THELMA REBECCA AT THE STOPLIGHT
© 2000 James David Pearce
Clem's wife, Thelma Rebecca, was on her way to Sears. She was planning to buy a new dress, a task she strove mightily to accomplish at least once a month on Clem's credit card.
Just as she arrived at the stoplight at the last intersection before the Sears parking lot, it turned red. When she stopped, so did her engine.
She gave the ignition a turn or two, and the starter groaned, but nothing else happened. As she knew nothing else to do, she waited a minute or so and tried again, with the same result.
About this time, the light, which had already turned green, was coming up yellow. This prompted a bit of impatience in the motorist in the Chevy immediately behind, as he was trapped by oncoming traffic, parked vehicles and several cars lined up to his rear.
She tried a couple more times, with no response from the tired 1951 Studebaker. Her failure to get under way set off a repetitious, obnoxious noise from under the hood of the '57 Chevy.
Slightly ticked, Thelma Rebecca opened her door, stepped out daintily and slenderly in her skin-tight chartreuse scoop-neck sheath dress, and on her three-inch heels, ambled airily back to the driver's window of the Chevy.
Placing her elbows on the window-shelf, she said: "Mister, if you'll take these keys and go up there and play with my ignition a while, I'll be more than glad to sit back here and lean on your horn."
~~~~~
GETTING ABIGAIL IN THE GROUND
© 2001 Rebecca Parker Pearce
Thelma Rebecca had a number of older relatives who insisted on living for quite some time.
One of these was Abigail. And as Abigail got older and older but showed very few signs of slowing down ~ and relinquishing her hold on the reins of the world to a younger generation ~ she grew correspondingly more deaf, more irascible and contrary and less prone to put up with what she considered to be day-to-day pettiness around her.
One day when Thelma Rebecca was around ~ and getting slightly weary of Abigail's recitations of the concerns of the moment ~ Abigail turned to the subject of the cemetery and to the various segments of widespread family holdings in the town graveyard.
"I don't know why in the world," said Abigail (that was her favorite preface to her next weighty statement), "I don't know why in the world something never was done about all those extra plots in the family section.
"And now here I am, left with nobody but me in this family in this town, and there are two plots side-by-side left for me in that cemetery. I just don't know what I am going to do with that extra plot."
"Well," put in Thelma Rebecca, "you could donate it ~ deed it back to the town, and let them sell it to someone else who needs a gravesite."
Abigail ~ who barely could hear ~ heard that, and was outraged. "What? Have perfect strangers buried in that family plot? Never ~ not over my dead body!"
She continued in a calmer vein. "But I really do worry about what will happen to that extra grave plot."
"Well, Abigail," said Thelma Rebecca, "if you're really worried about it, I'll promise to take care of it for you."
Lowering her voice to a level that she hoped was just below Abigail's threshold of hearing, she continued: "I'll have you cremated and divide your ashes, and I'll put half of you in one plot and half in the other."
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Rebecca '47
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Rebecca '70
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Studebaker '51
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