Small party sent into the STUDY today. Of the 5 men sent in, only one returned (gratefully, and I mean this with all the sympathy to the families who have suffered terrible losses in this expedition, it was my husband). Have informed the families of our fallen comerades of their losses. We are now alone in our mission to combat the STUFF.
The STUFF in the STUDY (debris from a recent office clean-out) has been left undisturbed for some time, and the original research party decided it was time to take a closer look at what was going on in there.
From a distance (like, say, from the lounge, or better still, from outside next to the swimming pool, with an ice-cold drink in your hand and someone rubbing suntan cream on your back) the STUFF seems fairly docile and even inconspicuous. On closer inspection, however, the STUFF is a heaving, breathing, pile-upon-pile of matter with a very definite and diabolical mind of it's own. It has expanded somewhat since it's original relocation to the confines of the STUDY, and has pretty much made any navigation into that area impossible. This is particularly problematic as other crucial equipment located in that room (like the telephone, modem and accounts file) is now completely inaccessible.
The main aim of the scouting troop was to identify if the STUFF has a weakness, what that weakness may be, and while they're there, could they please look for my iPod?
The mission lasted half the morning. Base station 1 (located in the safety of the kitchen, near the kettle and toaster) almost commissioned sniffer dogs to locate the party when one pitiful figure appeared at the door, holding an iPod connector cable, a Barbie doll (sans clothing, hair matted), and looking, for want of a better word, pained.
"Water!" he gasped. I threw my cup of tea over him. It revived him a little.
T-Bird and Air Bear appeared from under the coffee table to argue over the Barbie. She crumbled into a pile of dust on the kitchen counter. A breeze through the open window swept the dust away in a little swirl of caramel coloured glitter.
"It's bewitched," he stammered, "there's something very strange about the STUFF.
"For one, it ate the PC."
The PC has lain, somewhat forlorn and forgotten in the STUDY since long before the STUFF arrived, but not much after the Mac did. Seems like the STUFF cursed the PC, and now the PC has given up its ghost and moved on to the happy motherboard in the sky.
"Also, I found this," he reached into his pocket and withdrew one golden stick about the size and shape of a McDonald's chip.
"What is it?" I asked, holding my breath.
"It's a McDonald's chip," he looked unamused.
"How long has it been there?" No-one has had any form of fast-food in the STUDY since well before the Mac arrived, which would place the arrival of the McD potato sliver at about October 2007.
We glared at the chip. It didn't move. It didn't melt. It didn't turn to dust. Instead it glistened a little in the sunlight streaming through the kitchen window and emitted a pleasantly intoxicating deep-fried odour.
It made me hungry. And then it made me worry. If, and I seriously doubt this, the STUFF has managed to use the telephone and order fast food delivery straight to the STUDY, and then proceeded to devour the ordered meal, leaving one crispy chip as the only clue to its insidious behaviour, then we have a real problem on our hands. But, and this is the more likely explanation, if that chip was a dropped crumb from a grabbed-on-the-go-meal that someone had in (at least) October last year, we have an even bigger problem. The problem is that a 5 month old (at the very least) chip, looks, feels and smells like it just came out from under the golden arches. Has Ronald MacDonald not heard of mould? I mean come on! Shouldn't food that old be slightly discoloured (I'm thinking green-grey), a little mushy maybe, preferrably smelling a bit rancid? I'm not kidding when I say that that one little sliver of vegetable could have easily been on any one of your plates this afternoon (assuming, of course, that you had take-outs for lunch).
Am quite off fast-food for a bit.
And still the STUFF remains, bar a couple of papers that slid out under the door this afternoon which I threw in the trash - can't be tolerating any of that inconspicuous creeping into the main house now, can we?
1 comment:
THE CHIP IS SCARY!
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