The Teacher at the Bottom of the Drain

A story doesn’t have to change the world.

Which is good, because this one certainly will not.

The other night, Sister Madly turned down an evening with the Professors, but for a good reason: she planned to spend the night in the tub with a glass of wine, mood lighting and music, and did not wish to be disturbed.

Yeah, Sister Madly- the rest of the planet wishes you weren’t disturbed, either. But that‘s no reason to hide a Romance.

Romance? You thought that she was speaking of romance?

Allow Sister Madly to dispel all of your starry-eyed notions: the lighting was a result of a burned out bulb that she’s too short to reach; the music? Lemon Jelly‘s Nice Weather for Ducks, irritating but too far away for her to do anything about. Indeed, she was in the tub- fully clothed and engaged in a battle of wills in an attempt to unclog the drain with something called a ‘Zip-It.’

But there was wine.

Now the Zip-It is merely razor wire disguised as a zip tie, whose diabolical origins can be traced to the Dark Ages. The term ‘Death by a Thousand Cuts’ is what inspired the design- even the package warned that she should wear her protective onion-chopping eyewear during the application of this device. Seriously, had the Inquisition employed the Zip-It, they could very-well have achieved a one world religion.

After declaring a cease-fire, Sister Madly, now thoroughly battered and mangled, succumbed to the thoughts that typically run through the mind of the dying:

For heaven’s sake, Sister Madly, just how long have you had that bruise on the top of your foot? How does one even accomplished something of that magnitude unawares? Or is that even a bruise? Maybe it just ash- because you are always walking barefoot through some ash…

Fie Chicory– yeah, that’s a bruise.

Well, dear one, since you are now maimed thus confined eternally to the bathtub, would you care to explain to the faucet about Fie Chicory? You know it’s going to ask one day- you’ve seen enough Twilight Zones to know this to be true…

Speaking of the Twilight Zone, why do you suppose that you were unable to pull anything out of the drain? Either you are just really bad at this whole Zip-It thing, or there is something far more sinister at play- like North Dakota, or the Dodo, or Cthulhu…

Aw, man- she forgot all about the Great Old One. Not too long ago, Sister Madly removed the corkscrew from her wall and gave it back to Dicky J Loweman– with apologies- and now Cthulhu has escaped and sought refuge in her drain without the decency of eating her tacky neighbor (who is not Dicky J Loweman. For your FYI.)

Though a worthy device against all things fleshy human, the Zip-It was most likely no match for the Great Old One. So Sister Madly made her wine-infused way down to the dumpster in an attempt to find a hefty wire of some sort. She felt certain that the gods were smiling upon her when she found a coat hanger woven into the chain-link fence in an attempt to secure the fence to the pole. Security measures on a $2 budget.

Yes, the gods were, indeed, smiling; in fact, they were laughing their ever-loving eyeteeth all the way to that wretched little Pancake House across the street. Not only did the hanger not dredge up any hair, North Dakota or Cthulhu, it got snagged on the T-Bar at the bottom of her drain for the better part of the night.

Sister Madly is, by all accounts, a professional screwer-upper; do not try this at home.*

*At least, not at Sister Madly’s home.

After waving the white flag, Sister Madly figured that she might as well take her chances with the Fortune Cookie that she had forgotten about been preserving at the back of her cupboard for the better part of a year:

Sister Madly has no picture of the fortune.
So here’s the same quote, with a candle.

Sister Madly stopped up her bathtub that night. If there is a lesson to be learned at the bottom of the drain, Sister Madly is doing her best to see that it never happens.

POST’S THEME SONG: Nice Weather for Ducks, Lemon Jelly