“Well, H.F., one never does know what turns life is going to take from day to day – I've been kidding Thalia about giving her an eighth child and trying mightily on many nights – only for it to happen one dark night outside of Shortport!”
“R.E., you know it is with the eighth as it was with the seven: I have your back. Glendella is very wounded, but she is also a sweet, brilliant, wonderful child. She was so fascinated yesterday to see me and Maggie cooking together as a team and we just rolled her right on in and she loved it … and of course, everybody loves Maggie, so Glendella was all curled up and sound asleep after lunch like she has known Maggie all her life.”
“That child is starved for love,” Capt. Ludlow said, “but feeding to the full now. Our people in the mountains, along with the Jubilees-of-the-mountain from which the Trents also come, always took in the orphans and made them family.”
Col. H.F. Lee looked at his cousin Capt. R.E. Ludlow with new admiration … and then made a decision.
“I need to tell you: I ran into Sgt. Joe Wainwright the other day.”
“Big Joe Wainwright! One of the best men I ever served with – how is he doing?”
“Working along the Blue Ridge Parkway keeping it beautiful – he came to mind because he is both a distaff-Lee and a distaff-Jubilee in different generations, and he is doing the usual things our families do. I know you had mentioned to me that you are mentoring Frank and Francesca Wainwright in business – they are his adopted children.”
“Well, they couldn't have a better father – I am delighted to hear that!” Capt. Ludlow said. “I shall have to call Big Joe soon!”
Col. Lee smiled … at some point, he knew the captain and the sergeant would discuss the details of the adoption of Frank and Francesca, and then eventually figure out that the sergeant had raised Capt. Ludlow's two biological children who would have been lost except Joe Wainwright had been in the right place at the right time on the Blue Ridge Parkway.
But there would still be some time before that happened because there were other pressing matters … Capt. Ludlow looked at his phone and frowned.
“It's Vanderbilt,” he said, “and it isn't even 7:00am – good morning, Vanderbilt – oh, it isn't a good morning? They what?”
Col. Lee watched Capt. Ludlow listen, and watched the captain's impassive face at last go into his palm. It took twenty minutes, after which the captain said goodbye to Vanderbilt Ludlow and sighed heavily.
“I will talk with the Trents and Stepforths today – we need to keep the news away from these kids and especially Glendella.”
“How bad is it?” the colonel said.
“I propose an annual award for idiots – historically, Admiral Solomon Slocum still has the record for biggest idiot in Lofton County and has held it undefeated since 1869, but if we were going to do an award for 2020, I would nominate Astor and Big Glendella Ludlow.”
“Oh, we are at that Slocum Slide level,” Col. Lee said.
“The award comes with not knowing your ten-year-old granddaughter ran away two days ago, doing tens of thousands of dollars of structural and furniture damage throwing old vintage Ludlow wine all through your house until you run out, but not needing to worry about repairing it all because you also finally got the last of that wine on that one short circuit and thus torched your entire house with everything but the clothes on your back and that on your wife and three mistresses.”
“My word!” Col. Lee said. “Wasn't that Tarquin Ludlow's summer home?”
“It was,” Capt. Ludlow said. “It stood for 315 years, and of course, we do not expect folks who do not know their grandchildren are missing for two days to know how to save it. Vanderbilt got there as Big Glendella was directing a fire brigade of faucets and toilets while Astor was raving outside, and Vanderbilt knew where the sprinkler trigger was, only to realize Astor hadn't had it serviced for a decade, so he had to go pull the women out of the house, and given that Mistress no. 3's hair was on fire by the end of all that –.”
“My word!” Col. Lee said.
“Vanderbilt dunked her head in the toilet, threw her out the window and then followed her – she was still in the background yelling about 'How could you put my head in the toilet' with no comprehension that the hairdo she has now is not what she came into the house with. It is a good thing she was wearing a wig.”
“Well, we heard Glendella saying Mistress no. 3 has no sense, so,” Col. Lee said.
“I mentioned that Astor was raving,” Capt. Ludlow said. “So, while the women were trying to save the house and Vanderbilt was trying to save them, he ranted and raved and backed out right into the path of the fire engine –.”
“My word!” Col. Lee said.
“Thank God the fire engine had almost stopped – Astor just got knocked down,” Capt. Ludlow said, “but then he got up screaming bloody murder about how he was going to sue the fire department for all it was worth and blocking the path to his going-up-in-smoke residence.”
“You know what – I have no words,” Col. Lee said.
“But, see, the neighbor that called it in also let it be known there was a mental health case, so the EMTs brought a strait jacket, grabbed Astor, got him out of the way, wrapped him up like a Christmas goose and put him in the ambulance.
“Then, on comes the other neighbor, crying to Big Glendella – it's not just that the house burned down, but the whole thing was being livestreamed on Uppity Foolery Watch – Astor made the list after how he behaved after being thrown off the Ludlow Winery board!”
“The Uppity what?” Col. Lee said.
“So, apparently, after the founding of the Lofton County Free Voice, some people decided that Lofton County didn't just need its first Black newspaper but also its own version of the Onion based on the ridiculous aspects of the people the Free Voice dares to cover. So, Uppity Foolery Watch put up some cameras and mics on the trees when the word came about Astor raving in his house, and they caught all the carnage.
“Well, Big Glendella fell out then and was put into the second ambulance. That left the three mistresses, who left go to breakfast and their homes that they actually still have.”
Col. Lee shook his head for a long time, long and slow.
“The annual award for idiots has had no more worthy recipients since Solomon Slocum,” he said.”But we cannot grant it to them. They have taken the crown and put it on their own heads.”
"If by crown you mean tinfoil doofus hat," Capt. Ludlow said grimly as he got up to go talk with the adult Trents and Stepforths as they were having their coffee, "I wholeheartedly agree, H.F."
Haha Astor go wrapped up like a Christmas goose. I was sad for Glendella, she deserves all the love she’s getting now
The April Fools Christmas special ... it couldn't have happened to anyone more deserving than Astor!
I was laughing 😂 at how Col. Lee and Capt. Ludlow were just going back and forth, making fun of how crazy Astor's situation was. Their conversation was so funny, it was like they were poking fun at how ridiculous everything was.
They were -- it is grim humor!
That was a lot, losing a home that old is sad.
!ALIVE
!LOL
lolztoken.com
in some people’s eyes.
Credit: marshmellowman
@deeanndmathews, I sent you an $LOLZ on behalf of myjob
(1/10)
Delegate Hive Tokens to Farm $LOLZ and earn 110% Rewards. Learn more.
It is. But that's what they get for losing their granddaughter -- since they do not care to care for her in her infinite human value, the little finite things can go up in smoke, too.
So true. I still hate thinking about an old building being destroyed.
This is true ... all that history, gone ...