Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

I’m Pink Lady Apple Yeggs and my friend, and brother-in-law, Deviled Yeggs suggested that I record each project that I set up in the hopes of reforming the people who continue to work for Lily the Pink Enterprises.  If for no other reason, it would show how God is at work.

As we finished up Vespers, I got a text from security that I had a late-night couple wanting to talk.  I texted Missy to check it out and keep them company until I got there.  We had moved the time for Vespers to the time just before the parents put their small children down for bed.  Since I had three children in that category, I would tuck them in, kiss them good night, and then go back to the office.  Kanok wanted to go with me, but I was firm.  It was bedtime.

When I reached the office, Missy was serving Carla and Brenton some non-alcoholic cider from my fridge, and the three were laughing.

Missy said, “Ah, the boss has arrived.  She can tag me out and then I can go kiss my grandchildren good night.”

For this meeting, I walked behind my desk.  It was late, and I might want to lean against the desk for support.

I asked, “What brings you back, and in the middle of the night?”

Carla said, “We have been losing sleep ever since our meeting here with our teammates.  Brenton and I love each other.  That does not change, but when we get together, we keep asking what we did wrong.”

Brenton nodded, “Carla could not tell you the manner in which we first met romantically.  I characterized what we were going to say as a confession and then I said that I was disingenuous.  That was understated.  It was sleezy.”

I smiled, trying to keep my face neutral.  I closed my eyes for a second and prayed a ‘Thank you’ to God before speaking.  “Yes, I was wondering if you would notice how you characterized your first time in bed.  And, no, I am not one to stand in judgment when the man I would marry dropped his pants and told me his intentions without knowing who I really was.  I had never seen a man’s junk before.  Absolutely never touched that thing.  I told him that I would sleep with him if he brought me jewelry.  I knew he was a yegg named Yeggs.  I knew he would return with stolen jewelry, but I did not know he would take the time to redesign the settings and have a fence make everything so beautiful.  The jewelry, for your information, Brenton, came from a couple of your neighbors who had taken the jewelry by unscrupulous means from people who later died.  I could not repay those who had been cheated.  And yes, though I had never slept with a man, and Scrambled was just a boy then, I was true to my word, and I got pregnant as a result.  No, it is the two of you who realized that what you did could have been done better.  Has it affected your love life?”

Carla nodded, “We still spend a lot of time in bed, but we’ll take our clothes off and hug each other.  We feel the need for that closeness, but we sometimes go no further than that.  What did you do to us, Mommie Pinkie?”

I smiled, “Nothing, dear, but God imprinted in your hearts when you were born a certain amount of right and wrong.  And the Holy Spirit is working within you to convict you that there is a better way.  And I have known some very strong Christians who started their lives together without a wedding, and they got married in a legal sense after they were with child or even had children.  But they told each other that the situation was such that the marriage could not happen at that time.  Then, they made it official later.  It is better to wait, but the important thing is the commitment and the monogamy and, of course, trusting God.”

Brenton said, “But the Bible speaks of people having multiple wives.  Why is monogamy important from a biblical perspective?”

