Cutting Up

Periwinkle Chronicles, tales of the citizens of Periwinkle [because all the other colors were already taken] County:
***
Kate Bates went into town to get replacement glass for the door panel that Shingles, the dog, broke out as he tried to escape from Kate’s granddaughter, three-year-old Clara Wembley, as Clara sought to wreak revenge on Shingles for stealing her blankie on Christmas eve of 2009 by dressing him or her—no one is quite sure of Shingles’ gender—like Sara Palin. To keep Shingles relatively safe, Kate took Clara along with her.

“I can cut that glass for you, Ms. Kate,” said Frank Innstein, “but I’ve got to go out back to do it, so you’ll have to watch the store.”

“Well, okay,” said Kate. “I’ve always wanted to run a hardware store.”

The telephone rang. Kate answered. “Frank Innstein’s Monster Hardware and Banquet Hall.” It was Ima Newsance, inquiring about renting the banquet hall.

“Is it an affair or a shindig?” asked Kate. “I’m looking at the rate chart here beside the phone, and the rates for shindigs of various sorts are posted, but for ‘affairs’ it says, talk with Frank. Oh…okay, hold on. I’ll go out back and ask Frank.”

“Clara, you stay right here,” she said as she left.

The Rev. Dr. Randall Nathan, (Retard), which is how they pronounce retired in Periwinkle County, or at least that’s what they tell him, was in his usual booth at The Lost Horizon Coffee Bar and Pilot School, with a Twitter he had received from Antony Weiner on the table in front of him, to keep anyone from sitting with him, lest he lose points in the Hermudgeon of the Year competition, hermudgeon being a conflation of hermit and curmudgeon, when his wife, Claire, came in and slipped into the booth across from him.

“Randall, I think you’d better come,” said Claire.

“What’s up?”

“Well, I went to the hardware store, and Clara is behind the counter. She’s the only person in there. She’s having a clearance sale on For Sale signs, and all the boys in fifth grade are buying them. There are For Sale signs on every church and school building in town, and some on the backs of teachers, too.”

“Well, that sounds like a good prank,” said The Rev. Dr. Nathan.

Claire took a deep breath. “Clara also said that Frank and Kate are out in back cutting up and having an affair.”

***
The similarity between the activities in Periwinkle County and events in other places is rarely coincidental.

[“Christ in Winter,” Reflections On Faith For People In The Winter Of Their Years, can be found at http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/]

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