New Year's Eve in the sparkling household

[franksolich]

please note: this is a work of fiction, based upon observation of the sparkling husband primitive and the sparkling husband primitive's wife, on Skins's island; however, one suspects the story's at least 67% accurate.

Ms. Sparkly finished stashing the chemistry set in its secret compartment underneath the kitchen sink, having finished a complement to a martini for her beloved, and shouted down the stairway leading to the basement, "Come up here, Sparkly!  I need you!"

Sparkly, still perched on the porcelain throne in the bathroom down there, hollered back up, "In a minute, dear--I'm thinking."

"Hahahahaha," Ms. Sparkly chortled; "you think, dear?  You think?

"You.....think.....?"

"Yes, yes, dear, I know; I'm an utter imbecile and admit it," Sparkly sighed.

"Time for your afternoon pick-me-up," Ms. Sparkly said, "Oh great mind."

Sparkly came up the stairs, fastening his belt, as Ms. Sparkly dashed together his martini, gin and vodka and sodium pentathol, with an olive.

"You know, great mind, we haven't yet decided what we're going to have tomorrow, for the New Year's dinner; remember, we're going to have a special guest here, and I thought some sort of chicken dish might be bon appetit."

Sparkly looked at the list.  Chicken tetrazzini, chicken cacciatore, chicken piccata, chicken vinaigrette, chicken saltimbocca, chicken florentine, chicken carbonara, chicken linquine, chicken vesuvio, chicken saffron orza, chicken orzo frittata, chicken scallopine, chicken lutefisk.....

"Ah, chicken sans peer," salivated Sparkly, mellowed by his second martini.

"This, and springerle, the food of the gods, but we need strumpendudel too, and some hearty red wine, like Liebfraumilch perhaps, dear?

"And then as a side dish, how about beauvorde, or maybe maredsous, or even remedou, dear?"

"You know," said Mrs. Sparkly as Sparkly sipped his third martini, "it's too bad Grandma's no longer with us; she could've probably sent us up some fine Oklahoma poultry, saving us a trip to Safeway."

Sparkly wiped away a tear, remembering that the biggest piece that had been found after the Christmas Day tragedy, had been Wild Bill's left leg, hanging from a tree branch as if a Christmas stocking.

[Tucker]

Too funny! Stories are intertwining.

[GOBUCKS]

Sparkly wiped away a tear, remembering that the biggest piece that had been found after the Christmas Day tragedy, had been Wild Bill's left leg, hanging from a tree branch as if a Christmas stocking.

Great image! That must be what DUmmy lonestartnot saw at Galveston.

[franksolich]

Ms. Sparkly continued reading the list.

"You know, oh great mind, as an appetizer, we have choices of kefalotyn, manouri, metsovone.....or perhaps chow mein anhui or chow mein jiangsu or chow mein shandog or chow mein zhejiang."

Sparkly sighed, disguising the audibility by gulping down his fifth martini, as he didn't want Mrs. Sparkly to hear his disapproval, lest she laugh at him.

"How about," Sparkly suggested, "falafel, shakshouka, coucous, za-atar, so'o ku'i, or so'o yo-sopy.....or perhaps vushka?"

"Oh no," Ms. Sparkly said; "we don't do Zionist cooking here."

Sparkly fumed, trying not to show it.  There were times he wished to jam Ms. Sparkly into the trash-compactor in the utility room, but given his record of incompetence, he would probably botch the job.

Ms. Sparkly fixed a sixth martini for her husband, the usual gin, martini, sodium pentathol, and olive, and a dash of Viagra, with a sprig of parsley on top.

"Well, I--I mean, we--can decide that later," she said; "but we need a second wine; what do you think of Sovetskoye schampansskoye?"

That would work, Sparkly said, but what about soups?

"Oh, I think a choice between borscht, hyrbivka, or kapusniak would do nicely," Ms. Sparkly said.

"But really, great mind, we need another main dish, in case someone doesn't care for chicken."

Sparkly suggested mulukh nya.

"That's silly, dear great mind, mulukh nya with rabbit is a dish for Easter, not New Year's."

[franksolich]

Sparkly, dizzily feeling the call of nature, both a number one and a number two, clumsily got up from the kitchen table, and headed towards the bathroom off the utility room.

"Oh no, dear great mind," Ms. Sparkly said; "I won't have you or the cat stinking up that bathroom, or the one upstairs."

Sparkly drunkenly stumbled down the stairs to the basement, his knees bending like foam.  Dropping his pants, he perched on the porcelain throne, his elbows on his thighs, his hands wrapped on his cheeks, as he glumly contemplated the cat doing a big one in the litter-box opposite.

She must have put a laxative in my martini, Sparkly guessed.

It was no secret to Sparkly that Ms. Sparkly put things into his drinks and food; after all, she had at times expressed disappointment in him, and there was that large life-insurance policy he carried.

I'm such a loser, Sparkly thought, remembering his childhood days in Connecticut, when his parents had enticed him to wear a clown suit for Halloween.  As a child, he had thought it great fun; it was not until years later he understood that they had been mocking him.

