Takin' care of tag business

Splotchy got me the other day with his story virus and Liberality also got me with the same tag.

First Splotchy's tag:

I had been shuffling around the house for a few hours and already felt tired. The doorbell rang. I opened the front door and saw a figure striding away from the house, quickly and purposefully. I looked down and saw a bulky envelope. I picked it up. The handwriting was smudged and cramped, and I could only make out a few words.

And they were in some kind of Slavic script so I did what any gal with a bulky smudged envelope who was tired as hell would do, I tossed the envelope in the car and I drove off to see Kosovo Butch at his barber shop.

When KB saw the handwriting on the envelope he started to shake and swear in Albanian. He told me to make sure I had my affairs in order because some bad juju was about to break loose in our lives.

Looking back on everything I wish I had listened to him instead of laughing his warning off.

Now Liberality's tag:

I had been shuffling around the house for a few hours and already felt tired. The doorbell rang. I opened the front door and saw a figure striding away from the house, quickly and purposefully. I looked down and saw a bulky envelope. I picked it up. The handwriting was smudged and cramped, and I could only make out a few words. (Splotchy)

"Meet me at two o'clock at Grisham Square. Don't be late!"What? I already had an appointment at that time. In fact, that was the only reason I had even taken off work that Wednesday. But, when I saw the photos, I knew I had to go and see what the hell was going on. Oh gosh, now I wish I hadn't, but how was I to know then that Elizabeth would take this whole thing so far? (Freida Bee)

She had exposed the nefarious Republican oil-for-neckties program, skillfully dismantling its diabolically brilliant mind control scheme, giving each man, woman and child his or her freewill back, and this had made her a national, nay, worldwide, heroine, but -- the fear -- the look of stark, otherworldly terror on the -- could they even be classified as faces anymore?No, I had to swallow the overwhelming dread that was threatening to force me into complete shutdown, collapsing on the hallowed ground where I would silently, naively wish it all away until it came for -- me. Fruitlessly wiping away a flood of icy sweat, I knew I had to steel my resolve, look upon those photos once more and let them burn their horrific images in my psyche. Permanently. (Randal Graves)

Yet something was tickling my psyche, trying to work it's way to the surface of my consciousness like that bad memory for grade school I buried long ago. The one where I had to give a speech to the whole class and was trying to imagine them in their underwear so I wouldn't be nervous, when I suddenly realized I was the one who was in my underwear as I had forgotten to wear pants. I realized that the faces in the picture weren't faces after all. I was holding the picture upside down. (Dean Wormer)

I smacked the pictures with the back of my hand and put the envelope with the photos down upon the hall table by my door. Suddenly my mind swung into gear, who had that been knocking on my door? The figure looked vaguely familiar as I racked my brains to come up with something--the something that continued to tickle my psyche. It had to do with the necktie program perhaps or maybe the restaurant where Elizabeth and I often ate and sat and talked of old times. What was it? Had that been Elizabeth, wearing a trench coat and hat? I laughed out loud, delighted that I had part of the puzzle figured out. We often made up the most bizarre stories to entertain each other as the necktie program would attest. And we often met at the restaurant on Grisham Square. I picked up the photos again and laughed long and loud. Photoshopped obviously. It would amuse her no end to know how scared and, indeed, horrified I had been, if only briefly. That girl was one hell of a prankster. (Liberality)

And I knew just how to get her back.  I went to her work place later that day and I snipped the brake lines on her car.  As I did it I thought to myself, "That'll teach her to scare the shit out of me!"

I tag Enriched Geranium, MNMom, and my lovely and talented running mate Kristi Love.  You tagees have the choice of continuing either strain of the story virus that I have left you with.