Posts Tagged ‘My sister Erin’

I’ve misplaced the can opener. Can we just use your fangs?

Tuesday, July 26th, 2011

By Tiber

In common with a lot of other people today, my youngest sister, Erin, is obsessed with vampires.

In entertainment, vampires definitely are all over the place. With so much repetition, however, the line between the fictional and the real begins to blur. And now Erin is starting to speculate whether, with so many people living here, one of us might be a vampire too.

Since Erin works at Larry’s Discount Occult, she would love to be that vampire herself. If she promised not to “undead” the customers, it would really increase her sales figures.

She’s not the one, of course, so her eye keeps falling elsewhere.

Our brother, Duncan, is weird enough but not cool enough.

Our sister, Vanessa, is beautiful and pale but she’s also so disdainful that while many people would like to bite her, they’re generally too scared to do it.

I’d love it if it were Mom. The idea of someone politely stalking the Junior League to pounce on those pearl-clad necks is pretty funny.

But if I had to pick one person in the house as being our vampire, I guess I’d have to go with Brunty, the butler. He’s so absent-minded, he would think he had bitten people when he hadn’t – which would explain our low vamp count.

And thank God that for a long time, he’s been losing his sense of smell. I’m pretty sure that if you had to, you could keep him from craving your blood by just pacifying him with a warm Bloody Mary.

Big bargain days at Larry’s Discount Occult!

Friday, May 27th, 2011

By Tiber

I stopped by to visit my youngest sister, Erin, at Larry’s Discount Occult, where she works part-time. I always like visiting Larry’s but I have to admit that their products and even the customers tend to confuse me.

When they got the lighter-weight cauldrons in for the spring, Erin had to explain.

“How else can you pop one easily into the car in case you want to mix up a few spells while out on a picnic?”

Then, today, I asked why all of their skull placemats were on sale.

“Because people never buy as many skull placemats in the summertime as they do in the winter! Duh!”

Uh…Okay.

What really bothered me, though, was that the love potions were all marked down as half-off.

Should love potions ever be on sale for half-off?

If you used one, would your partner then leave halfway through the relationship? Would your spouse end up loving you only on alternate days?

I may not know much about cauldrons or skull placemats but I feel pretty sure that when buying, say, firecrackers, parachutes and love potions, you probably should always spring for the ones that are full price.

Thumbs up, thumbs down, your thumb’s now on the ground

Thursday, March 31st, 2011

By Tiber

My youngest sister, Erin, is getting “BlackBerry thumb.” It’s no surprise since she’s constantly on her hand-held.

I tried to scare her into putting it down by saying that soon, we would be forced to attach tiny wheels to her hands in order for her to operate them at all.  It didn’t work.

The only one who has succeeded in getting her to put it down has been Larry, the proprietor of “Larry’s Discount Occult,” where Erin works part- time.

He just banned the use of anything personal on company time and, after an initial melt-down, Erin and the others are learning how to look people in the face without getting so startled, that they leap backwards and trip.

I stopped in to say hi and even here at Larry‘s Discount Occult, the signs of upcoming spring are unmistakable. Erin has put flowers behind the gargoyles’ ears, and witches hats in pastel colors have just arrived.

Plus, lighter weight cauldrons have come in – evidently so you can throw one in the back of the car and knock out a few spells while you’re visiting out of town.

Even the dog and cat treat section (“Get familiar with your familiar!”) now has some lower-fat snacks.

So with all of these signs, before you know it, it will be summer. And we’ll all be picking blackberries. We’ll just have to learn how to do it without using our BlackBerry thumbs.

There will be no dancing at the wrecking ball

Wednesday, December 8th, 2010

 

By Tiber

As you know, my sister, Iris Nell, does not cope well in the real world but she wants to bring in more money too so when one of the nearby little villages decided to do some town tours to drum up tourism, Iris Nell went over and got the job. She loves history and anything old.

The problem is, there’s not much left that‘s old or interesting in this little town so her planned “Local Architectural Jewels” segment really was more of a “They Destroyed That for This?!?”

At the new sewage plant, all Iris Nell could do was pass around a picture of the beautiful little Victorian hotel that had stood there before.

At the current “Bonanza Pete’s Dented Cans Discount Store,” she showed her group a photo of the Palladian-styled library that had been wrecking balled for it.

“It‘s such a shame,” Iris Nell lamented so a group member tried to cheer her up. “Those dented cans are a real bargain, though!“

Things picked up slightly in passing a local bar, where the tour group knew the most memorable town moment all by themselves.

“Hey, when they shot that movie here, isn’t this where that starlet got hammered and threw up on the mayor?”

Iris Nell wasn’t going to mention that bit of town lore but the group was more excited than it had been all evening so she finally nodded and pics were gleefully taken of the pavement.

She finished up her tour at the town cemetery. At least there are still old things there and the people are the same.

Our much youngest sister, Erin, who’d come along for a laugh, thought the tour was dying even here, so she grabbed a white skirt from her car and went floating around the graves in the distance. That got everyone’s riveted attention – especially when the “ghost” took a header over a marker and smashed into the ground.

There was a pause. “That ghost just fell over a tombstone. Can’t they go through things?”

Furious that she could lose her job, Iris Nell ran after the “ghost” who quickly leaped up and pirouetted off into the woods.

