shades of yellow (citrine and/or barfy banana)

Once upon a time, there lived a nice, middle-class family. They had a small home conveniently close to schools and parks. Their street was quiet, and populated by other nice, middle-class families, who gardened in the afternoons and taught their children to ride bikes in the evening. Those who drove through the neighbourhood commented to one another on the peaceful atmosphere that lingered around the houses they passed by. There was nothing unusual about the community, or that one family in particular. All was well.

Or so they thought.

(DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUUUUN.)

Two people - a little girl, and a little boy - knew the secret of the house. They never spoke of it, not even to each other; instead they stood very close together in the living room and silently peered out through the curtains in the unlikely direction of the carport. For you see, housed in that carport was a car. Some sort of old car. Maybe like a Dodge or something, I don't know. Anyway, there were two important details about this car. The first was that it was a sort of brownish-yellow, like if someone barfed up bananas. The second was that it was haunted.

Oh yes, haunted. Not everyone knew it or believed it but these two children swore up and down that there was something devilish about that particular car. It was old, it was ugly, and it just sat there except for at night time when it appeared to the little girl in her nightmares. The only time it ever drove was on an eerie night, when the little girl dreamt she was a mouse and the car had no driver but still it crept closer and closer, first to squish her little mouse body and then to crash into the house and kill all the sleeping occupants.

So the two children kept watch over the evil car, narrowing their eyes at it and curling their lips into as much of a sneer as they would dare in its direction. We're on to you, they telepathically communicated to the car. But as brave as they could be from a safe distance indoors, whenever necessity demanded they walk past the car they held their breath - haunted cars would steal the air from your lungs if you weren't careful.

Then one day, the car vanished. Maybe it was sold, maybe towed away, maybe crushed. Maybe it's haunting another little girl's dreams. I've seen it once or twice, from the corner of my eye; but maybe it was simply my imagination. As an adult, I realize that behind the wheel of nearly every haunted car is some jerk in an upholstery costume.

Like this dirty scumbag.

Nearly every haunted car.

the explosion would taste pretty good, though

Is there some well-known or secret phobia that describes the fear of exploding kitchen appliances? Presently, I am sitting on the couch while my new crock pot is merrily cooking garlic pork for me. BUT THEN! It made a really big sound. Not like a BOOM big sound, but a big sound for how small of a crock pot it is. So immediately I thought, "Good thing I'm so far away from it for when it explodes."

And then there was that time when I tried making cake in the microwave, and I was CERTAIN the whole thing was going to explode so I hid behind a wall. Also, sometimes my freezer makes a noise like a bunch of ice falling from the top shelf down to the bottom shelf, only the ice always already is on the bottom shelf, so what is that sound??

that's a curious name for a motorcar

Lately it's come about that every time I walk into the staff room at work I start singing the song "Truly Scrumptious" from one of the best movies of all time, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The first few times it didn't strike me as odd, because I watched that movie innumerable times when I was younger and probably also some of my students were singing it in the hallways to be obnoxious and get it stuck in everybody's heads. Eventually, however, it started to concern me. Why did it happen every time I walked into the staff room? Was somebody trying to subliminally control me into buying candy? Was somebody watching the movie on a constant loop in a nearby classroom? WHAT WAS GOING ON???

Today, I solved the mystery. For the past couple weeks there has been a box of those arrowroot-style baby cookies on the staff room table. In large white letters on the side of the box is the company name: TRULY. Obviously, since baby cookies are scrumptious, therein lies the connection. I don't know why I didn't put the pieces together sooner; I may have to rethink my side career as an ace detective.

i think i'm coming in second, though

I've just finished preparing notes for my first ever parent-teacher interviews. Every year at school apparently there is a contest to see which teacher gets the most interviews, but the winner is really the loser because who wants to have the most interviews. It's not really a crown I desire to wear. Also, I wasn't told until it was nearly too late that I need to schedule in pee breaks for myself! It was actually too late for Thursday, so I have 16 interviews in a row, from 4 until 8; I got to Friday in time and was able to block of a 15 minute section of time for me to get a cup of coffee from the staff room and catch my breath.

All the cupboards in my apartment keep closing on me. At first I only noticed it in my plates cupboard, because when I was putting my dishes away I kept bumping into it with my shoulder and getting angry; recently I heard a crack when I opened my bathroom cupboard, which did something mysterious and destructive to it because whenever I open it now it tries to slam shut. We wrestle at least 3 times a day now. I have a feeling that one day I'm going to snap and rip off all the cupboard doors. Then I DEFINITELY don't get my damage deposit back.