“Let’s start at the beginning,” I said. “Genesis 2:24-25 state ‘That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.  Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.’  It does not say that Adam took Eve and Silvia, and they become one flesh.  It is one man and one woman.  More than that gets messy.  But before we move on, Adam and Eve had not sinned.  They felt no shame being naked and with each other.  Thus, when the union is between two committed people, man and woman, and God blesses that union, there should be no shame in each other’s naked bodies.  But as for the messy situations.  Sarah was barren.  She wanted her husband to have an heir, so she gave Abraham her slave, Hagar, to her husband.  When Hagar got pregnant, Sarah, knowing she was barren, became jealous.  Strife ruled the day until Hagar left with Ishmael after Isaac came into the picture.  Then to Abraham’s grandson, Jacob had two wives due to the trickery of Laban, Jacob’s father-in-law.  Again, the one Jacob loved was barren.  That was Rachel.  God opened the womb of the unloved Leah, and she gave Jacob six sons and a daughter.  And in the middle of those children, Judah became the son that carried the promise, the promise of Jesus coming into the world to save us.  But there again was jealousy between the two sisters.  Fast forwarding a lot, David had many wives and most of them had sons.  Most of those sons wanted to be king.  Amnon raped Absalom’s sister, Tamar.  After all, she was more Absalom’s sister than she was Amnon’s half-sister.  Absalom had Amnon killed. Absalom eventually rebelled against David to briefly reign as king.  Absalom was killed.  Adonijah, another of the half-brothers, set himself up as king before David died, when the crown had been promised to Solomon.  That had to be dealt with.  Then as king, Solomon wrote the Proverbs where he mentions the troubles of having a quarrelsome wife about five times.  Don’t quote me on that, but when a man has 700 wives, to make one happy, he gets 699 quarrelsome wives.  Does that answer your question?”

Brenton snickered, “I think so.  But how do we fix this?  Carla was wanting a church wedding, at least something that celebrated our love for each other, but neither of us go to church.  We were thinking of not getting married until we were thinking of children, but since we both have this feeling inside that we got intimate far too soon…”

I smiled, “There is nothing wrong with being intimate.  The word must not always mean the physical.  I have an intimate relationship with Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  I desire to know more of the Father each day.  I am intimately in love with my earthly father.”

At that moment, I heard the connecting door that leads to the restrooms and the elevator to the left, the kitchen to the right, and Gwen and GrandPa’s house straight ahead.  It was my father, Ashmead Kernel Apple.  I looked and smiled.

“Pinkie?”  He asked, “Is everything okay?”

I giggled, “I just mentioned my love for you, and you walk into the room.  What perfect timing.  Everything is beyond okay.  Carla and Brenton came by to talk.  By the way, Daddy, you confessed that at one time that you were unfaithful to Mom.  Were there any others?”

Ash said, “No, and you know that the one time was when your mother told me to look elsewhere, and I was too stupid to realize that she had made a rash statement and did not mean it.  And who do I find but her twin sister, who I thought was a doppelganger, and not related at all.  Men can be such fools at times.  Do you need me to stay?”  He came over and kissed me on the top of my head.

I looked up, “No, Daddy, I will be fine.”

Ash said, “Don’t be too late.  You already work such long days.”

“I love it that you are so concerned.  I will be fine, Daddy.” I smiled as he turned and walked away.

As he reached the door, he turned and said, “And don’t say ‘strawberries’ too loudly.  Someone is hovering on high alert.”  And then he was gone.

“Strawberries?” Carla asked.  “What is up with that?”

I laughed, “My friend, Amy G. Dala, created a software program that ties my voice, only my voice and Gwen Quinn’s voice, with certain words, some that change on a monthly basis, with the security software.  The system records the conversation, but it is set for confidential unless I change it.  That means everything gets encrypted for my ears only, in case I want to refer back to something said in the last conversation.  But if I shout the special words, then a light comes on in the security office, and some alerts chirp with Missy and each shift supervisor’s phones.  They never hear the conversation, just a message that I am uncomfortable.  Do you want to see it in action?”  They smiled and nodded.  “Well, you mentioned strawberries.  There is an old movie based on a book by Herman Wouk, The Caine Mutiny.  In the movie, the Captain of the ship is played by Humphrey Bogart and he starts ranting about how his favorite treat is strawberries.  Someone had stolen his strawberries.  They could have stolen anything, but they stole his strawberries.  Can you believe that?  His STRAWBERRIES!”

Within five seconds, Missy was in the room with her hand on her taser.  A second later, the walkie-talkie feature of the cellphone chirped from the security office, “Is everything okay?”

I snickered, “Consider this the monthly test.”  I shut off the connection to the security office.  “Missy, how many alerts did you get for strawberries?”

Missy shrugged, “Just one.  Were you talking about your favorite scene from The Caine Mutiny again?  If you do that more often, we must change the word.”

