A House With Good Bones

by T. Kingfisher

There was a doily on the chest of drawers. I eyed it warily. I have nothing against doilies, but they’re a slippery slope. You start with doilies, then pretty soon it’s crocheted table runners and then it’s a short step to antimacassars. As if doilies are some kind of larval form, and the table runners are an instar in their development. But then are the antimacassars the adult form, or just a later instar? Perhaps the adult form of the doily bears no resemblance to its juvenile stages.

If there was an Olympic sport for worrying, Mom would win the gold and then give it to the silver medalist because she was afraid that they might feel bad for losing.

They say you can’t go home again, but of course you can. It’s just that when you get there, somebody may have repainted and changed the fixtures around.

(I am still not entirely sure what vicars are, since we don’t have them over here. I think they’re like cozy priests? As far as I can tell, they primarily exist in order to solve murders or be murdered on British crime shows.)

“I survived the last time without being murdered in my bed.” “Yes, but then there were all those bugs…” “If I’m murdered by ladybugs, I want you to tell everyone. Call my boss and tell her. She’ll get a great paper out of it. ‘First Documented Case of Successful Human Predation By Harmonia axyridis.’ I’ll be famous.”

I asked my phone if it was connected to the internet and it told me that it had a very close relationship with the internet. I attempted to pull up a web page and it informed me that it was not that kind of relationship.

The barista didn’t comment as I hunched over the keyboard, muttering to myself. (Well, she was a barista. Baristas, like bartenders, have Seen Things.)

“The problem with the world,” I informed Phil an hour later, “is that there’s just so much of it.” “Is that from a Snapple bottle?” “No.” He considered this at length, then said, “You should write Snapple bottles.”