Our scene opens upon the still kitchen. It is night. The refrigerator hums softly. Nothing moves...except for a flash of silver beneath the table. There, amongst the legs of the four chairs, is Hurricane Lily. Yes, Lily has again donned her environmental hazard suit. She is tightly wrapped in aluminum foil like a sausage, even her tail (which drags behind her like an antenna) and on her head, she wears the transparent base of a glass salt shaker. Following behind her is Switch the Kit, who has had about ENOUGH of this paranoid ca-ca from her companion. "Give it a rest, Lily! The pantry is NOT full of poisons!" (Very muffled) "Hee-hee, he-he-heee!" "Oh, all right, but then we're going back to bed, AREN'T we, oh one-pound Toxic Crusader?" "Heeeeee." "O.K. I'll stand here against the wall. You climb up my back until you can reach the lowest shelf, the one with the canned goods." "He-he." What follows is a lot of scratchy tin foil crinkly noise as Lily climbs up Switch like a ladder. "Get off of my HEAD, Dammit! Grab the shelf, now!" "Hee." There is a long pause, during which we hear the sound of tin foil creasing and flexing. Occasionally the glass salt shaker base thwacks into a tin can with a dull thud. "HEE-HEE! He-Heee! Hee!" "Yeah, it's a dented can. What's your problem, you don't like cling peaches anyway. And no, it is NOT a hee-hee 'hothouse of contagion', you ditz!" "HEE-He! Hee Hee-he-he!" "They are ONIONS, braniac. Onions. Roly-poly papery onions. Not nuclear submarine reactors." "Hee-HEEEE!" "Yeah, they are high in sulfer. So are Italian volcanos. And there aren't any of those in the kitchen. BIG DEAL!! Can we go back to bed now?" "HEEEE-HE-HE HEE!" "Fava beans? We're WEASLES, we don't eat fava beans. We're not like, Armenian or Syrian, or whoever those hoomins are who can't eat 'em." "HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" "Aw, give it a rest! It's peanut butter. Peanut Butter! It's not even made from nuts, they're LEGUMES, and we don't eat THOSE either!" At this point there is a screech of tortured tinfoil as Lily slithers, tumbles, and finally thumps onto the kitchen floor, where she skitters madly on all four feet before she gets the traction necessary to run full-tilt boogie beneath the cabinet and cower there, breathing hard, fogging up her salt shaker base. ( Switch, standing, fists on hips.) "One word, maniac. PROZAC! You need PROZAC, you neurotic fur sausage! PROOOOOZAC! FLUOXITINE HYDROCHLORIDE! Crawling with ions and bad chemical *hit! You need it NOW!" The End. Alexandra in Massachusetts [Posted in FML issue 4271]