“My God, you’re brave!,” the group told Iris Nell. “You just chased off a ghost!” But she waved off the praise.

“I happen to know that particular ghost and though it won’t stay grounded in the graveyard, I have ways of getting it grounded somewhere else.

If you’d like to leave a message…

Saturday, August 7th, 2010

By Tiber

The veil, as they say, is a little thinner for my youngest sister, Erin.

She’s always been aware of other worlds and though she doesn’t actually see dead people – for now – she definitely is in communication with them. Of course, you just know that with us, even this rarely runs smoothly.

When Iris Nell couldn’t decide which of two guys would be better to date, Erin had one of her “vivid dreams” about it. Some of our ancestors put the two men on either side of a giant scale and were about to weigh their merits. Then a bell rang. Iris Nell was thrilled.

 “And? And? Which one came out best?”

“I don’t know.” Erin had to admit. “Dream pizza was delivered and the rest of the time everybody just sat there chewing.”

Sometimes, Erin is psychic and she gets messages while she’s awake. She clearly is receiving information that she herself does not know. The problem is, it’s information that you already do know. She’ll announce, “Your car keys are in your jacket pocket and not on the table where you usually put them.”

“I know. I’m going right back out.”

“Oh.”

Or “Kru is the one who’s got your candy.”

“Yeah, I know. I decided I didn’t want it and I gave it to him.”

“…Oh.”

Erin even told Iris Nell that our late great-grandmother Maggie had visited Iris Nell in her room the night before.

“You were trying on a pair of new pants.”

“Oh, my God! She was actually there! She saw me with my new pants! What else did she say?!?”

“She said, ‘Don’t ever wear them again. They make your thighs look huge.'”

Proof of existence after death? Fantastic!

Being our dead people? Whatever they pass along is either incomplete, obvious or insulting.

Meanwhile…back at Larry’s Discount Occult

Sunday, February 28th, 2010

 

By Tiber 

As I said before, since I’m unemployed, sometimes in the afternoon, I drop by to say hi to my teenage sister, Erin, at her new part-time job at Larry’s Discount Occult. (Whose motto is “Sure you want to hex them but why pay full price?”)

This time, she had a suggestion for me.

“Hey, since you need a new job, people tell me they’ve had great luck attracting work by using these skull candles. You burn them outdoors while you dance naked around an oak tree, repeating your career goal over and over.”

I told her that certainly would solve the job problem since people put into mental institutions aren’t required to have them.

Fortunately, a customer arrived before Erin could “help” me any more. This new guy was pale, gaunt and clearly demonic-looking. But Erin was all cheery as she approached him.

“Hello. Oh, wow. Something smells good. What is it?”

I panicked. What the hell was she thinking?!? That smell clearly came from the cologne of the last person this guy killed. Or maybe he has scented satin in the coffin he sleeps in.

The man paused – way too long, I thought – and then, finally said, “Cookie dough.”

Oh, dear God. I saw it all clearly in an instant. Erin had forced him to lie and now he knew that we knew he had lied because he was hiding something horrific. And he wasn’t about to let that get out. The only way to stop it would be to kill us.

But then the man just proceeded to buy a dancing ghost cookie jar and a set of “black-cats-in-hats” place-mats for a party he was throwing for his grandkids. Evidently, he did smell like cookie dough.

I find vetting the customers at Larry’s Discount Occult very difficult. If I worked here, I’d end up beating innocent shoppers with the broomsticks while the undead easily raided the till.

Get familiar with your familiar…at Larry’s Discount Occult

Friday, November 13th, 2009
By Tiber
 
In a real sign that all may not be well around here financially, Dad has decreed that everybody has to get a job.
 
My youngest sister, Erin, who’s still in high school, has landed a part-time job as a salesgirl at “Larry’s Discount Occult.” (“Sure you want to hex them but why pay full price?”)
My father is less than thrilled with Erin’s employment venue but part-time jobs can be hard to find. Oddly enough, my mother, the more religious parent, is fine with it.
 
Larry, the shop proprietor, also pays well. Maybe when your employees can turn you into a newt, you have to.
 
In any event, Larry’s Discount Occult carries a lot of regular items too, like candles and aromatherapy stuff. If they have any smells that calm people down, I’m hoping Erin can use her store discount and bring an industrial-sized drum back here for the family.
I dropped by the shop to say hello. While Erin was busy with a customer, I  picked out some of the dog and cat treats (“Get familiar with your familiar!”) to buy for ours. Dogs and cats, I mean, Not familiars. Well, maybe they are familiars and I just don’t know it.  How do you know? I’ll have to ask Erin how that works. I guess if some man comes at you too fast and instead of just hissing or barking, your animal latches onto the guy’s face, causing  him to sprout donkey’s ears, that might be a give-away.
 
Anyway, Erin’s customer had only come in for a crescent moon pendant for his girlfriend but by the time he left, Erin had also convinced him to buy a large garden gargoyle and a pair of bat-head slippers. I think she may have some real retail ability.
I spotted some custom-made love potions and asked,
“Hey, how about brewing one up for me? I could finally attract the right woman!” Erin quickly made herself all fake busy.
“…Erin?“
She clearly didn’t want to help me.
“Come on! Why won’t you make one for me?”

Because, she finally murmured, they weren’t allowed, by law, to mix anything that strong.