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.

I was having seven couples in my office.  I wanted to start a new club.  The Mommie Club, and all the support groups that started, were doing great.  But I had some strange couples in and around the campus.  I can think of ten, but three of the couples I was giving an emeritus status before we ever began.  I might make that four, since there were four couples who were married.

Okay, here is my idea.  Would you call it a weird couple if your best friend, who is only about five years older than you are is married to a man about forty years older than his wife?  Okay, maybe weird is not the right word.  But what makes it worse is that I consider my best friend the sister I never had while her husband is legitimately my grandfather by marriage.  Okay, then there is a similar age difference with another married couple, and they have produced children, twins.  The husband is my father-in-law and his wife is about the same age as my son.  And their twin preschool children are my brother-in-law and sister-in-law.  Then, I include myself and Scrambled.  Of course, anyone whose husband is named Scrambled Yeggs is got to be labeled weird, but I stayed faithful to him for decades while he tried in vain to find a way to even see me, but he got married for a short time, and now the oldest of our children is a son out of wedlock, then my husband’s two boys of a different mother and then our little Pink Sparkle, who is a little over one year old.  This does not include our two adopted children, Kanok and Joon.  I am going to have to explain to Scarlet Ibis Yeggs that Sparkle, who is almost two years younger, is really her aunt.  I am not even thinking of doing that soon.

But those are the emeritus couples, maybe attending the parties.

But now for the members that I hope will be active club members.

There is my father, Ash, who had his reasons, but basically celebrated my birth by sleeping with my mother’s twin sister so that I had a doppelganger who was nine-months younger than I was, my Dad’s only affair.  My Doppelganger died and now my accounting assistant is a twenty-something clone of me, the daughter of Baldwyn Apple and my Doppelganger.  Now with my mother having passed away, my Dad is dating Vieve, my mother’s twin.

If that is not weird enough, one of Naomi’s friends from high school, just married the head of Meteorology at T.R.U.S.T.  Mags Lothrop Kildare was a drugged out, washed out, barely graduated high school, and she married the straight-laced, holy-roller college professor.  He has grown children who are excited that their Dad moved on, and now Dr. Kildare has five step-children and two of them who will both be in high school this year.  There is a bit of age difference, but a lot of education difference along with their vastly different backgrounds.

Then there is Lance Allott (Lancelot) who brought three stairstep grandchildren: 3, 2, and 1 from Washington state to Tracy so that Grannie Fannie could teach him how to be a father and grandfather to his grandchildren.  They are living in the same apartment, Lance on the couch, but the three-year-old, Liam, has told me that Grannie Fannie hit his Daddy over the head with a frying pan and then licked his head.  That is going to be a first meeting discussion topic.  Lance is a life-long womanizer, and Fannie insists she can handle the situation.

Now, at least in separate apartments, there is Julia, the second in command of security at the Tracy campus, who found a guy who claimed to be Sknarf, from a land far, far, away.  Actually, he was Gordon Franks (Sknarf spelled backwards) and he was hallucinating from a bump on the head, sleep deprivation, food deprivation, and probably dehydrated, not to mention the grief of both parents dying.  Now with that cleared up, he has been educated as a cider house operator, and he has volunteered to rewrite all the training for every position on the campus in his spare time.  He had formerly been a nuclear power operator from south Georgia, the Georgia in the USA.

Then there are Tamara and Bart.  To make a long story short, they were making love to avoid dealing with the trauma of watching thirty people get killed before their eyes.  We separated them so that they could deal with the trauma.  Now Tamara has accepted Jesus, but Bart is only at the stage of being willing to accept that there is a God.  Bart wants to restart the carnal activity and Tamara does not, but they are taking it frustratingly slow.  Frustrating for both of them.

Then, Wilma and Fred, or should that be Fred and Wilma, might not belong here, but Wilma has some traumatic home life to deal with while Fred is a boy from a couple of counties over, super smart, but very naïve.

