Chapter Eight

THE ANDERCHRONICLES

By Me, Ellee

[WARNING: The following story has been rated FNF*]
*Fiction NOT Fact

[ ANOTHER WARNING: The following characters, including dogs and housekeepers are nothing more than someone's over-active imagination]

"The Nightmare Before Christmas"

O
n Christmas Eve day the AC household was in a flurry of activity. We were all working hard getting ready for the big Christmas Eve party Andy was throwing that evening. Everyone was there: HHH, Glo and her latest flame, a 52 year old upstate New York banker, plus the rest of her family. Also a whole flock of people to whom I was never introduced, plus the caterers and florists, and last of all—and certainly the least, me.

I was informed I wouldn’t be coming to that party, and when I asked why, the answer, “Because, YOU ARE NOT INVITED!”, seemed a little strong to me. I wondered if maybe Andy was afraid I might cause a problem. He had arranged for me to dine again at another restaurant of my choice that evening—Christmas Eve.

Although I wasn’t to be part of their celebration, this didn’t seem to make any difference to HHH, because she put me to work anyway cleaning every one of the six toilets in the apartment, including Molly’s Doggie Do Do Loo, which she uses all the time– THE DOG that is.

“If I’m not invited to this party,” I questioned her, “why do I have to clean toilets?”

“Because,” she answered in her usual snippy voice, “I don’t LIKE to clean toilets, and it’s hard to get up once I’m down on my knees!”

“Well,” I added—but shouldn’t have, “it WOULD be hard to raise a beached whale once she was down.”

From there things just went down hill and beyond for the rest of the day.

Andy's apartment being wired for sound in every room and hallway means music is always playing. This day was no exception. As we worked along we were treated to the exceptional Christmas music of Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Hank Williams, Andy Williams, Weird Al Yankcovich and Charlotte Church.

Also, to keep the mood fun and festive, so it didn’t seem so much like a lot of work, Andy gave everyone Santa hats to wear. When HHH put hers on, the little star at the tip hung down to her eyes, and they were following it as it swung back and forth, except her eyes weren’t swinging back and forth together. The brown eye would swing back, while the blue would swing forth. I was totally amazed and ask her,

“How do you do that?”

“Do what?” she barked. She always barks at me. Molly doesn’t.

“Make your eyes go different directions at the same time?”

“My eyes don’t do that!”

“Yes, they DOOO!”

“No, they do NOT!”

“YES, they do”

“NOOOOO THEY DON’T!”

She was willing to debate it all day, but I wasn’t, so I left her there, the star still swinging back and forth. But now only the blue eye was swinging back and forth. The other one was just staring off into space.

It was also my job that day to place eency, weency lights on Andy’s live potted Christmas tree that he plants each year after the Holidays. There were fifty-two strands of these tiny lights.

I worked for about three hours placing each one just so. I had one more strand to place at the top, but couldn’t reach that far up, so I dragged an old armchair over to stand on.

As I placed my foot on the chair seat and lifted myself up, I heard something rip. When I looked down to see where the noise had originated, to my complete horror I saw the fabric on the chair seat directly under my foot had parted in a manner that looked suspiciously like a tear. As I moved my foot to examine it more closely, I lost my balance and fell smack onto the live potted tree, breaking it right in the middle with a loud SNAP!! I quickly looked around to see who had been an eye-witness to this unfortunate accident. Much to my relief, no one was. I knew this was certain to bring my negative point balance even higher, so I had to think of something fast.

I remembered seeing some duct tape in one of the kitchen drawers. So I raced in there to get it, before anyone could discover my mishap. I then quickly hoisted the top half of the tree onto the bottom half, and secured the two pieces together with the duct tape, wrapping it around several times until I felt it would hold. Then I placed ornaments and tinsel and lights to hide the tape.
The tree looked amazingly normal at that point, but I worried that the top half could list at any moment.

That accomplished, I turned my attention to the chair. The rip had traveled from front to back leaving a gaping hole, which I was quite sure would be noticed if I didn’t hide it somehow. I looked around the room and noticed a Christmas throw, which I enlisted without hesitation as a ‘cover-up’ for this newest in my long list of Anderwreckage.

I realized the next thing I had to do was find another tree as a replacement for the broken one— right away! So I left and ran downtown looking in every possible store for a live potted Christmas tree, but there wasn’t one such tree left in all of NYC.

However, while standing in front of a Creche in a department store window, under the watchful eyes of the Blessed Virgin, I had what I now refer to as my Christmas Epiphany: WHY NOT GET A FAKE CHRISTMAS TREE?—and decorate it exactly like the other one? So, that's precisely what I did. After several hours of incredibly hard and fast work on my part, the switch was made, and no one even suspected. This would be MY LITTLE CHRISTMAS SECRET!

I was exhausted after the potted tree incident, and the whole day had been such a nightmare, both physically and emotionally. In all actuality, it had been the Nightmare Before Christmas, and as I was about to find out , that nightmare was not to end any time soon. You see, when Glo, herself, came into her son’s ultra-gourmet $150,000 Viking-laden, imported Italian Carrera marble kitchen, which no one had used until I arrived, and to which I had already set fire, I was busy making Christmas pierogies. I had already stirred up the eggs, milk and butter in the Kitchen-Aid mixer, and was just adding the flour.

