Cc-rr-ee-aa-kk

B A N G ! ! !

ThumP

ThOmp

ThuMp

THUD.

Wwoosshh.

The invitation slid under my door.

Wwoosshh.

THUD.

ThOmp, thoMP, thOHmp

Cc-rr-ee-aa-kk

BANG!

To Melita (naybour & friend) & AND (manfriend & hysterical archetype)

invite t0

A Woklecockle SUPER supper

frynite @ 7ish

UPSTAIRS

with me,

Griswold (in yucky sweater)

PS: fancy dressish

PSS: not genes!

And, also known as my boyfriend, the historical architect, chuckled as he read Griswold’s handiwork.

“Count the number of place settings,” he quipped, “to make sure you are coming for dinner, not as dinner.”

“Me? Where will you be ‘frynite @ 7ish’?” I asked.

“Not upstairs,” he responded, “I will be hysterically archetyping somewhere by 6:69ish”

Dull and same-same were dropped as adjectives when a family of monsters, with their precocious son, Griswold, moved into the attic apartment above me.

Griswold and I shared late night circadian rhythms; adventures in our backyard; mugs of cocoa with cinnamon sticks; and horror movies with the sound turned off (so as to be less frightening for Griswold).

Mrs. G long thought I was too much of a humanizing influence on her son. Lately, she had been relenting.

Later, he thud-tumpled down to my apartment to get my RSVP.

He jangly-jumped his splay-footed glee dance, laughter chortling out his orange-fur–tufted ears in anticipation.

I hesitated. Griswold put on his sad face, turning his snaggly-jaggly grin into a frown. “Please, Melita. Mother said yes to you and And coming up.”

“How many times did you try?” I asked.

“Only a gadzillion-balloonilion-gigatrillion and five.” Human math wasn’t one of his fortes; persistence was.

Her cooking was to die from – the obnoxious, obsequious odors continuously crept under my door. A miasmatic perfume redolent of rotten banana peels; smelly gym socks, size 12; and the walking dead. And that was on a good day.

I thought of past encounters with his family. Griswoldian language, manners and customs were not my forte. I usually embarrassed myself, making even more laugh bubbles puff out Griswold’s ears.

But, a sad Griswold, long striped tail all droopy-loopy, was hard to refuse.

“Going to wear yucky sweater, even!”

The cacophony of noises created by Mrs. G putting a squirmy Griswold into that sweater ranged somewhere between out of tune bagpipes layered with taloned fingernails on chalkboard mixed with a fog horn on Ecstasy.

“Alright. But what do I have that meets the criteria of fancy dressish?” My wardrobe was dilapidated: mostly faded jeans; worn out cords; long, baggy sweaters; and washed-out t-shirts. When absolutely necessary, I visited thrift shops and yard sales to replace the un-repairable, un-wearables.

“Wear And clothes!”

“And clothes?”

“Yep – ones that make his eyes all fuzzy. Then you get all smooshy and kissy.” Griswold made a super-sour lemon-sucking face.

Maybe it was time for And to give Griswold the “vultures and beetles” talk.

“Okay – if you wear your sweater, I will go shopping for a fancy-friday-go-to-dinner dress.”

I grabbed for my favourite mug about to be swept off my coffee table by Griswold’s happy tail.

“I go tell Mama,” Griswold .

“Wait!” Having been Griswolded before, I needed to ask.

“What exactly is a woklecockle supper?”

“Silly. It’s a dinner party for VIH”

“VIH?”

“Very Important Humans.”

It’s been a long interval since I spent time with Griswold. Of course, like all my “head-story” characters, he is never really very far away. Knocking on my creativity, asking to be let out.

Transcripted for mlmm Tale Weaver 218: Making Sense of Nonsense: the woklecockle.

@ Lorraine: copy right for Griswold, et al

image from Where The Wild Things Are, written and illustrated by Maurice Sendak; originally published in 1963 by Harper and Row.