The Bo of Hearts, She Made Some Tarts.....

A Suburban Fairy Tale

Once upon a time--- and a long, long time ago--- in a suburb far, far away...

There was a suburban girl named Bo. Now one day this Bo decided to make her famous "Vanilla Pudding & Strawberry Jam Tarts". But, before making the tarts, Bo went tripping happily down the stairs to the basement, where she intended to clean out the stupid cats' litterbox. (Okay, okay, she tripped unhappily--- because who in their right mind enjoys cleaning out cat litterboxes??)

And so it happened on that day that Bo, who was minding her own business, began whistling to herself--- as she always does whenever she performs the litterbox chore. (On this particular day Bo was whistling one of her favorite movie tunes, that from "Bridge On The River Kwai", about which certain grumpy stick-in-the-mud persons (who shall remain nameless in case Blaine reads the blog) have complained has high notes so piercingly shrill that they "might cause the windows to crack"... )

(But Bo knows that her whistle tunes won't shatter the dang windows---because Bo knows that the real reason these grumpy detractors complain about her whistling is because they are simply jealous of her amazing whistling skills, since her whistling repertoire includes many difficult whistling tunes such as "The Stars & Stripes Forever", "The Notre Dame Fight Song", and "Count Your Blessings" from the Baptist Hymnal.)

WHERE WAS I?

Oh yeah, Bo was whistling in the basement.

Anyway, as she worked the hapless Bo was more than a little puzzled by the fact that her cat Leonard was not acting his usual self. Usually he irks the hell out of Bo whenever she cleans the litterbox because no sooner does she get it sparklingly clean, sanitary, and free of "clumps" than Leonard will immediately jump into it to pee---or worse---to make another "clump".

But on this day Bo noticed that Leonard's attention was focused elsewhere.....on a spot high up in the basement's rafters, a spot which he had been staring at intently, without moving a muscle, for a good 20 minutes or so....

And so Bo ventured a tentative question: "Gee, Leonard, what is my snookums looking at? Is it a bad ole spider?"

Not getting a response from Leonard, Bo then turned her gaze to follow that of Leonard's...

...up... up... upward.....

...trying to see what in the world was so interesting that it could hold Leonard's gaze for the entire time she had been cleaning out the litterbox....

And then Bo saw it.

And then Bo hollered the F-Word.

Epilogue:

In which Blaine totally redeems himself of every alleged sin Bo has ever accused him of by valiantly going forth into the basement where he then caused the aforementioned bat to fly into a cardboard box (and Bo is still wondering how in the hell did he do that without touching the bat??)

And then Blaine took the box containing the intruding bat outside, in order to release it to the wild blue yonder, during which Bo stood by sighing with relief, thinking to herself that Blaine really does look like her TV hero, Leroy Jethro Gibbs of "NCIS" (and is most certainly equally brave)....

The End.

And then Bo went and made the Vanilla Pudding & Strawberry Jam Tarts.

The End Again.

And while Bo made the tarts she could hear Blaine in the basement, where he was standing on a rickety step-stool, madly stapling things to the basement wall with the staple gun in order to reinforce a hole from which he suspected the dadgum bat had gotten into the house.

And Bo wasn't quite sure... but she thinks she overheard Blaine muttering things to himself while he was stapling, things like "Hiss at me will you, you damn bat?!" and "Next time, you had better get up PRETTY EARLY in the morning to think that you can get into MY house again!".....

The End Yet Again.

And Bo worried herself sick that Blaine was going to fall off the step-stool and accidentally staple himself (Lord knows she saw plenty of staple gun accidents during the years she worked as an emergency room nurse), but then she shrugged off that worry because she figured that if Blaine was clever enough to get a damn bat to voluntarily fly into a cardboard box, then he is most certainly plenty capable of balancing on a step-stool while using a staple gun without mishap.

Now this really is The End.

And, after she finished the tarts, Bo also finished knitting a pair of socks she calls her "Non-Matching Irish Aran Socks"--- while silently congratulating herself on the fact that at the moment of truth, when she first spied the bat, that she had not panicked and run down the street hysterically screaming the typical "woman sees a bat" things like "EEEEK!", or "Oh my God it'll fly into my hair and get all tangled up!", or "Oh my God it will bite me and I'll get rabies and have to have 47 shots in my stomach!"

(Not that Bo thinks the F-Word is much better.....)

(Or at least she congratulated herself on the fact that Blaine hadn't actually HEARD her scream those things---nor the F-Word either---because he had been upstairs on the back deck busily smoking a rack of ribs for Super Bowl Sunday Dinner.....)

And Bo subsequently forgave Blaine for his statement that the idea of "a pair of non-matching aran socks is stupid"---while gently reminding Blaine that she absolutely cannot bring herself to knit a pair of "matching" socks to save her silly life, and that if she is required to knit two socks in the exact same color then at least she can relieve the boredom by knitting them in different aran stitch patterns, dammit....

Now this really truly is The End.

But poor Bo couldn't sleep a wink that night... laying there with her eyes bugged as wide open as a gigged frog's while her highly imaginative mind pondered--- over and over--- on the question as to how in the Sam Hill that dang bat had gotten into the house in the first place?

...and she lay there for hours... tossing and turning... wondering nervously if there might be an entire COLONY of bats nearby...

...hanging upside-down somewhere in the house... like in the chimney.... the attic... or GOD FORBID a dark closet.....

Bo really hopes it's The Dang End....

* And They Lived Happily Ever After.