And then there is the oddest couple of all, maybe.  They met as in-coming high school freshmen, and she decided that they would be boyfriend / girlfriend on social media platforms to better fit in at high school.  What did they have in common?  She had skipped one grade, and her boyfriend had skipped four grades.  That was all that they had in common.  They are about to start their senior year of high school, which means they have been attached to each other for three years.  Now the boy, my nephew Blaise, owns his own company along with his sister Sophia, and he spends all his spare time in the lab.  His girlfriend, Margie Justice, is the star pitcher of the high school softball team, and she follows Blaise around his lab when she has any free time.  But my question is: What will happen when their classmates are running off to get married after graduating high school, and Margie, who just recently got her driver’s license, waits for two more years, plus a few months, for Blaise to be old enough to get his driver’s license, and at what point will my loving sister-in-law allow her son to get married?  At eighteen when he graduates from college?  And both are having urges to be more intimate.  After all, many of their friends were intimate on the third date.  They’ve been dating for three years.

Since I did not want interruptions and my babysitters, my Daddy Ash and Grannie Fannie, were club members, I had suggested that all the children go to the nursery.

And, other than the first two emeritus couples that I mentioned, they entered my office in the order in which I just wrote about them.  The first three couples were not that much different in ages, at least a little overlap.  Scrambled had laid out a huge spread of a variety of pastries.  We had the usual ciders, alcoholic and non-alcoholic.  The two youngest couples are too young to officially be served alcohol, and Mags Kildare is in AA.  I heard that Sknarf and Dr. Kildare avoided the alcoholic version of cider, maybe special occasions only.

Then, GrandPa and Gwen came in.

But when Julia and Sknarf came in, closely followed by Tamare and Bart, heads started to turn.  They were wondering what kind of group was I thinking of.  But when Fred and Wilma showed up, they looked at their watches, thinking they had come at the wrong time.

But, true to being the most awkward, weird couple, Blaise held the door for Margie without looking, but after he closed the door behind her, he said, much too loud, “Marguerite, we stumbled into the wrong party.  There may only be one or two in the room that we could talk to in a social interaction.”

Margie replied, “Come now, Sweetheart, most social engagements with people our age have you in the corner working design changes on your tablet because no one has the interests that you have.  Please, Sweetheart, you need to listen to a sports broadcast every once in a while to know the language.  This crowd is, ummm, old, umm, older and more experienced.  You might get into some interesting conversations.”

Blaise said, “I bow to your assessment, dear.  Besides, you made me leave the tablet in the lab.”

I needed to make a few notes.  We had to discuss the frying pan and licking thing with Grannie Fannie, and why was Margie being so formal with the “Sweetheart?”

I cleared my throat, “Please, everyone get your refreshments and come over to sit down.  I am sure you all want to know why you are here.  I have gathered this eclectic crowd of unique couples to see if you would like to start a little club.  Let’s see, I have used eclectic and unique.  Hmm.”

Gwen said, “Pardon my gypsy ways of telling it the way it is, but we are the Weird Couple Club.”

A few groaned.  GrandPa had a nice belly laugh.  Ash said, “I think my darling daughter was trying to soften the blow a bit.  I, for one, am dating my late wife’s twin sister.  Beyond that, I am not volunteering any more information until I know you people better.  That is possibly strange, weird, unique, whatever.”

Dr. Kildare suggested, “Since this is a club, we could be the cute, courageous, and curious couples club?”

Fred said, “What about forgetting the idea of being a club.  We could be the Perfectly Polite Passionate and Particularly Pleasant People?”

Mags said, “I like both ideas, but I love popping my ‘P’s’.”

Wilma said, “It’s not that my main squeeze, Fred, came up with the idea, but I need practice at not popping the ‘P’ sound.  Maybe B.B. will give me more airtime.”

Sknarf said, “I keep hearing people talk about B.B. and Stinker and Amazon.  I get confused.”

Dr. Kildare said, “Part of the charm of the Turtle Team crew of storm chasers is that Dr. Ellie Casey awards people codenames, usually something embarrassing.  Her codename is Home Wrecker, since she had a bad reputation before finding Jesus.  And her husband, Ben, is Mama’s Man, since Mama’s boy is too demeaning.  Joseph and Mary Sheltie Jones are No Joe and B.B. which is short for Bossy Boss.  She runs the television channel.  Easter and Jemima Yeggs are Easy and Stinker.  Kevin and Joseline Johnson have alternated to give Stinker some Mommie time, and they are Skinny and Amazon.  And I here that Fred and Wilma have officially joined the team now.”

Wilma said, “Fred is Flintstone, and I am Hoople.”

Vieve said, “Fred Flintstone, I get that one, but why Hoople?”

Wilma reddened, “My last name is Slay and Wilma Flintstone’s maiden name was Slaghoople.  Slay Hoople, but Hoople for short.”

