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.

Like Sknarf last week, Lance Allott, of Mercer Island in Lake Washington, Washington, had arrived this summer, much later than Sknarf and with no discernable skills, although he was nearing retirement age.  But he arrived with three grandchildren.  Grannie Fannie immediately fell in love with the grandchildren.  They moved into her apartment, so that she could take care of his grandchildren, obviously no discernable skills for him in that regard either.  This was going to be a much harder meeting than the one I had with Sknarf and Julia.

There was a confident knock at the door.  I had three visitor chairs setup in that I wanted to speak to them at their level, maybe hold their hands. Lance’s children were already in the play area, playing with Pink Sparkle, Kanok, and Joon.

Kanok saw Lance walk into the room and she came running over.  “Ranc…”  She stopped, both running and talking.  “La…  La… Lance.”  Then she ran over and bowed, “Sawasdee Kha.”  Lance bowed, “Sawasdee Khrap.”  The greetings depend on what gender says each one.  Kanok laughed and then went back to the play area.  She announced to the other children, “La, la, Lance is back.”

Olympia said, “Nope, that’s Granddaddy.”

I pointed to a chair.  Lance said, “I would greet you with a Sawasdee Khrap, but I have a feeling you are not putting up with the crap this morning.”

I sighed, “I don’t know.  I am putting up with you.”

Lance shrugged, “I am who I am and some people have a hard time with that.”

I moaned, “And I am answerable to a higher power.  God commands me to love other people.  You have only been here six weeks, and you have already become hard to love.  I would say this is not working out, but Fannie loves those three children.  She never had children of her own and she has become attached to yours.  She loves my three over there playing with your three children, but she knows she is the surrogate guardian for them.  I am afraid that if we must ask you to leave, we may have to ask you to leave the children behind.  Be assured, they will be brought up in a loving home.”

He shrugged, “Have I done anything worthy of being kicked out?”

I laughed, “No, I do not think so.  You put your hand into Fannie’s pants to squeeze her bottom, but I think she got your attention.”

He sighed, “She said if I did it again, she would keep the hand, and I would be left with a stump.  I didn’t know if I believed that.  Then she reminded me that I have Hannah Bandana cut my hair, and why Hannah was in prison.”

I smiled, “Hannah was the first person that cut my hair professionally since I was a teenager.  She used the temporary insanity plea and the jury did not buy it.  But if your best friend and your husband were doing naughty things in your bed when you came home from work carrying a razor in your hand, how would you react?  As you can tell, I continue to use Hannah’s services.  But, if you had been visiting Hannah’s home back in the day, she might have slit your throat.  She is technically on parole, but the rule about consorting with other ex-cons has been modified a bit.  GrandPa, PawPaw, Thou, and Otto are reformed and are Hannah’s best supporters.  But you hurt Fannie just once, and I might ask her to rearrange your face.  Got it?”

Lance leaned back in his chair.  “That sounds like the crime boss in you instead of the Christian who loves her neighbors.”

I shrugged, “Okay, I rejected Uncle Delly’s offers for me to take over his business.  I wanted to love others, not harm them, but when you have been around it like I have, it slips through on occasion.”

Lance laughed, “Yeah, I can tell.  The reason why Fannie said that Hannah would help in that regard was the Pink employees stick together, and she reminded me that I was not an employee.”

I smiled, “I could fix that if you had any discernable job skills at all.  You get bored in the control room, and you do not watch what is happening around you.  You nearly wrecked a fork truck.  Somehow, with you at the helm, the machine putting bottle caps on the bottles started missing the mark.  And somehow, I knew not to even let you go into the raw materials area.  I think the Pink Lady Apples would turn into Grannie Smiths, as if by magic.  You are a one-man wrecking crew.”

He replied, “And if I was to be paid entry level pay, my Social Security that is based on the last months worked will sink into the toilet.  I’m waiting for my next birthday and then I am retiring officially, even though I will take a heavy penalty.  And why do you use Pink Lady Apples?  They are more expensive.”

I rocked my shoulders.  “I guess I am more expensive.  But Pink Lady Apples are the same as Cripp’s Pink Apples, but they are certified to meet the standard of a Pink Lady Apple.  In perfecting the Lily the Pink brand, a slight flavor change could mean a loss in sales.  Quality assurance is more important than a few pennies per pound.”

He smiled, “You have an answer for everything.”

I shook my head, “I do not have an answer for you.  Each person has free will.  We can accept God or reject Him.  When I see someone like you who constantly needs more proof, more information, more …, I get irritated.  I pray to God, asking what more can I do?”

He sneered, “And since you have God on speed dial, how does He respond?”

I chuckled a low, breathy laugh, “He said, ‘Pinkie, I am the one who does that.  You keep loving them.’  So, the worse or horribly worse, you continue to not pay rent and mooch a free meal here or there.  But, wait, let me ask you. …”

I was interrupted by Olympia, Lance’s two-year-old.  She was whimpering.  She said that she fell and hurt her arm.  There was the slightest crease where she had landed on a plastic building block.  The skin had not broken.  I looked her in the eyes.  I said, “Let’s go around to the business end of my desk.”  We walked around the desk, and I opened the top middle drawer.  “I am fresh out of Wonder Woman.  I have Batman bandages and some nice pink bandages to match your dress and Hello Kitty is on those bandages.”

Olympia said in a whisper, “Batman.  He’s tougher.”  I laughed and placed a Batman bandage on her ‘injury’ that was probably not hurting anymore.

I called for her older brother Liam to come over.  “Liam, who loves you?”

Liam brightened and sang, “Jesus loves me, this I know.”

I gave him a hug.  “Who else loves you?”

