A 4th of July Story

"What the man who lives on the corner did while working in his yard the day before Independence Day." By Terry Nelson

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One day, today actually, I was working in the yard planting grass seed when I decided I needed to take a break. I went in and got my cigarette lighter, a sleek black Bic. I wanted a cigarette, but I said to myself, "No Mr. Man! No smoking for you!" I then returned outside and sat on the boulevard. The grass is all yellow and dry because we have had very little rain in the past month and naturally I have not watered the boulevard because the city used salt on the street this past winter and it killed all the beautiful grass I planted last year, which made me very, very angry.

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Anyway, I tried setting the dried, weed infested dead grass on fire. But it didn't burn more than 3 square inches at a time. (I also had a hose handy just in case it really did burn.) Although I was alone, I said to myself, "And yet people yelled at me when I'd throw cigarette butts out my car window as I drove, screaming at me that I could start a grass fire." (Of course, I'm positive many of these same people throw their beer cans and pop cans and french fry bags out of their car window onto my boulevard for me to clean up.)

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So after a couple of tries, I got bored with trying to see how easy a grass fire would start, and quickly went into the house to get my smoke bombs and cherry bombs and fire-crackers. (My neighbors are so lucky I do not have a gun.) I carefully placed several of them in ant holes around the yard to blow up their sinister tunnels by which they infiltrated my yard. (5th Column movement, you know.) I pretended it was war and the ants were filthy, despicable Germans. Nazis. I later tried to blow up a short wall along side my driveway - since I have to rebuild it anyway. I was pretending I was doing demolition work with explosives after a nuclear attack that killed off all of the ants. Unfortunately, the cherry bombs did little to no damage, so I will still have to rework the wall by hand - and the ants were still there.

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I realized it would be best if I resorted to guerrilla tactics, and so it became necessary to use chemical weaponry. I got out the smoke bombs. I positioned myself behind the fence and placed them in prominent locations - though heavily camouflaged - like landmines, but not really. They were embedded in the ivy along the fence. As kids were coming by from the park across the street, I'd light them and they would get all excited wondering where and why the smoke was - it was simply a diversionary tactic - until suddenly, the neighbor lady came running around the corner because, "After seeing all of the blue smoke, I thought maybe your hedge-trimmer... or something had blown up! Are you okay?" Then the police came by and we waved and I went back to work after assuring Mrs. Kravetz everything was fine.

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The End.

Over the river and through the woods...

To Grandmother's house for Thanksgiving.

Everyone in the neighborhood knew her as "Little Red Riding Hood" - the young blond woman with developmental disorders who still lived at home with her alcoholic mother. The mother had no intention of cooking for Thanksgiving and definitely did not want the grandma over to her house - which is the real reason why she sent Little Red over to grandma's with the meal mom picked up from the food shelf on her way home from the liquor store the day before.

"Here - take this to grandma's and fix Thanksgiving dinner for her - and don't stop any place on the way over. You can bring me back the left overs." The mother said, as she mixed a vodka and tonic for herself.

Little Red grabbed the basket, excited she was trusted to go on such a journey and commissioned to cook such an important dinner at that. (Even though granny had Alzheimer's, she still enjoyed a good dinner.)

On the way over Little Red was surprised to see that Walgreen's was open on the holiday, so she thought she would stop in to buy a Thanksgiving card for granny. Red suffered from ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) so when she got in the store she forgot why she went in, and started to try on make-up at the cosmetic counter. After about an hour, she remembered she had been told not to stop anyplace and go straight to grandma's.

Forgetting the card, on her way out of the drug store the security guy stopped her to ask what she had in the basket. Red showed him the dinner and explained she was on her way to granny's house. She went on to tell the guard that granny had Alzheimer's and continued on offering far too much personal information about granny and herself. The guard sent her on her way, advising her that she better hurry or she would be late.

In the meantime, granny assumed she was supposed to go over to Little Red Riding Hood's house, to eat with Red and her mother. Like so many people with Alzheimer's, she got in the car, drove off and was never heard from again. Disappeared without a trace. Thus, when Red got to granny's house, no one was there, so she decided to watch TV. Suddenly there was a knock on the door! It turned out to be the security guard from Walgreen's. Not to fear however, Red had left her purse on the cosmetic counter and he was just returning it.

Anyway - Since granny wasn't home, Red invited him to stay for Thanksgiving dinner. They eventually fell in love and got married. An interesting note, the guard's name was Filbert Wulff, hence the misunderstanding with the Big Bad Wolf thing. Oh, and another reason for the Big Bad Wolf mix-up - both Red and Filbert were suspects in the disappearance of granny, and since there was no evidence - no charges could be filed against them. (Red's mother continues to live by herself, although she has been in and out of rehab.) Yeah, so I guess you can say they lived happily ever after.

The End.