Mags said, “And before too long our young Mike Lothrop is going to get more Turtle time.  I have no idea what they’ll call him, but Arabella Dalton is Fireball and Michael Rowe Casey is That’s My Boy.”

Lance said, “That sounds like a lot of fun, what cable channel is it on?”

Dr. Kildare moaned, “We’re not there yet.  The reality show with all the codenames is on a streaming service.  Also on the streaming service is Stinker’s educational series.  She teaches basic cloud identification and weather terminology, but she has taught Fireball and That’s My Boy how to read radar.  Michael Rowe Casey recently identified a tornado that they then chased.  I say recently, it was Spring Break earlier this year.  And we sell to markets around the world a weather forecast system with B.B. doing the voice over.  It will be nice when future upgrades provide Wilma’s voice for some variation.  And as for the name of our group, I like Fred’s idea better than mine and when Wilma can say it without popping, she will get more airtime.  B.B. just thinks she runs things.  I run the department that sponsors the channel.”

Mags squeezed his arm.  “Oo, my man is flexing his muscles.”  Dr. Kildare just reddened.

I raised a hand.  “We have gotten a storm chasing update which affects a couple of the couples.  But my point in gathering you together is that there is a wide gap in ages here, and within couples for a few of you.  The backgrounds are a lot different.  Interests are a lot different.  I love running a cider operation and my husband is a baker.  And I am a couple of years older than Scrammie.”

Blaise raised his bottle of the non-alcoholic freedom cider. “Yeah, confession time, Aunt Pink.  When did you and Gwen first make Lily the Pink cider and how old were you?”

I turned Pink, maybe Hot Pink. “Can someone politely change the subject?”

Ash said, “As your father, confession is good for the soul.”

“Okay, okay.” I groaned. “Sis, you are part of this.  Why don’t you tell them?”

Gwen laughed, “For one thing, how Lily the Pink was perfected is your story.  Besides, I am enjoying the pain you are in right now.”

I growled, “If I am going down, you are going down with me.”

Grannie Fannie laughed, “The more she hesitates, the more we want to hear the story.”

I sighed, “Okay.  Everybody knows the preamble.  I graduated high school and the next day, my mother had left in the night.  She left me money and a note to talk to Uncle Delly.  For those that do not know, Uncle Delly is my uncle, who is now in prison.  He was the crime boss in Tracy, Red Delicious Apple.  And I have it on good authority that Uncle Delly has accepted Jesus.  But Uncle Delly checked up on me, the only one in this Big House.  He advertised and within a week this gypsy, Gwen Quinn, showed up.  Uncle Delly had hired her off the street as my companion.  I say, ‘off the street.’  She was running away from a bad situation when she got to Tracy and picked up a paper with her last pocket change.  I quickly learned that she could cook, and I told her my life’s dream was to make my own apple cider, the hard stuff.  I was only eighteen, just graduated high school.  I had the idea of Lily the Pink after the funny song by the Scaffold and then by the Irish Rovers.  I wanted lily root in the recipe.  Gwen loved to experiment.  She would make a batch, and we would taste it.”

Margie asked, “The hard stuff?”

I huffed, “Of course, the hard stuff.  Most of the time, one sip and we threw the batch out.  We learned that not enough lily root, and the flavor was just like apple cider.  We wanted the lily root to alter the flavor just a little bit.  Too much lily root and it tasted strange.  Of course, modifying the cinnamon and other things were important.  And after a year of throwing out half of what we had made, we started drinking a small glass to see about aftertaste and such.  Then one afternoon after I got home from college, Gwen asked me to taste the latest batch.  I had a sip, then the entire glass, then I asked for more.  Gwen was keeping up with me.  We both agreed this was the best yet.  After a couple of glasses, I opted to do like the hillbillies do.  I lifted the earthen jug over my arm and tipped the jug to drink it straight from the jug.  Gwen laughed, but she joined me.  This stuff tasted great.  After a while, well, I do not remember much.  Sis, how did we end up in just our underwear?”

Tamara yelled, “What?!”

Ash groaned, “My daughter did some naughty things?”

Gwen shook her head, “No, she was eighteen. She couldn’t hold her liquor.  I’m a gypsy, I was nowhere near my limit.  She said that she felt hot.  I suggested she take off her outer clothing.  So that she wasn’t alone, I joined her.  It was like we were in bikinis.  When she got a little wobbly, I guided her up the stairs carefully.  I brought the jugs along.  She crawled into bed and wanted me to kiss her on the lips to seal the deal.  We had found the formula.  Then I laid down beside her and stroked her temples.  I knew she was not going to feel good in the morning.  I told her that she was the best sister that I ever had.”