Liam made a face to show he was thinking really hard.  Then he smiled, “Grannie Fannie and you, Mommie Pinkie, and Aunt Jochebed.”

I asked, while shrugging my shoulder in his grandfather’s direction.  “Anyone else?”

Liam finally got the hint.  “Oh, yeah, Granddaddy, too.”

I thanked him for his answers, and I told him to pick up the building blocks and put them away.  His sister would not have hurt as much when she fell if she had not landed on the block.  We had the play area padded similar to the padded non-slip bathmats or kitchen mats.  Not foolproof but cushions for Grannie Fannie’s feet and less blood curdling screams.

I asked out loud, “Where was I?  Yes, a test.  Have you ever left Grannie Fannie’s apartment without her and the children, leaving her and the children behind?”

Lance said, “Sure, many times.  Why ask?”

I asked, “How do the children react?”

Lance shrugged, “They don’t.  They are usually having fun with Fannie.”

I asked, “And has Grannie Fannie left you with the children?”

Lance nodded, “We sometimes all go shopping, but she hates me going along.  I get what we need and want to go, while she likes to shop for impulse stuff.”

I nodded, “And how do the children react when she leaves alone?”

Lance shrugged, “They cry.  They want to go with her.  They are a bit fussy the entire time she is gone.  Why?”

It was my turn to shrug.  “They sense the love of Jesus in Grannie Fannie.  They sense the love of Jesus in me, and in Jochebed.  But with you, they do not feel that way, but you have been with them since birth.  God works in each of us to put us in a position where we know that we need him.  Everything has gone well for you until now.  Yes, an unplanned daughter.  The unplanned grandchildren, followed by the daughter’s death and then your live-in girlfriend’s death.  But you are still in the mode of ‘I can fix this.’  But if God wants you and somehow, I sense that He does, He is going to put you in a position where you know you have no way out.  And I pray that comes before Liam does not think you love him at all.  He barely thinks so now.”

Lance snarled, “How do you know how God works?”

I smiled, “I have counseled over one hundred people in this office.  Many, maybe most, have accepted Jesus, and they all seemed to use a different path.  I will not betray a trust, but I can tell you how I came to know Jesus.  When I was in high school, we took a field trip to the monastery and while a lot of the girls did naughty things, I sat with the prior and we talked.  The prior is the second in command to the abbot.  I guess the prior saw something in me.  He handed me a book and said I could find the answers I seek inside the book, but I had to seek to find.  It was my first Bible, in English.  The prior had a stack of them.  I was not interested in reading the Bible until I graduated high school.  I got home from a graduation party to find a note from my mother.  She could not take it any longer.  My Dad was in prison.  I was about to leave for college.  She could not live in the rich part of town with everyone knowing she was married to a murderer.  She said that I would be well cared for by Uncle Delly, Red Delicious, head of the crime family.  But I had the silly idea of making hard apple cider.  Uncle Delly did not like the idea.  He wanted me to take over when he could not run the crime family anymore.  Instead, I started reading the Bible.  A week later or so, Gwen Quinn showed up at my door.  She was a gypsy that Uncle Delly had hired to be my companion.  I went to college here in Tracy.  I pursued a degree in accounting.  But then one day, I was getting some sun by the pool, a much smaller pool than what we have now.  Scrambled Yeggs walked up and dropped his pants and said that he was going to rock my world.  I had never seen a man’s junk before, and while I was a junior in college, he was a senior in high school.  I told him to get me jewelry, and I might consider it.  Scrambled wanted to be like his father.  He could crack any safe in town.  He stole jewelry and redesigned the setting, and we slept together.  Baldwyn Apple, my hideous cousin, caught us in bed.  He proposed to Uncle Delly that since I was selling my body, why not turn the house and the apartment building next door into a brothel.  I wanted my cider house, and Uncle Delly gave me that in exchange for the property turning into a brothel.  But what happened with Scrambled in me is that Baldwyn made it impossible for us to be together, and he did not know that I was pregnant with Scrammie’s baby.  Pregnant, alone except for a paid companion, and trapped in my own home, I was in a situation from which I could not escape.  Gwen was frightened for me.  In those two and a half years, we had become sisters.  We dug into every page of the Bible and about the same time we discovered the recipe for Lily the Pink, we had both accepted Jesus.  Gwen and I hid the baby until he was weaned, and then Gwen took him to the monastery with a note.”

I sighed, “So, Lance, when you get to the point when you realize that you are in over your head, God will be there.”

Lance had a tear in his eye.  “Mommie Pinkie, will Liam forget that I love him?”

I shrugged, “Lance, you must think of others instead of thinking about yourself in order for those others to know that you care.”

Lance broke down.  As he sobbed, I realized that my testimony had not hit the mark as much as me saying that one day Liam, his oldest grandchild, would forget that he loved him.  I had found what Lance feared, and only the love of God could change that.

Grannie Fannie came in and saw Lance crying.  She put her arms around him, and he said that he had been such an idiot.

After the three of us had a long conversation, I let Grannie Fannie have the rest of the day off.  Missy could make the late bus routes.  Lance had decided to take her and the children for a picnic.

I don’t think Lance had made a decision to accept Jesus, but for the first time, he gave Jesus a second thought.  He was going to start seeking, and Jesus said that those who seek shall find.  I think that part of my testimony soaked in.

Credits

I do not see any credits in this story.  It is a follow-up to the initial story when Lancelot showed up without an invitation.  But my children and grandchildren would invent injuries in order to wear a superhero bandage.  Stepping on a plastic building block or falling on one, hurts.  It might not need a bandage, but it definitely is an injury.