SOCS

That is, Stream Of Consciousness Saturday. This week’s prompt is to use the phrase, “once upon a time,” leaving the whole thing pretty wide open.

***

“So there’s a sump pump in the basement,” the realtor said. She was thirty years old and had a figure like a model and a face to match, which was surrounded by a halo of big red hair, like a TV weather-girl.
“But first, some history. Once upon a time a family of four–Carl Jung’s archetypal family, you might say, a mother, father, studious son, clownish, jester son, or June, Ward, Wally, Beaver–lived in this house,” she said.
“One spring afternoon Father and mother went to the store in the family’s only car, a 19-something something-or-other, and left the boys at home so they could do their homework. Studious son sat at the kitchen table and worked on his math while clown-like son returned to the basement with his hacksaw to work on his extracurricular project involving cherry bombs and one-inch copper tubing.
“Father and mother returned from the store carrying two grocery bags. They saw studious son working away on his math and praised him for his studiousness. ‘We should celebrate having such good children,’ he said, and pulled a bottle of Champagne from one of the grocery sacks. He pulled the cork and there was a loud pop.
“Too loud, actually, and strangely stereophonic in nature. It was followed by repeated, rhythmic clumping sounds as jester-son ascended the basement stairs to the kitchen. He burst in. ‘We’re gonna need a bigger sump pump!’ he declared.”
The prospective buyers, a young couple, she pregnant, he staid in his gray suit, and a toddler son (who had been quietly reading a brochure for ARS MATHEMATICA) all nodded in unison.
“Stop,” said mother. “You had me at ‘sump pump.’ We’ll take it.”
The svelte, big red haired realtor frowned. “But I haven’t shown you the granite counter tops.”

Advertisement