Brenton and Carla were laughing.  I had to laugh too.  “No, Missy, to assure these two that our conversation is private, did you hear anything that I said?”

Missy shook her head.  She got her phone and showed the alert to Carla and Brenton.  It simply said, “Strawberries alert.”  Then she said, “She told me she would weave a story about Humphrey Bogart yelling something about stealing his strawberries.  The usual code words are more common words, but the monthly extra words need a story to make it seem like part of the conversation.  We are the beta tester, but I think Ms. Dala has enough data to be ready to market the security software upgrade.  I do not ever get an alert unless she yells it, and Pink Lady rarely raises her voice.  It works perfectly with her.  Now, we’ve had to fine tune the parameters with Gwen Quinn.  Her gypsy blood boils over at times.”

Our guests snickered.  Missy tipped her hat.  She said, “If you no longer need me, Angus and I are practicing in the living room.”

I asked, “Practicing what?  Bagpipes are too loud for the soundproofing.”

Missy laughed, “Angus is using the chanter, and I am practicing my dancing.  This will be the last semester of Scottish dancing.  Then, this summer, he and I will be going to Scotland to visit distant relatives, see the country, and watch some competitions.”

I asked, “You aren’t competing?”

Missy sighed, “If the paperwork goes through, I might compete in a dance, and Angus will play a Piobaireachd.  Do you remember when I first met Angus?  Sophie was yelling at him for contaminating a crime scene at the Pee Brook, and he kept correcting her by saying that he was playing a ‘Pea Brock?’ (the pronunciation of Piobaireachd, Scottish Classical Music)”

“I don’t think I had laughed that hard in a long time.” I said, “And it was a sad time in that the young man died, but at least it was not murder.  And somehow, you and Angus became an item that day.”

Through the open door, “Missy, lass, we need more practice, and Mommie Pinkie needs to finish her conversations with the young lad and lassie.”

Missy left and closed the door.

Carla said, “Finally, some context.  Every time Menzie gets a hit or puts someone out, we hear, ‘Nice play, lassie’ from this booming voice in the stands.  Since no one around here uses that word, we have been wondering who it was.”

I snickered, “That would be Angus MacDougall.  I think Missy was hinting at finishing her dancing with a competition in Scotland this summer before they start a family.  The way she stomps around and seems to fly at times, I cannot imagine her doing that with a baby bump.  But Angus adopted Menzie and the grandchildren.  Every achievement Menzie has is celebrated by him like he was her one and only.”

I paused to think about that.  “And that kind of ties into what we have been talking about.  God is tapping you on the shoulder.  He may be asking you to commit your lives to Him, but I am not like Billy Graham.  He would say that you could die tonight.  And you could die tonight.  He would say that you must decide now.  Billy Graham was not wrong, but he just was not going to be back in the ballpark the next night, or maybe the next week.  I do not wish for you to commit to a God that you do not know.  If you lived here, you could come to Vespers…”

Brenton said, “We were out in the hallway tonight, listening.  We walked here tonight, but when we have a spare night, we can take my car.  What church do you attend?  My parents give to a couple of churches each year, but they never attend either of them.”

I chuckled, “If you want to join our varying colors of human existence, we attend the second service on Sunday morning at the First-Third Metho-Presby Church at the intersection of second and fourth avenues.  But if you want to attend Stinker’s Sunday school class.  Stinker is Jemima Yeggs.  There are buses that leave from here and go to over half the denominations in Tracy.  But our little section of pews contains my extended family on one pew, Dev Yeggs and his extended family behind us, and then two more pews of other friends.  Do you know Kevin and Joseline Johnson?”

Carla sputtered, “They are married?!  The way they competed with each other for the best grades, I didn’t think they liked each other.”

