Griswold was usually quite gruntled; on bath night, not so much.

Once a week his mother, Mrs. G., splashed him down into their old claw-footed bathtub. Dried and fluffed, she squirmed him into her (not his) favourite blue and white striped sweater.

Bath time callioped from an attic window, cranked open on this early spring shadowy night. These discordant notes mixed with spring peeper calls rising from every pocket puddle in the brambly back wilderness of the yard. Vernal starlight kaleidoscoping, as I pushed foot-pushed what Griswold called our “not-on-the-porch” swing.

The crashing sound of silence, whack of slamming door, thump-thuds and sighs. Griswold, splade-feet dragging, joined me in our midnight garden.

“Jump on board,” I said. “The USS notontheporchswing is about to leave space dock for a galaxy far, far away.”

Griswold shook his head. “Melita,” he snorfled, “I want a estrangement. Not space trip.”

“Do you know what that means?,” I asked.

He perked up a bit, his glossy fur catching shards of moonlight.

“We go to night court with the la lawyers and perry mason. Judge judy is on the hot bench. She finds in favourite of me, the proclaimmenter. Then Allie McBeal and Ms. Goodwife got into a frosty-windowed room to meet a negative goat. The goat decides I should get lots of childmony. Then, I come live with you!”

Did you watch Irreconcilable Differences*  last night?

Griswold nodded, “Drew get childmony!”

Griswold could forget that television was not an “unscripted” peek into human life.

I gently explained to my monster friend about the “realities” of becoming, as he termed it, “emaciated.”

Swishing his tail, Griswold scrunched up his face as he had a thunk.

“K,” he said “Can I be estrangemented from just my mother and only on bath night?”

”Let’s text Judge Judy and find out.”

His tail a bit more bouncy, he hopped up next to me.

“Scripted” for mlmm tale weaver 244: “estrangement.”

*Irreconcilable Differences” is a 1984 comedy. Drew Barrymore sues to divorce her parents, Shelly Long and Ryan O’Neal.

For those of you in the “unknowledgement,” Griswold is Melita’s precocious upstairs monster-child neighbour and friend. Yes, a real “unscripted” monster. Griswold was born for a mmlm tale weaver several years ago. He and Melita’s adventures are often chronicled through the mlmm tale weaver prompts.