The only time in his life Sparkly had ever been a non-loser were those long-ago days in the Navy, serving in a ship off Charleston, South Carolina during the 60s.  It had been a rowdy rumbuctous scatological sort of life, but Sparkly had felt like a man in those days, full of pep and vigor and virility.

I should've stayed in the Navy, Sparkly thought.

Instead, Sparkly had met a rich girl from Baltimore, and as she seemed so very much like his own mother, he became infatuated with her, and married her.  After working for someone else for a few years, Sparkly set out on his own business, which had its ups and downs, but was on the whole doing okay. 

During a particularly good year in the business, someone had commented that Sparkly, the titular head of the enterprise, was obviously someone with great business talents, to which Ms. Sparkly had interrupted, "Oh, but he's only a go-fer; this business is run on my money and my brains."

Sparkly suddenly remembered that Ms. Sparkly had recently gotten rather, uh, chummy with Mrs. Tutweiler, a jodhpurs-wearing member of the horsey set, who lived down the street.

[BlueStateSaint]

Sparkly suddenly remembered that Ms. Sparkly had recently gotten rather, uh, chummy with Mrs. Tutweiler, a jodhpurs-wearing member of the horsey set, who lived down the street.

Not really liking that image . . . 

[Tucker]

We have to keep in mind that the Sparkly primative is clumsy and injury prone. A danger to herself and others.

[franksolich]

We have to keep in mind that the Sparkly primative is clumsy and injury prone. A danger to herself and others.

Yes, please keep that in mind; it might give a clue to the ending.

I'm now also working on "Martin Luther King's Day with Doug's stupid ex-wife."

[franksolich]

While Sparkly was unloading himself in the basement, Ms. Sparkly up in the kitchen ruminated over her old high-school chemistry textbook, trying to formulate some sort of untraceable concoction.

True, she had come from Old Money, and Much Money, but another few hundred grand wouldn't hurt, besides relieving herself of the burden of Stinky.

The man's an embarrassment, she thought; he imagines himself some sort of suave continental bon vivant, a connoisseur of haut cuisine, a gourmand, but in truth he had the tastes of a hoi polloi, a peasant.

She had been born for better than this, Ms. Sparkly remembered, but she had been in her salad days, young and green in judgement.  Stinky had attached himself to her, and flattered, she had succumbed.

Ms. Sparkly was a dominatrix by nature, in all its senses, and at first, it had been a pleasure, married to Stinky, but he had proven too tame, too little; she had been made for bigger and better.  It gave her no satisfaction any more, denigrating and humiliating him.

She needed bigger game.

She thought about Mrs. Tutweiler down the street, a neighbor renown for her class and elegance, and for having been a frequent companion of the late Paul Mellon and Jacqueline Kennedy in their horsing-and-foxing romps in nearby rustic Virginia.

Mrs. Tutweiler despite her age was a well-kept-up woman, a Nancy Reagan without the brittle fragility.  She was of a formidable nature, but to Ms. Sparkly, that would make such a conquest all the more fulfilling.  Surely it was only a matter of time before she could have her.

"Oh great mind, hurry up with your 'thinking' down there, and come back here," Ms. Sparkly hollered down the basement stairwell; "we still have to complete plans for the New Year's dinner."

[Chris]

Not really liking that image . . . 

you said it...

[SilverOrchid]

I am really enjoying your writing, frank!

[franksolich]

"You know, dear great mind," Ms. Sparkly said, after Stinky had ascended from the lower depths, "perhaps we should start baking the kolaches now, so that would be that much less to worry about, in the morning."

Sparkly obligingly donned a Mother Hubbard and a chapeau, and began buttering-and-flouring the cookie sheets.

"Maybe," he said, "we should pre-heat the oven--would you mind, dear?"

Ms. Sparkly leaned over to turn the knob on the natural gas stove.

"It won't start, oh great mind," she complained.

"I'm going to take the dogs out for a walk; could you take care of it while I'm gone?"

Ms. Sparkly had been gone a couple of minutes, leashing the dogs towards Mrs. Tutweiler's home, by the time Sparkly had finished laying out the kolaches on the cookie-sheets, and turned his attention to the oven.

He twiddled with the knob, but no flame issued forth.

Impatient, Stinky turned the jet on full blast, and lit a match.

< < < < <

Okay, that's it; this is the best this snow-weary mind can devise.

Next up, after a break, Martin Luther King Jr.'s day with Doug's stupid ex-wife.

[Chris]

Ha ha ha ha... nice ending!

[Tucker]

Wouldn't he meet his untimely ending in the same manner by lighting a match while on the throne.

[franksolich]

Wouldn't he meet his untimely ending in the same manner by lighting a match while on the throne.

Probably if I would've spent more time on this, something like that could have evolved in the imagination.  I had hoped to make this one at least as good as the story of Christmas at Grandma's, but the mind got snow-weary like, really quick.

It's just a really good thing I don't claim to be a writer, like the Bostonian Drunkard does, who might, or might not, have even less talent than I do.

I hope to do better next time, when I'm not snow-weary.

[GOBUCKS]

Good story! Another DUmmy blown to bits by an exploding gas oven!
He blowed up good! He blowed up real good!

[The Village Idiot]

Probably found a piece of him in Galveston too. heh