Now a Kitchen-Aid mixer has a funny way of slinging batter for about a hundred yards in all directions when, or if the stainless steel bowl is lowered before the switch is turned to the ‘off’ position, thus hitting any thing within that hundred yard range.

Glo, at the moment I accidently lowered the bowl before turning off that switch, just happened to be within that range. The damage she sustained to her Dupioni silk outfit was complete and irreparable, to say nothing of the damage she sustained to her face and hair. I gasped in horror at the destruction I had just caused!

I ran to her almost immediately, grabbing a wet dish cloth on the way, to offer my assistance. I shouldn’t have. The doughy mess had made its way into her elegantly coiffed $150.00 hairdo from Chez Louis’ Fifth Avenue Salon. As I attempted to flick it out with one end of the wet dish cloth, the other end slapped her in the face. She was trying to be gracious about the whole thing, but it was becoming increasingly difficult with each passing moment, as I tried to rectify each of my wrongs.

When the ‘flicking’ didn’t work, I tried rubbing the dough out. As I did so, the water in the dish cloth squished out and started running down her forehead, into her eyes and down her cheeks. I couldn’t help notice at this point that the dye from her drenched hair, and the mascara from her dripping eyelashes were like two little rivulets , each running down her face, which, when they joined forces at her cheekbone became as a powerful river gushing down the deep chasms of her wrinkles, and finally cascaded like a mighty waterfall onto the bodice of her delicate pink silk dress. At that point she just lost it, and started yelling,

“Annnnnnderrrrrrrrrson! Annnnnnderrrrrrrrrson!”

When he arrived on the scene, he knew immediately, even before asking any questions, that I was somehow involved, and yelled,

“ELLEE!”

Then, after a quick survey of the kitchen catastrophe, he resorted to his ‘booming’ mode, for the second time that day, as he screamed,

“IS IT NOT ENOUGH THAT YOU HAVE DESTROYED MY HOUSE? NOW YOU HAVE TO DESTROY MY MOTHER!?” WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU!!?”

Glo was crying now, after making a full assessment of the damage I had inflicted on her.

“Anderson,” she wailed, “whooooooooo . . . is this . . . this . . . ”, she was searching for just the right word, " . . . perrrrson? WHY is she here in your house? WHAT is she doing here? Why are you alllllllowing her to STAY????? WHY don’t you get rid of her!?”

There was only one thing worse that could have happened at that moment, and SHE was just about to enter the disaster zone. She was still wearing her Santa hat, and the little star was still swinging back and forth, only her eyes were spinning in circles now —the left spinning clockwise, the right, counterclockwise.

“I knew it! I just knew it!” shouted Henna-Happy Harriet, “that woman is nothing but TROUBLE, and has been since the moment she stepped out of her box! Andy, why don’t you ship her back?”

They were all there now— as witnesses to this whole ugly scene—Andy, his mother, his housekeeper, his caterers, his family, his friends. And, what's more, their eyes were ALL on me! I could feel the disdain, the scorn, the wrath, the hate. I could see their accusing looks. I could feel their contempt. Their derision was complete. They were all against me. No one was on my side. I had never felt so alone. I wished more than anything at that moment, I could be any place but Andy’s!

Then Molly bounded into the kitchen, and started growling at Glo, even baring her teeth. Mother and son looked at each other. They were shocked. Molly ran over to me, whimpering as she licked my hand. And then, turning back to Glo, bared her teeth once more and growled again. Andy’s eyes were wide with utter disbelief. It was all too much—the whole day was all too much—the bedroom incident, the potted Christmas tree, the armchair, the kitchen, Andy's mom and now, to make matters so much worse, the final blow—his dog had shifted camps and was siding with me against him and his mother!

I couldn't take it any longer. I raced out of the room and down the hall as far away as I could get, the dog following right behind. When I stopped, I slammed my back against the wall and slid to the floor, allowing all my emotions to spill out in unrestrained sobs. Molly was so upset she started whimpering. I grabbed her and hugged her tight, burying my head in her warm, soft fur, while I cried and cried for a long time.

“Oh Molly,” I sobbed, looking into her big, brown eyes, “ I don’t mean to cause so many problems. It just happens. I didn’t mean to ruin Glo’s dress . . . and her makeup . . . and her hair . . . and the kitchen, and everything else today. I know they all think I’m a nuisance . . . or . . . a hazard . . . or both. I don’t blame them. Everything’s a mess because of me. I suppose Andy is going to make me leave now.”

Then Molly started licking the tears from my face—her doggie way of saying, “it’s okay, I still love you,” and I started to laugh a little bit, stifling a sob. Then I noticed something out of the corner of my eye and turned towards it. There at the other end of the hall was Andy—just standing there—looking at me. I wondered how long he had been there. I couldn’t really tell what he was thinking, but there was a softness around his eyes that hadn’t been there before. We both just stared at each other for a couple of minutes, and then he walked away.


Bye *sniffle, sniffle* for now,
Love,
Ellee