THEY SHOULD MAKE PILLS FOR THIS

In the movie "Serendipity", one of my favorite lines is "They should make pills for this". This phrase is uttered by the pesky side-kicks whenever the heroine or hero acts all crazy-ass and does something totally nuts.

Welcome to Aunt Chrissy's world.

Scene: Friday night in a Midwestern living room. A spinster and her sister have settled in for a night of stitching and movie watching. They are almost half-way through "The Gates" when...

SPINSTER: AAAACCCCKKKKK!!!! SPIDER! SPIDER! SPIDER!

AUNT CHRISSY: WHERE?! WHERE?! WHERE?!

SPINSTER: RIGHT HERE CRAWLING ON THE HAPPY CHAIR!!!!!

(Ottoman and precocious little dog go flying, as does all stitchy materials and about four hundred skeins of DMC floss).

SPINSTER: DID YOU SEE IT! OH MY GOD! IT CRAWLED DOWN INTO THE HAPPY CHAIR! GET IT! GET IT! GET IT!

AUNT CHRISSY: GET ME A BROOM! A CAN OF BIG SPRAY! ANYTHING! RUN! RUN!

SPINSTER: I DON'T HAVE A GUN!

AUNT CHRISSY: OH FOR CRIPE'S SAKES....GO GET A #($* BROOM, WILL YA?!

The Spinster dashes into the laundry room where she retrieves a dust mop. As she's rushing back into the living room, she makes a mental note that if she did more housework, the dust mop would probably not have dust and cobwebs on it from lack of use.

SPINSTER: HERE! GET IT! GET IT! GET IT!

AUNT CHRISSY: GO GET THE VACUUM CLEANER! WE'LL SUCK IT OUT OF THE CHAIR!

The Spinster runs into the guest room, and as she's climbing over the dog-proof baby gate, moving the eight decorative knick knacks sitting on the floor in the front of the closet, and re-arranging things so the shelves don't come tumbling down upon her, she makes a mental note to find a new place to store the vacuum cleaner.

AUNT CHRISSY: HURRY! WE DON'T WANT IT TO GET TOO FAR DOWN INTO THE CHAIR!

Chaos ensues as Aunt Chrissy throws the Happy Chair seat cushion across the room, plugs in the vacuum cleaner, and then hops on top of the chair so as to expose the dark recesses where the spider is surely hiding. The Spinster cowers in the corner while the dog pees on the drapes.

SPINSTER: Is it gone?

AUNT CHRISSY: Um....well....I'm not sure.

SPINSTER: WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE NOT SURE?!

AUNT CHRISSY: Well, I sucked up a LOT of crap out of this chair, but I don't know if the spider was in there or not. What the hell do you do in this thing anyway?

SPINSTER: Never mind that! How am I supposed to sit in that chair again knowing there's a spider in there!!!!!

Aunt Chrissy braces herself and takes a deep breath, since she knows what this all means.

She looks at her little dog, contemplates grabbing the car keys and making a break for it, and says (dejectedly): "OK, go open the garage door".

The Spinster and Aunt Chrissy haul the Happy Chair out to the garage, where it is left to sit....looking sad and forlorn to be abandoned over an insect. As the Spinster contemplates what to do next, Aunt Chrissy wonders how fast she can get power of attorney.

SPINSTER: Will you help me get the chair from the studio down the stairs?

AUNT CHRISSY: You mean the big recliner that is exactly like THIS one that I sit in when I come over to stitch? The one that Kavanaugh almost killed himself carrying up there in the first damn place? The one that you swore would never be moved again?

The Spinster and Aunt Chrissy go up to the studio and man-handle the big recliner down the stairs. Sadly, they have miscalculated the size of said recliner as compared to the size of the stairway door, so they decide to man-handle the big recliner back UP the stairs to re-convene. Aunt Chrissy momentarily thinks about leaving the Spinster wedged on the stairs trapped under the big recliner, but she soon realizes that if she does this she won't be able to get up to the studio to retrieve any of her stuff. She takes yet another deep and cleansing breath and hoists the chair up the stairs.

After several minutes of sweating and grunting, Aunt Chrissy and the Spinster manage to "disengage" the back of the big recliner from its seat, and they carry down all of the pieces one by one. The big recliner is placed in the exact same spot that the poor Happy Chair used to be:



Just as Aunt Chrissy is settling in to watch the rest of the documentary, she glances over at the Spinster, who has big fat sweaty tears in her eyes and she seems to be wringing her hands. The pause button is pressed, a heavy sigh is released, and Aunt Chrissy asks the Spinster what's wrong.

SPINSTER: This just isn't the same, Aunt Chrissy. It's not my Happy Chair.

AUNT CHRISSY: I know it's not the Happy Chair, but the Happy Chair has a spider in it and you won't sit in it with a spider in it, so we had to put it in the garage.

SPINSTER: I know, but this chair isn't very comfortable and I just feel like the whole world is against me.

AUNT CHRISSY: It's almost one o'clock in the morning. Let's watch the rest of this documentary and then we'll figure something out, OK?

SPINSTER (sniffing delicately into her hanky): OK

As they finish watching the documentary, Aunt Chrissy thinks about the fact that the artist Cristo was able to create a work of art that involved placing 7,000 two-ton steel frames with saffron-colored nylon curtains throughout Central Park, but her stupid sister is unable to re-arrange a living room without needing a Valium the size of a Buick to do so. She also wonders if you need a license to purchase a dart gun and how hard it is to obtain sedatives to load into said gun.

Aunt Chrissy leaves for home and the Spinster sits and frets. And frets. And frets.

The next day the women run their Saturday errands and then go to the Futon Factory to see if they can find a solution to the whole Happy Chair "situation". (Aunt Chrissy has decided that the Happy Chair has enough dog pee on it to qualify as a bio-hazard, and she tells the Spinster that until the damn thing is professionally cleaned, deodorized, and re-upholstered, she would suggest that it stay in the garage for safe keeping. After getting a whiff of the chair in the hot garage, the Spinster agrees with the understanding that they find a suitable replacement.)

$200 and a lot of grunting later (they had to man-handle the big recliner back up to the studio), they arrive home with:
Later that evening, the Spinster and Aunt Chrissy settle in for another night of movie watching and stitching, but the Spinster is so uncomfortable and miserable in the new chair, that all she does is sit and weep quietly.

Sunday morning dawns bright and early and the Spinster calls Aunt Chrissy, and in a trembling voice says:

SPINSTER: Aunt Chrissy? Will you come pick up this chair, please? I don't want it here anymore. I want my Happy Chair. I know I have to get it cleaned and fixed and de-spidered, but can I use my bedroom chair as a stitchy chair instead?

AUNT CHRISSY: I'll be there as soon as I put on some LIPstick.

The Spinster and Aunt Chrissy take up the rugs, move the side tables, sweep the floor, load the new chair into the car, move the bedroom chair into the living room, the guest room rocking chair into the bedroom, the rug back to where it was to begin with, the Aunt Chrissy stitchy chair into the corner, and end up with:



Aunt Chrissy takes a look around the room, sees the dog pee on the drapes, and decides that she will definitely look into assisted living facilities first thing in the morning. She goes home to her little dog and tells him that he's damn lucky that he ended up with her and not her insane sister. The little dog looks up at her, realizes what she's just said, and feels really bad about peeing on the piano while she was gone.

The end.