Two Thousand Dollars Worth of Chinese Food Part 2.

[Mongeaux]

Author's Note of Shameless Self Promotion:

Because I prefer to post in serial form, I direct The Readers' attention to the to the fact that this is the second installment of the second story in my Série Vitreolum. Readers familiar with this work may continue. For unfamiliar Readers who wish to begin at the beginning, the beginnings may be found here:

Série Vitreolum

Series 2 (continuing). Two Thousand Dollars Worth of Chinese Food Part 1.

Series 1. Hungover On "Judge Judy" Redux

Anybody left? All right, let's move on, shall we?

Those of you who have hazarded the first part of this series were left wondering about a certain item in the mail. This item was at least partially responsible for the heap of congealing chinese ooze now indecorously decorating the kitchen table. There was a relatively large sum of money involved. I confess, I am almost as curious as you to find out who purchased the

Two Thousand Dollars Worth of Chinese Food
Part 2.
By Mongeaux

It was now seven forty five in the evening. I had just come home from work. One might consider that seven forty-five was a rather late, or at least unusual time to find oneself newly arrived home after a day at work. But this was typical for me, and it explains why I was so singularly ill-equipped to appreciate the deeper and more subtle elements of horror implicit in the situation. To fully understand the circumstances in which I now found myself, we have to travel, like Scrooge under the furry arm of The Ghost of Christmas Past, into the hoary depths of...

Well, say four o'clock in the morning, at the beginning of the work day.

Yeah - do the math. Up at four a.m. and home at seven thirty PEEE EM! Long day don't you think? Only fifteen and a half hours. But that was my life. I was a boss at a factory and I worked four 12-hour days on and the next four off. Only I usually worked those too. We needed the money.

I was beginning to suspect that no matter how much money I made, it would never be enough. The wife wanted a house. We got one. All it required were new walls, floors, ceilings, windows, doors, hot water system, plumbing, furniture and appliances.

Plus, the yard would profit marvelously from the attention of a chainsaw and backhoe. Maybe even a little dynamite.

Everybody needs a hobby. Maybe in a few years I would be able to stop digging and banging and consulting asbestos removal faq's to take up one. In the meantime I worked on my current favorite: Hidden Binge Drinking. This involved skimming the gas money fund for enough change to prchase the cheapest handle of rotgut rum to be found on the botttom shelf of the remainders section of the local liquor store. Hidden in the basement, it provided me with the meanest measure of comfort in between bouts of frenzied wall wrecking and carpenter ant nest demolishment.

So here I was, exhausted and unfed (the wife had no job, but she didn't cook) and puzzling out the miraculous appearance of at least a few hundred dollars worth of stone-cold chinese food in my kitchen, paid by some mysterious check for two thousand dollars that had apparently arrived while I was at work.

"You got a check for two thousand dollars today?" I asked my wife. "Where?"

She took another puff of her cigarette. "In the mail. It's from Chrysler."

"Chrysler? The car company?"

"Yes."

"Why would Chrysler want us to have two thousand dollars?"

"We bought the Jeep Grand Cherokee two months ago, remember? It's our first time buyers rebate. I called, they said it's a new program and we qualify, because we were first time buyers."

The Jeep. We bought a jeep. I remembered. We did. "They didn't say anything about that when we bought it."

"It's a new program."

"So you took the check, forged my name on it and cashed it?"

"Yes, and I bought us chinese food."

I picked up one of the red and white boxes. Mucusy strings yawed from the pyramidal cardboard jaws of the lid as I pried them apart. "If you bought it for me, howcome it's cold?"

"I bought it at six. I didn't want to wait. You can nuke it."

"Where's the rest?"

She waved at the table. "That's all of it. I bought a lot."

"No, I mean where's the rest of the two thousand? There's got to be some change."

"Oh, that's gone already."

"Gone?"

"Yeah I paid bills with it."

"We had eighteen hundred dollars worth of bills?"

She stubbed out her butt. "Not any more."

Continue to Part 3

[Martini Time]

Captivating dialogue...simmering tension....subversive subplot...a fine serial story, Mongeaux.

I'm waiting patiently for pt. III.

[Jaime Posnario]

Great Story. Where did she get the food at, Beijing?!!

[daphne]

I'm just waiting for the part where you throttle her, cuz' you have to throttle her, right? Tell us you throttle her.

[liquor&poker]

I'm just waiting for the part where you throttle her, cuz' you have to throttle her, right? Tell us you throttle her.

I'll throttle you, you little vixen.

[daphne]

Put the bottle down first.

[liquor&poker]

Put the bottle down first.

Obviously you've never been properly throttled.

[daphne]

I've lead a sheltered life. What can I say?

[Mother Goose]

Hey, Mongeaux - you need to finish this one, too! :D