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| dirty laundering. | 12.14.2003 | |
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 hell has descended on margaret scheuller. for eighteen years, five months, and forty-nine days, margaret had been a respected member of the sewing circle at ace's presbyterian church on the corner of shagdis and moefo. as the years since her induction into the circle grew, so did her gastro-intestinal problems and her love for portabella mushrooms. coincidences aside. the sewing circle had been a great asset to margaret. she may have even been willing to call it a commodity, but economics was never her strong suit. the women of the sewing clan treated her as one of their own. until one day... the sun was setting in the north... that is, it was according to margaret's shoddy dashboard compass. she hated that the damn thing was always a little off. but, the initial estimates by the compass repairman (magnetics division) were heavier than margaret's purse. so, poor margaret has been forced to deal with the inconvenience every day. margaret exited her car as usual: without thinking about it. slowly. as if. she wasn't. being. watched. but she wasn't, so it didn’t matter anyway. she heaved her laundry bag over her shoulder. ever since the second world war (WWII, for the acronymically inclined), margaret wouldn’t use her home washer. there was just something very ominous about the washer after normandy. i, personally, think it had something to do with all that goddamn sand they were always trudging through. but i don’t have anything concrete to support my hunch. incidentally, her dryer was fine. not “ominous” or anything... but, of little use without the washer. she headed down to the basement of ace’s, as usual, to put some laundry in the church “cleanser.” with the washer hissing, margaret made her way up to the circle. the women used the colloquial “the circle” to refer to the bastardizing process of mending fabric together. mary-lou, lou-ellen, and mary-ellen were already at the table. seeing lou-ellen with a needle made margaret nostalgic of her past intravenous drug addiction. she knew that these thoughts—and probably that subliminal desire to see mary-ellen without her stockings on—were sins. but, she had taken a conservative approach to her sins after that ozzy concert she attended five years ago... which probably sent her surging towards hell. especially after she climbed up onstage. topless. and stabbed a bouncer en route. after the sewing session, another elderly sewing-invalid, elsie-ellen, came over to margaret. e2, as she was sometimes called, was slowly being devoured by tourette’s syndrome... or some other disease that makes you shake a lot and shout out funny things. everyone in the sewing circle reveled at having her in the group. also known as “the circle jerker,” elsie made the top left-hand corner of all their quilts... sort of... abstract-looking. the circle jerker was holding a dollar bill. dripping wet. she looked more pissed than jesus. who was standing behind her with his arms folded in a pissed off manner that looked more pissed off than god. who was standing behind jesus with his arms in folded in a pissed off manner. (gotta love presbyterian churches!) margaret was in awe. there she was in the lobby of ace's with 2/3 (67%) of the trinity standing, looking pissed at her. and frankly, elsie-ellen was so close to looking like a dead-ghost-spirit-thing that the whole scene could be considered about as close as you are going to get to seeing the holy trinity. margaret fell to her knees. as if god was going to tattoo her ass and tag her ear. everyone gasped in omni-directional horror... margaret had money-laundered! but, of course, all of this was in margaret’s little elderly head. the “jesus doesn’t like money launderers” sign in the basement had flashed in margaret’s head like a flickering florescent. and as much as that may have been e2’s gripe... even in presbyterian churches, everything jesus says is up for interpretation. elsie-ellen’s hand began to jerk (and shake like a polaroid picture), and the rest of the sewing circle laughed as she shook the bill dry. |
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| 2:30 am | sui generis said this. | |
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