“You certainly bring spice to my life,” her husband stated.

“Oh, you’re so sweet,” she said before asking, “What kind — pumpkin spice?”

“No,” he answered, “Old Spice.”

My stomach IS flat — it’s jus’ that the ‘L’ is silent.

I ate so much turkey on Thanksgiving day that when I fell asleep, I thought I was going to wake up on Christmas morning.

 

She walked over to the popcorn maker in the waiting area and got herself a bag. She also poured herself a cup of coffee.

As she did this, I took the opportunity to check her out. I’d seen her sitting at one of the tables doing what I believe was some sort of school work.

From the front she was attractive and now I could honestly say she was attractive from the backside, too. Then I looked at her feet, where she had on a fancy pair of ostrich-skin cowboy boots.

As she stepped passed my seat, I said to her with a smile, “I love your boots.”

With a half-surprised, half-angry look on her face, she stopped and asked, “What did you say?!”

She said it with such authority that her question left me feeling unsure as I repeated, “I love your boots?”

The woman smiled warmly, “Wow, my mistake – I thought you said ‘boobs.’ Thank you for the compliment. My husband bought them for me, for my birthday last month.”

“Y-y-your w-w-welcome,” I stammered.

As she headed back to the table she occupied, and having come to within an inch of losing my life, I rapidly scanned the room for a hole to crawl into and hide.

So, I took my wife’s car in to have the tires rotated. It was a two-hour wait.

“No problem,” I said as I held up the book I had with me.

My plan was to sit quietly and read, but the kids in the waiting area had other plans. Instead, I walked across the parking lot to the second-hand store to have a look around.

After an hour or so of perusing the aisle, I discovered a torn and stained U.S. flag stuffed, unceremoniously in the back of a lower shelf. I pulled it out and took it to the front to tell them that a flag in such disrepair isn’t supposed to be resold, rather it should be properly disposed of through the VFW or American Legion.

The manager was polite, thanking me for bringing it to her attention and that she’d see it was properly taken care of personally. Happy with myself, I headed out the door, when I heard, “Sir! Sir!”

Turning back it was the store manager. She saw my book and told me that I had forgotten to pay for it.

“No,” I replied. “This is mine. I brought it in with me.”

“Really?” she snarked. “You’re gonna steal a 25-cent book after what you jus’ did?”

Ready to show her some attitude, I again said, “No. This book is mine. I’ve had it since before I could read.”

Then this large, obese guy walks up and asks her, “Is this dude giving you trouble?”

She turned back to me and asked, “Are you?”

Looking at the big guy, as he tried to intimidate me, all I could see (if he touched me) was the bloody mess he would leave after I sliced his fat gut open from side to side in one sweeping motion. I literally had to shake the image out of my head.

Instead, I drew a quarter from my pocket and flipped it in the air and walked out the door. I still can’t believe I had to pay for a book I already owned, but on the bright side, it was only a quarter’s worth of a mistake and not a drop of blood was lost.

A pharmacist employed at the corner drug store came to work only to find a guy leaning against a nearby wall. Curious, he asks the newly hired clerk, “So, what’s up with that guy?”

The new clerk responds, “Well, he came in this morning to get something for his cough, but I couldn’t find the cough syrup, so I gave him an entire bottle of laxative.”

In a panic, the pharmacist shouts at her, “You can’t treat a cough with a laxative!”

Unabashed, she calmly responds, “Yes, you can. Since I gave it to him, he’s been afraid to cough.”

She knocked politely on the door and waited. Something move in the peripheral of her right eye, but when she turned her head to look, nothing was there.

“Hello,” the woman said as she opened the door, “You must be Amelia, here about the maid job.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, come on in. My name is Helen and my husband, whose up stairs, is Don. He’ll be joining us in a minute or so,” the woman stated.

Amelia followed her into the parlor and sat where Helen gestured  for her to sit. She didn’t expect the house to have so many rooms.

“Tea?” Helen offered.

Amelia smiled, “Yes, please.”

From above she heard footsteps move across the ceiling, creaking floorboards gave way to the softer patter of walking on carpet as Don moved towards the stairs. He seemed much, much to young for her, Amelia noticed.

After a few minutes of general conversation, the trio got down to business. Helen wanted to know about Amelia’s experience and references.

“Oh, don’t worry child,” Helen said. “There are 33 rooms to this old mansion and we use only four, so cleaning after us isn’t as daunting as you may think.”

By the end of the hour, the couple hired the young woman. Don helped her move her few things into the back bedroom, beyond the kitchen and dining room.

After they finished, he took her on a tour of the property, pointing out the family crypt and the old tobacco barn, now in severe disrepair. “Many a tale has come up through the generations about spirits and hoo-doo from that falling down building,” he offered.

Inside, it was Helen who offered the tour. She took Amelia to nearly every room in the home, save for one: “That one is off-limits. Not even Don or I go in there.”

Amelia looked at the door as they walked past it. Her curiosity was instantly piqued by the locked door.

For nearly three weeks, Amelia did her chores as scheduled. She dusted, swept, mopped, washed their clothes and folded the laundry as well as laundered the linen on a daily basis before remaking the beds.

“All in all,” she wrote in her diary, “This isn’t a bad job. The pay is good and I have the free range of the kitchen, so food isn’t a worry. However, I’m still wondering about what’s behind that door upstairs.”

It wasn’t but the following day that Helen and Don left the house for a trip into town, leaving Amelia alone for the first time. “We’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

Amelia watched them drive away down the long gravel road that led out to the paved road. She set the broom aside that she’d been using to sweep the front porch.

Quickly, she moved upstairs to the room deemed off-limits. The knob moved easily as she turned it and pushed in the door.

The room was empty of furniture. In fact it was devoid of paint, wallpaper or carpet.

The walls and the floors were hard wood, rough grained, and darkened as if by age. Seeing that there was nothing to be seen, Amelia turned to leave, but found herself unable because of an unseen force preventing her from stepping through the doorway.

Amelia rushed at the door, only to bounce backwards and onto the floor. She tried opening the shuttered windows, but they refused to budge.

Then she heard her employers’ vehicle as it rattled and bumped it’s way up the long drive to the front porch. Her heart sunk and she instantly felt sick as she listened to the sound of their footsteps coming into the front hall and then up the stairs.

“Finally!” Helen said as she stood in front of the door to the forbidden room.

“What did I tell you, my dear,” Don added. “All we needed to do was leave for a bit and she’d trap herself.”

“Wait…what’s going on,” Amelia wanted to know, “How come I can’t get out of here.”

“You and I are going to transfer souls,” Helen stated with a smile.

“You’re crazy, old woman,” Amelia cried.

“Maybe,” Helen replied with a laugh. “But maybe you’re the one that’s crazy.”

“I don’t understand?” questioned a panicked Amelia.

Don stood in the doorway, “Do you think a young man with such a fine body as mine is going to find sexual pleasure with the old, worn out body that Helen is living in?”

“You’re both crazy!” Amelia shouted.

“No,” he answered, “I’m simply young again — and soon Helen will be, too – thanks to you. And I must say, your body is quite thrilling to look at – I can’t wait to make love to it.”

Amelia backed away from the door as she gagged and threw up. Feeling weak in the knees, she dropped to the floor and began sobbing breathlessly.

She cried so hard, that she failed to see the shadow as it crossed from one corner of the room to the other, then behind her. And as Amelia began to find it harder and harder to breathe, she heard Helen call out to Don, “That’s the problem with today’s youth.”

“What is, my dear?” Don asked.

“They don’t listen to their elders,” Helen chuckled.