I continued the story, “And the last thing I remember was telling Gwen that she was the only sister I ever had.  At least the only one that I knew of.  Gwen kissed me and said that the next step was presenting a business plan to Uncle Delly.   I woke up the next morning with the biggest hangover.  No, the only hangover that I ever had.  Gwen laughed at me, but she held my head while I threw up.  She kept telling me to get it out of my system.  We had to sell it to Uncle Delly.  Uncle Delly loved the cider, and he removed the illegal activity from the warehouse, but he did not loan me the money to buy the equipment until I was pregnant with Boaz and Baldwyn had turned the apartment building and the Big House into a brothel.  Once we started the cider operations, I insisted that the ladies work in the cider operations half the time.  Grannie Fannie was one of the first operators and she has basically taught everyone since then.”

Lance asked, “Fannie?  You were a prostitute?”

Grannie Fannie said, “Lance, you know my story.  I have hidden nothing from you.”

Lance moaned, “But I would think a prostitute would be easier to coax into bed.”

Grannie Fannie said, “Not if you were tired of it.  Not if you had already lived a lot longer than the life expectancy of a prostitute.  And not if you have become a Christian.  Mommie Pinkie saved a lot of us.  Jesus saves souls, but working only half the day in prostitution and then feeling like a productive member of society the rest of the day gave us a different type of hope.  And even before the emancipation, I was working full-time in cider operations.  I was getting to be too old to be desirable.”

Lance said, “But I desire you.”

I interrupted, “Liam told me something the other day that I have to get cleared up.  He said that Grannie Fannie hit Daddy over the head with a frying pan and then licked his head.  Explain that.  Liam is three.  He might not have seen what he thought he saw.”

Grannie said, “Everyone in the six P group.  Lance is an incurable womanizer.  I was making chocolate chip pancakes for the children, at least the older two.  Now, confess, Lance, I will tell them what I really did, but you have to let everyone know why I did it.”

Lance groaned, “No one else is confessing, well Pink Lady did, but Fannie was busy with the pancakes, and she looked so comfortable in her own skin.  I slid a hand inside her pants and squeezed her buttocks.”

There was a combination of gasps and laughter.  I did both.

I said, “I have thrown people out for less than that, but Grannie, you hit him with a frying pan?”

Grannie waved a hand, “That is the way Liam saw it or the only words he knew to say what happened.  The pancake was ready to flip so I turned around and flipped the pancake onto Lance’s head.  The pan might have touched his head to make sure the entire pancake was on his head, but I did not hit him with the frying pan.”

I asked, “But where does the licking him on the head come in?”

Lance said, “The pancake was hot, but the molten chocolate chips soaked into the skin.  It was like lava dripping through my hair.”

Grannie Fannie shrugged, “Yeah, Lance, the womanizer, is a baby when it comes to pain.  I don’t mind losing a little pancake batter, but it is an egregious sin to waste perfectly good chocolate chips.  I was not kissing his head or licking his head as much as I was licking off as much chocolate before the grown up baby went to the shower.  Pink, I told you that I can handle the situation.”

Lance said, “See there?  She is dangerous.”

Grannie Fannie then added, “But if you decided to leave, where do the children want to go?”

Lance threw up his hands, “And that’s another thing.  She has poisoned my children against me.”

Grannie shook her head, “No, I love those children with the love of Jesus.  When you have the love of Jesus within you, they will love you as much as they do me.”

Lance shook his head.

I smiled, “Okay, this was a rough conversation, confession, whatever, but it is why I want you to be this six P group.  What did you call it, Fred?”

Fred said, “Oh, good grief, I forgot!”

Wilma said, “I wrote it down.  Fred said Perfectly Polite Passionate and Particularly Pleasant People.”  She leaned over and kissed Fred.  Then she added, “You can thank me later.”

And I sighed, “And that is why Wilma is staying with Kevin and Joseline Johnson and Fred is with Jemima and Easter.”

Lance said, “With a body like Wilma’s, I cannot figure out how he could keep his hands off her.”

Then a loud exhale came from Lance, as Grannie elbowed him.  He said between gasps for air, “Okay, I deserve that one.”

