Spiffy

Spiffy McDonald had a very imaginative mind and a very low tolerance level. It wasn’t a pleasant combination.1

Her grandmother had driven over for a weeklong stay. She lived in Boston. She said Boston was filled with all kinds of crazy people and ghettos and all kinds of underground garbage. Spiffy McDonald had a low tolerance for her grandmother. She told her grandmother that they had all kinds of crazy people and ghettos and all kinds of underground garbage in Nashua, too. She told her brother Pete to ask over all his goth friends. They showed up the next day brandishing knives and lighters and wearing black lipstick and chains and fifty billion piercings and black nail polish and black clothes and red converses. Her grandmother left that day, saying that she had forgotten to arrange for someone to take care of her cockatoo. Percy McDonald didn’t even know what a cockatoo was, let alone have one.2

One sunny day in June, Pete brought his girlfriend to the house to meet everyone. Spiffy had a very low tolerance for Lucy Fields. It got even lower when Pete got down on one knee and proposed to Lucy Fields in front of the whole family. Lucy Fields picked Spiffy to ask her where the bathroom was. Spiffy seized her chance. She led her to the bathroom in the basement that wasn’t fully working. It got even better because Lucy didn’t have to take a piss; she had to take a shit. Lucy Fields left the house covered in her own shit: the toilet had exploded on her. She never came back and Pete never married her.3

Spiffy met her match when Toby Keith moved into town. He had a year and two days, twenty pounds, and five inches on her, and he was just as clever. They had low tolerance levels for each other. Spiffy told him that their Fido was a huge toad instead of a Doberman and wouldn’t he like to go see Fido? Toby went inside the doghouse to see Fido and he came out with a gaping hole in his face and his nose in his hand. The next month he told Spiffy he had a huge spider and wouldn’t she like to see it? Spiffy wanted to see this spider, and it turns out he had the spider. He let Spiffy hold Tigger, and then Tigger bit Spiffy. She was in the hospital for a week.4

Toby Keith and Spiffy McDonald were two very imaginative kids with very low tolerance levels. By now, Spiffy’s was worn down to zilch. Her brother would forget to knock on her door to come in and she would barrel into him and tackle him down, slamming his face down again and again into the carpet. Toby still had some left. His older sister Margaret would come into his room and borrow a CD without asking and instead of tackling her, he would just chuck the whole CD case at her head when she was walking down the stairs so that she would tumble down them and kill her chin. He was very sweet that way. He knew he couldn’t hurt Margaret directly in any other way besides tackling because she was a girl, so he threw things at her instead. He thought he was being very civil about it because he didn’t have the liberty Spiffy did of directly killing her brother. Of course, he did have some pity for Spiffy. He thought Pete was a shithead. Especially when he took Margaret out for dinner.5

This resulted in a partnership. Spiffy had the brains to realize that she and Toby could work together as a team to sabotage Pete and Margaret’s relationship. So she drew up a contract with him. It stated that they would work together and not against each other for however long it took to separate and/or hurt Pete and Margaret. It stated that they would not hurt each other’s sibling directly but they were allowed to throw things at them that were no heavier than Toby’s humungous CD case. Tackling their own siblings was the preferred way of hurting them and forcing things out of them. It also stated that during this period they were not to argue and they were to work fully together and to cooperate and to listen to each other.6

One September evening, it was Margaret’s birthday. Pete had made reservations at an exclusive French country club restaurant two weeks before. Spiffy had listened in on the phone. She called Toby that afternoon and they made plans. There was a movie theater about five minutes away from the restaurant. They told their parents they were going there and could they please have a ride with Pete and Margaret?7

Naturally they went, as planned. And then they snuck into the restaurant through the basement entrance. As growing teenagers, they had plenty of height. They knocked out a couple of waiters, dressed up, and then went to get Pete and Margaret’s orders. They were very clever people.8

Pete and Margaret ordered some French onion soup as an appetizer. Spiffy and Toby brought them chicken noodle. They gave up on the soup and ordered a salmon dish. Spiffy and Toby brought them lobster. Pete and Margaret ordered crab dish to replace that. Spiffy and Toby brought them salmon. They ate the salmon.9

Spiffy and Toby brought them some champagne. Toby knew Margaret hated it. They said it was whit e wine. When he was pouring it for Margaret, he accidentally on purpose spilled it down her dress. Spiffy spilled some on Pete’s shirt. Then Pete and Margaret ordered peach sherbet for desert. Spiffy and Toby brought them strawberry cheesecake and raspberry soufflé. When Spiffy cut the cheesecake, she accidentally in purpose pushed her knife too far out and the slice tipped over onto Pete’s lap. Toby accidentally on purpose slid a slice of raspberry soufflé too far forward for Margaret and it fell into her lap. They didn’t tip Spiffy and Toby at all and they refused to pay for the extra meals. Spiffy and Toby explained that they had hearing problems and that it was Pete and Margaret’s fault that they didn’t speak properly. Then they threw the dirty cutlery at them, threw their pens and pads at them, and stalked back to the basement to a congratulatory dinner of French onion soup, salmon, and peach sherbet. They stole it all and brought it back to the theater, of course, where they ate it together around the back of the theater where the picnic tables where. When Pete and Margaret came to pick them up, they found Spiffy and Toby laughing together and smiling like they were best friends. They had had the time of their lives.10

Margaret thought Pete was the biggest shithead she had ever gone out with in her entire life. She thought he had been the only one to make her really feel special and unique and then he blew it by taking her to that so-called high-class French country club restaurant. He completely ruined her birthday. Pete spent the rest of the night under Margaret’s window.11

Spiffy and Toby decided to extend their contract for the rest of their lives. They liked working together. It caused a lot of trouble. And it patched a lot more up. Things changed between them. Pretty soon it was Toby who was proposing to Spiffy in front of their families. Naturally she accepted. Pete and Margaret tried to sabotage it, furious that their wedding hadn’t happened happily. But Spiffy and Toby were too good for them. To make a long story short, Pete and Margaret ended up coming to the wedding with a couple of broken bones, namely legs and noses.12

No one ever found out who the waiters were.13