PLUMBING PROBLEMS: PART XVI

                      PLUMBING PROBLEMS: PART XVI

 I ran to the master bath and saw a sight that defied description.  There was Jack, wrapped in a huge set of tentacles.  On the floor lay an animal with a body almost four feet across.  The body was shaped like a star and from beneath the star, in its center, issued some sort of organ.  Suddenly, what little I knew of marine biology came back to me.  The way starfish digest their food flashed into my mind.  They express their stomach from within their body, capture their prey and bring the digested meal back inside.  On my bathroom floor was one of Worthy’s experiments – in the excited state. 

I ran back to the kitchen to grab the meat cleaver, at the same time yelling to Laura, “Get Robin and both of you get out of the house!” 

“What’s going on upstairs, and what was that scream?” she asked.

“Do what I say, damn it, there’s no time to explain,” I shouted.  Laura fled the kitchen in search of Robin. I ran back to the master bath and started hacking at the tentacles.  The star-jellyfish pulled its stomach back in and the tentacles slowly released Jack.  He had passed out, probably from the combination of being constricted and the hundreds of stings he had endured.  I pulled him out of the bathroom and while doing so witnessed an amazing spectacle.  With its remaining tentacles, the creature pulled itself back up into the sink.  Then, it went from the starfish state to a sink full of foul-smelling jellyfish ooze, and in a few minutes silently slid back down the drain.