I shook my head, “But the reason why I chose you couples is that none of you have a lot in common with your friend.  Fred and Wilma are both meteorological students.  Margie does everything Blaise does, just to be near him…  By the way, what is this kick about calling Blaise ‘Sweetheart’?  That is precious, but rather old fashioned.”

Margie shrugged, “I am still in therapy with Pastor Joseph, and he suggested it because Blaise cringes each time that I say it.  It reminds us that we should not take our love down a physical path.  That’s all.”

I asked, “Blaise, has it worked?”

Blaise shrugged, “I am reminded that we should not be physical, but it also reminds me that Margie still wants the physical.  But before anyone asks, I will be fourteen in another month.”

I nodded, “And you will be a senior in college when you turn eighteen, Blaise.  Can the two of you wait another five years?”

Margie groaned, “With everyone trying to help us through this, when do we have a chance to sneak off by ourselves?”

Tamara walked over.  “Mommie Pinkie, can I show you something?”  I nodded.  She pulled off her wig and shoved her head into my face.  “Look!  Look!  Do you see it?”

I had to back my head away to see anything.  She had enough hair to tie it into a bun and put the wig over it.  That was an improvement.  But the hair was still white, no color at all.  I asked, “What am I supposed to see?”

Tamara said, “When someone colors their hair, where do you look?  The roots!  The roots!”

And then I saw what made her so excited.  Her white hair had mousy brown roots, maybe less than an inch.  “Like you said, someday the color engines in your hair follicles will get repaired and your colored hair will return.  This is a time for us to praise God.  You conquered cancer with His help.  Your hair is back, long enough to manage.  And at some point, you will be able to cut off the white hair and be back to normal.  But what about Bart?”

Tamara laughed, “He is on the cusp of a commitment.  He’s so smart.  He is a good project manager.  If it were not for me, he would have nothing in his world that he could not handle, but I will not sleep with him until he makes that commitment.  So, he only needs a little push in the right direction, maybe that one more thing that he cannot handle on his own and he’ll know he needs God.”

Bart came over, “I know you two are talking about me.  I hope at least some of it is good stuff.”

I nodded, “Tamara was showing me the brown roots.  How do you like a girl friend who has hair?”

Bart shrugged, “If we had not been going to Vespers together and having little dinner dates, I would be shocked by it.  She was bald when we first met.  But being across the hall, I got to watch the hair return.  She is more lovely with hair.

I said, “Well, we have had contributions from everyone except for Julia and Sknarf, our alien from a land, far, far, away.”

Sknarf said, “I was having hallucinations, and we have since reviewed the audio file.  I never said ‘alien’.  And my real name is Gordon Franks.  Sknarf is Franks spelled backwards.  Did I mention I had been hit on the head, and no sleep, and no food for days?”

I laughed, “But if he is simply Gordon Franks from Vidalia, Georgia, would he still be a candidate for the Six P group?”

Julia laughed, “Oh, I have updated information.  He definitely qualifies, and maybe I qualify since I have dated him a few times, even after knowing that he is weird.”

I nodded, “Exactly.  And not present here today, and maybe rarely attending are my father-in-law and his wife, Thou and Maeve Yeggs.  They rarely leave the mission.  To have a counselor there 24/7, Maeve needs to make phone calls for a replacement counselor to even go on doctor appointments.  But I think they need this group more than anyone else.  Their mission work has become their entire life, other than the twins.  The twins are two and a half years old.”

Dr. Kildare asked, “And the husband is your father-in-law?  Yes, they qualify.  Mags and I are not thinking about children at all, but I wanted us to tie the knot since we both have children from our first marriage.  I have not retired yet, so this Social Security dodge is not even a consideration.  Besides, Mags getting half of my Social Security will be getting more than what she would get on her own.”

I smiled, “Everyone, eat more treats.  Get a box and take some back to the children that you may or may not have.”

Blaise said, “Like my sister, Sophie, and her boyfriend, Emmett?”

I groaned, “If Emmett gets anything, then Arabella and Sarah will want something.  And Arabella will tell Michael, who is staying with the Evidents for a few days.  The Casey house is getting some upgrades.”

Credits

I taught in industry for thirty years.  If I needed a human illustration, I used Fred and Wilma.  If there was a third or fourth person needed in the story, I added Betty and Barney.  It was just the way my brain works.  I cannot believe it has taken me this long to have a The Flintstones reference in these stories.