October 12th, 2011

By Tiber

We are horrible people.

Lots of us were home today when Dad had his business meeting.  And did anybody remember to ask if the visitor had a blue car? Of course not.

We realized it when the inevitable piercing metallic shrieks began.

Yes, because of my soft-hearted mother and my sister, Iris Nell, we still have the two peacocks and yes, the male still will not mate with the, uh…full of  fun and personality-  oh, who am I kidding, ugly-ass peahen.

So, on at least three occasions, he has tried to tap blue cars.

It can’t be comfortable for him but, clearly, he’s too focused on his mission to care.

By the time I got out there, Cook was trying to remove the bird with a broom. Brunty, the butler, had brought the first thing he could find and he was throwing after-dinner mints at it.  My parents haven’t used the mints lately and they’d gotten hard, so they weren’t dislodging the bird so much as further denting the car.

I’d brought out a new package of socks so you can see how astute we all are in a sudden emergency.

Nothing worked anyway until the peacock was done. Dad’s business meeting was pretty much done too.

The last time this happened, my sister, Vanessa, told Iris Nell to just make the peahen some sexy lingerie and try to put a stop to this. Now, I think it’s too late even for that. After awhile, a man simply develops a new type.

Halloween’s coming up and I think the best thing we can do is to put Iris Nell to work on the costume front…and dress up the peahen as a sleek, new, 2012, blue Lamborghini.

Rock & Dough

October 9th, 2011

By Tiber

Mother Shipton was a seer or a psychic who was born back in the late 1400’s in England.

She evidently lived in a cave and I just read where her cave is still a big tourist attraction to this day.

This is partly due to what’s called the “Petrifying Water Well,” which, because of the excessive amounts of minerals in the water, can, over time, make things turn to stone.

I need to check this out as a money-making venture because we’ve got three family members in this house alone who can turn whole people into stone just by glaring at them!

Mom can do it, when someone is rude. Iris Nell can do it,  if anyone’s unkind. And Vanessa can do it if anyone’s an idiot.

And they can all do it instantly! No waiting!

So line up, pony up and get your tickets right here!

Of course, the minute I suggest this, all three of them will ice me like a cube.

I’m going to have to think of a way to market them without looking.

Grab your partner, watch that gourd

October 6th, 2011

By Tiber 

Evidently, there was a dance over in the servants’ hall.

Cook was making trips in and out, unloading groceries, and she inadvertently locked the kitchen door. The luggage entrance was locked as well.

Cook didn’t want to come over and use any of the doors in the main house because, like everybody else on staff, she’s trying to avoid Dad in case he ends up having to fire people and remembers who’s on the payroll.

So she started yelling through the closed servant’s hall window, why the hell wouldn’t some slacker unlock the damned door, knowing full well that the fault was all hers.

Brunty, the butler, looked outside. and with typical Brunty logic, decided that Cook, corkscrewing her body in a dervish fit of fury, was actually dancing.

So he started clapping along to the “beat” of Cook’s outdoor contortions. and when his delighted wife saw him so animated for a change, she grabbed him and they started to whirl around the room. 

Two of the security guys, who had thought they’d heard someone yelling but now found only a happy couple dancing, started to dance with two of the maids.

The party ended abruptly,  however, when a pumpkin was suddenly thrown through the window, accompanied by arcs of breaking glass.

Cook can’t dance but she sure can throw.

Half-price wands! Get ’em right here!

October 3rd, 2011

 

By Tiber

I’ve gotten a job. Well, part-time for a month anyway.

Now that Iris Nell has taken over my other sister Erin’s sales job at Larry’s Discount Occult, she recommended me to be one of the extra salespeople for the Halloween rush.

So I’ve been spending a lot of time unwrapping skulls.

Evidently, for many people, their own one skull just isn’t enough. So I’ve put out skull mugs, skull paperweights, skull earrings, skull belt buckles,  skull candy…

Iris Nell seems to think I’m doing a pretty good job but, as I’ve always said, Larry’s customers tend to confuse me. The Boris Karloff look-a-like that I had pegged for a serial killer just came in to get some LED candles. He was giving a little party at a nursing home and he didn‘t want the old people to feel unsafe having real candles.

On the other hand, the smiling and normal looking suburban mom asked me, with lowered voice, that if she followed the directions perfectly, was it really possible to turn someone into a newt?

Who did she have in mind? Her husband? A neighbor? The head of the P.T.A.?

Our grand prize this year for the big Halloween drawing is a jumbo-sized cauldron. Great for potions but also good if you just really, really, really like soup. (Or, in my case, want enough popcorn to last through two films!)

Of course, this year, I can’t enter the drawing. I’m now an employee at Larry’s Discount Occult. Maybe I’ll just buy a cauldron anyway. I can always use my huge supernatural employee discount.

The Candy Man can

September 30th, 2011

By Tiber

I thought it might make me feel better about losing my job to read where some U.S. presidents have had tough personal moments of their own. At least I haven’t lost the house china in a poker game (President Harding) or gotten stuck in a bathtub (President Taft) or been stopped by the police for speeding on a horse (President Grant).

But then of course, there’s President Thomas Jefferson, who along with all of that “Declaration” paperwork, also invented a clock, a new plow, the swivel chair, a concave mirror, the dumbwaiter and a copying machine.

Here I’m not working at all and the only thing I’ve come up with is my remote-controlled “candypault.”

I put candy across the room on my dresser so I won’t eat it but then the second I’m in bed, I want it anyway and I’m too lazy to get up. So I invented the “candypault” which allows me to ignore my good intentions and shoots the candy right back.

Hey, it’s a start.

It’s all relative

September 27th, 2011

 

By Tiber 

Today is Ancestor Appreciation Day! So get out there and appreciate an ancestor!

You’ll notice I said pick just one.

We go back so many generations now, we’re all bound to be a bizarre, sorry, I mean, interesting mix.

People who are rich now had some dirt poor forebearers along the way.

Insecure strugglers today are related to confident successes of the past.

But all of us are bound to find at least one ancestor who was responsible for founding a town! That’s right! Impressive, isn’t it? He actually helped to build up a new city from scratch…because everybody else hated him so much, they went down the road and formed another community, just to get away from him.

“Dearly beloved…first of all, do any of you know where the bride and groom are?”

September 23rd, 2011

By Tiber 

My sister, Iris Nell, got a quick job I had never even heard of. She was hired out as a bridesmaid for a big wedding where the bride didn’t have enough close friends to match the number of groomsmen.

Iris Nell seems like a wonderful choice. She’s pretty, she’s empathetic, she can fit into that extra dress.

Uh…let’s go back to the empathetic part, shall we? The ever-romantic Iris Nell really got into the couples’ back story.

She was fascinated by how they had dated for so long, broken up three times but had always gotten back together again. And this time it was for keeps! It was true love! She teared up and babbled on.

Iris Nell said this was the kind of love we all seek since, in spite of their difficulties, these two were destiny-fated-soul-mates, propelled back once again into each others’ tree-like arms in a tight and clinging embrace that now would never break but instead would super-glue their entwined bodies together until the end of time.

Frankly, I think a number of people might find Iris Nell’s idea of an eternal love bond similar to being exiled to Elba shackled to a fire alarm.

And guess what? These two people were in that group, yelling “Dear God, get us out of this!”

Nothing else could rip this couple apart but Iris Nell‘s romantic love-gush did.

The last I heard, even the groom’s parents were splitting up. And by all accounts, they had always been happy.