Magpies and Tapioca

I sat on the couch drinking cherry Kool-Aid and eating a ham salad sandwich. Tommy was sitting on the floor in front of me and we were watching cartoons. "Don't spill that Kool-Aid on the carpet, Carol Louise. It won't come out!" I squeezed the glass tighter between my knees and said in a voice that was drowned out by the hysteria playing out on the television, "I won't. I'll be careful." 

The birds looked identical: black magpies with gray bellies, almond-shaped beaks with big toothy smiles, and happy eyes that belied their mischievous intent. The only way to tell them apart was by their accents: one British and the other, Brooklyn, but they were equally cynical, rude, and antagonistic. Their unsuspecting victims, who were portrayed as dimwits and dopes, were simply naive, innocent, and unaware of the suffering about to befall them. Watching the birds be disrespectful and mean to others made me uncomfortable, so I asked Tommy if we could watch a different cartoon: Bugs Bunny, Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse "No!" he said, turning around and pinching the fatty part of my thigh and twisting it until I cried out in pain. He was the supreme ruler of the TV, and besides, he liked the violence the birds brought into our lives everyday from three to six o'clock.

"Don't spill that Kool-Aid on the carpet, Carol Louise. It won't come out!"

"I won't. I'll be careful." I pressed my knees tighter into the glass between my legs.

She came out of the kitchen with two bowls of Tapioca. "Oh, I don't like that cartoon. Those birds are so mean," she said, as she sat our dessert down on the coffee table between Tommy and me. Our babysitter stared at the television for several seconds--just long enough to see the birds cause great pain and suffering to a barnyard dog--before leaving the room in disgust. "They shouldn't be allowed to make cartoons with violence," she screamed from the kitchen, followed by, "Don't spill that Kool-Aid on the carpet, Carol Louise. It won't come out!" 

"I won't. I'll be careful." 

Behind her back, the neighborhood kids called her "the-cranky-old-maid-in-the-ugly-red-house." At first, I was happy she said no to my mother's request to watch me for three hours after school. She wasn't particularly fond of children she said, but then when another working mother in our neighborhood asked if she could watch her nine-year-old son, Tommy, the thought of making money, while two kids sat in front of a TV for three hours, wasn't so bad after all.

While the magpies were taking turns hitting a blubbering dog over the head with a mallet, Tommy stood up, and with no warning, whacked me on the head with the spoon from his Tapioca bowl. This malicious and unprovoked attack would start a chain reaction of unfortunate events that produced a big red stain on the carpet...

"Oh, no! Tell me you didn't spill Kool-Aid on the carpet, Carol Louise!"

...and would end with an unsuspecting, innocent, blubbering victim naively unaware of the pain and suffering about to befall her.