I smiled, “They discovered each other, but it took some time.  They both discovered Jesus also.  And they sit with Easter and Jemima when they can.  They have all become storm chasers, but Jemima and Joseline both have little babies.  Stormie Yeggs and Misty Johnson are adorable.  But the two of you would be welcome additions to the Sunday school class.  If you do not like the worship service, there are other churches that you can try, but Rev C.S.L., Jemima’s father, is a great Bible teacher.  He also has a relationship class that he teaches periodically that goes into a great deal of detail about having a biblical relationship with your eventual spouse.”

Brenton said, “Thank you.  We will be here Sunday.  I do not have a golf tournament and no softball games on Sunday except maybe during the tournament.  Everyone has been asking you about getting to bed.  Do you really go to bed this early?”

I nodded, “We have Vespers.  That ends my business day.  We put the children to bed, and they just might not go to sleep if we are still watching television.  They cannot hear when you tell them things that are important, but you have a television turned down really low in the far end of the house and they can hear that!  Kanok heard that I was coming here to meet with someone and she wanted to come too.  I had to be firm, but I have no idea if she is asleep yet.  But, I get up early to be in here in case someone on the graveyard shift had an emotional meltdown and needed to talk about it.  If not, I read the security reports, the operations reports, and my Māori angel, Anahera, always comes by before going to bed to give me a personal report on shipping and receiving.  Everyone that works here mostly deals with other Lily the Pink employees, but Anahera can get this mean look on her face and the truckers do not dare mess with her.  But she really is an angel.  That’s what Anahera means, angel.  With the success of the Women’s Rugby team in the Olympics, she is starting a rugby team at T.R.U.S.T.  But after morning reports around shift change, I get some breakfast with the family.  Scrambled is already gone before I wake up to start the baking for the day, but he joins us for breakfast, usually with sweet treats for the children if they eat all their breakfast.  Then I have my usual open-door hours until lunchtime.  After lunch, the staff meets in the den.  Afterward, more open-door hours.  That way, I catch people before their shift starts and after their shift is over.  The only shift change that I do not cover is at eleven at night.  But then, we are trying to maintain a three-speaker rotation at Vespers.  I speak one night, then Joseph Jones speaks the next night, and then the third speaker is a rotation, usually whomever we can get or Joseph or I double up.  We have had the local pastors.  We have had Maeve or Dot Com from the mission.  Amy G. Dala gave her testimony one night.  Testimonies are always welcome.  We usually go long those nights.  But then I can call on Dev Yeggs or Naomi.  For context, they are Sophie’s parents.  So, at some point in the day, I will write my five-minute talk if it is my turn.  Then, after Vespers, I am toast.  Stick a fork in me.  I am done, but this little talk has been refreshing.”

Carla said, “Well, we will let you go.  We can see ourselves out.  We can walk the two blocks.”

I asked, “At this hour of night?  Forget that!  STRAWBERRIES!”

Missy seemed to immediately answer the door.  “Another test?”

I shook my head.  “It’s only two blocks, but can you find someone to drive these two lovebirds to Brenton’s house?  Or are you then going to your house, Carla?”

Carla said, “My car is parked at Brenton’s house.  I basically drive around the golf course to get to our neighborhood.”

Missy said, “Follow me, you two.  Grannie Fannie just came back from the late T.R.U.S.T. library pickup with the people doing research papers.  She has enough time left on the clock to take you home.  I hope the rich folk do not mind a pink SUV in their driveway.”

I did not immediately go to the elevator.  Odd how I use the elevator now, just because we have one, instead of taking the stairs.  But, no, I said a prayer.  I thanked God for the nudging and prodding he did with Brenton and Carla.  Would it be much longer before Brooke and Goober came by?  Or if you pay attention to Kanok, before Book and Booger came by.

Credits

I cannot see any need for Credits.  The strawberries scene is accurate, at least as I remember it.  The software is fictional, but maybe someone has already invented it.  And salvation is a God thing, although Carla and Brenton aren’t there yet.  The Holy Spirit latches on and won’t let go until you accept God’s will or reject God entirely.  God loves you that much.  He wants you as part of the family.