Easter at Chez Piddens.
Wes is whanging away on his guitar. Alice emerges, affronted.
Wes! Stop that racket! It’s Good Friday, for crying out loud!
Well, if it’s Good Friday you shouldn’t be crying out loud so loudly!
Shut up!
Anyway, I waited until sunrise before I cranked up the amp. Can’t say better than that.
Are Easter Grinches a thing? If so, you’d be the King of them, no question, mate.
But no, no, no! I love Easter. Family, eggs and chocolate. What’s not to love?
What about quiet contemplation?
I contemplate eggs. I like eggs. They’re very nutritious, and fun to blow and decorate. It’s the whole festival of death and the dodgy resurrection story that gives me a pain in my root canal fillings.
No, I think that would be all the chocolate.
You may have fluked a valid point there, Allie. Anyway, happy Easter. I’ll make you a lovely cuppa.
Wait. You may as well have this. (Mwahs his cheek and hands him a parcel.)
Yowee! Caramello eggs and, what? An action capybara! Mwah right back at you.
(Reads) “Toddles. Picks up his ears” So it’s a boy. “The nose moves, jerks and makes sound”. Yay!
Wait. “Boomer in zoo?” Not sure what to make of that. The ones at Taronga are mainly slothful and silent. (*see Bullgoose column, “Wombat Poop is Square”)
Oh, and I hope you got yourself something real nice from me, Allie.
(Allie rolls her eyes and hands him a bag) Here.
Hoy, hoy! A pink Easter Bilby and a Pittsworth hard candy egg! (Hands it back to Allie) Here you go. Hope you like it.
Oh, Wes! For me? What a surprise. You’re so thoughtful.
So, they’re still cranking out those hard candy eggs in Pittsworth?
Apparently.
You know, my great granddad, Oliver Hardant, may have perfected a wicked stumpjump plough up there in Pittsworth back in the day but I wish he’d been more confectionary-minded. Imagine if he’d perfected the hard candy egg instead. We’d be prospering like… like boomers in a zoo, or something. Mad dental daredevils, such as yourself, can’t wait to crunch into that stuff and jeopardise their pearlies.
Yeah, but aren’t you the shunned and unrecognised branch of that family anyway?
There is that. Genealogy is basically a cruel and sucking swamp riddled with landmines and lacklustre/stingy antecedents, if you ask me. (absently selects and skins a couple of eggs, rolling the foil into little balls and pocketing them)
What are you up to, Wes?
Hmm? A little bit of ammo for when the kids arrive.
Are you going to peg them at those little girls?
Sure, or maybe put them in a pea shooter.
What the hell?
Seasonal fun. Just seasonal fun. They’ll love it.
You’ll have someone’s eye out.
It’s seasonal fun. Don’t come the innocent with me. I bet you slipped the odd bunger in a mailbox on Cracker Night when you were a kid.
I did not!
Come on! You’ve got that look about you.
Only once. Or twice, tops. Somebody made me. And never anything bigger than a Tom Thumb.
Maybe that’s why they call us Boomers, haha.
Yeah, well, when the battle is over just make sure you clean up all the foil or the baby will choke on it.
Ha, I’ll con the girls* (Sweetie Sweetie and Sweetie Duderina) into it. Tell them to put them in a bowl to leave out for the Easter Egg Skin Foil Fairy.
Too many words.
Huh?
Too many words. Easter Egg Skin Foil Fairy. Lame. Kids won’t wear it. It’s got to be two words only.
Two words?
Two words for seasonal stuff. Santa Claus. Tooth Fairy. Cracker Night. Easter Bunny. Jesus Christ.
Oh. OK, Foil Fairy then.
That’s better. Speaking of tinfoil, what do you think happened to that Frenchy Fargas? (* see last week’s story)
The surprise visitor and Alfoil aficionado? Hard work, wasn’t he? That dude could wig out for the galaxy.
Well, he freaked the pants off me! “NOBODY CROSSES FRENCHY FARGAS!” (Shudders)
It’s all in the past now. Time for seasonal fun. Break out the pea shooters!
(Dog barks, loud knocking at the door)
That’ll be the grandgirls. Quick, Allie, you get the door and I’ll hide behind the couch, haha.
(Louder knocking at the door)
Wes, Wes! I don’t think it’s the grandgirls…
???
(A raised voice outside) NOBODY CROSSES FRENCHY FARGAS!
!!!
An Easter lesson to us all.
Bullgoose
and then