dailydiatribes

As I write this, I am still feeling extremely queasy from this morning's find.  It's the first Sunday of the time change, and I woke up feeling chipper.  There is nothing like an extra hour of sleep to get your blood going.  So, in the spirit of the solstice, I decided I would make pancakes for my little princesses, Tim and Josh being off together chopping wood or something manly like that.  Actually, I think they're planting flowers, but that doesn't really go with my theme here.

So I opened the pantry to get out the ingredients.  Well, I was immediately sidetracked by the crazy jumble of boxes in there.  I know I have diatribed about this before, but my family luuuuuuuuvvvvvvvvvvvvs to take the last fruit roll up and leave the empty box in the pantry for me to find.  So I was straightening the pantry, removing the 37 empty boxes, picking up stuff from the pantry floor, that sort of thing.

I have to set the scene here, because I think I can pitch this idea to Stephen King.  It's a beautiful, sunny Sunday morning.  The sky is so blue, it makes your soul ache.  The air is crisp with the promise of the coming winter.  Birds are flitting merrily around the bird feeder outside of the window, only occasionally thumping into the window.  My girls are actually getting along, sitting at the table and playing with play dough and construction paper.

Aside:  Why is Anna more entertained by the tiny free container of play dough she got in a goody bag yesterday than by the room full of expensive toys she has?  She sat and played with that stuff for an hour!!  Had I bought the play dough, she would have never touched it.

Anyway, there was absolutely no warning of the horror to come.  No ominous music, swelling with dread, making my spine tingle and alerting me to the fear that was to come.  Nothing.  I was happily ignorant of what lay within the depths of my pantry.

Humming to myself, I reached up to the shelf where the pancake mix was.  I touched it, then pulled away, struck with a need to straighten the boxes on that shelf.  I moved the boxes closer together, lining up the barley and the rice and the Rice A Roni in an orderly fashion.  My hands inched closer to the pancake box of dread.

Finally, I was ready.  Then I turned from the pantry to get my tools together.  A measuring cup, a bowl and a frying pan...I lined them up on the counter, ready to begin the pancake project.  It was almost as if, on some primitive subconscious level, I was aware of the terror lurking in my pantry.

I turned to the pantry in slow motion.  My senses were heightened and it seemed as if I could hear each molecule of sound individually as I reached for the "Mrs. Butterworth's Complete".  My hand closed around the red box and Mrs. Butterworth smiled at me complacently, that bitch, not giving me any warning as to the contents of the box.  Mrs. Butterworth the demon, who had replaced the innocent pancake mix with the contents of hell.

I set the box on the counter, and read the back, trying to determine how many pancakes to make.  The girls were starting to get fretful; the supernatural vibes were getting to them, causing them to snap and snarl.  "Two Cups," I read from the box and I grasped the box firmly and my hand came down to the top to fold the flaps back.

The scream of horror never escaped my lips, but reverberated to the very depths of my soul, shattering my peaceful morning and altering me forever.  As I opened the box, I realized the pancake mix was MOVING AND IT WAS BLACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Some sort of winged insect had infested the whole mix and the colony glared at me malevolently, inviting me to have a pancake!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When I say my stomach churned, I am soooooo not exaggerating!!!  I think I actually dry heaved a time or two as I lurched to the garbage can to throw the box away!!  I have no idea what took over the pancake mix, but I am considering torching the entire pantry.  It goes without saying that the Bisquick box, the bright happy yellow Bisquick box, joined the pancake mix in the garbage without me so much as peeking at its contents.  Better safe than sorry, I always say.  I may go ahead and throw away everything and fumigate with Raid or at the very least, have a priest come and perform a rite of exorcism.

Needless to say, I am NOT cooking anything this morning.  Oh no, we are off to McDonald's and the golden arches, where the health inspector comes on a regular basis to make sure the pancake mix cannot fly away!!