Grandma's Warning

“Folks, I’m telling you, this is a bad one,” said the radio announcer, an urgency in his voice. “I know you all have been through a lot of false alarms over the last couple of years, but this is not the time to get complacent. Set in motion your emergency plan and if you don’t have one, you’ve still got time to get one together. Hurricane Charlotte is rapidly increasing her speed and is headed . . .”

Josey turned the radio off as her cherry red mustang chugged into the parking lot. “I am so tired of hearing about Hurricane Charlotte. This town sits in the middle of a cow pasture and if Miss Charlotte can find her way here, more power to her,” she said sarcastically, as she grabbed her purse and made her way to the shop.

“Ohhhhhhhhh drat" she whispered, as her red painted talons worked frantically to shut off the burglar alarm. Her blonde French twist operated like a sail on a ship, as the wind buffeted her. “Good Lord where did all of this wind come from? And all that time I spent this morning getting my hair just right.”

Setting down Corky, her highly flatulent poodle, she finally found the magical combination, of which she could never remember and the air became still. It was then she heard the crunching sound beneath her heels. She cringed as she looked down and saw the entire sidewalk covered with dead mayflies. They were everywhere! The blind mayflies had beaten themselves to death after flocking to the heat of her security nightlight.

For a split second she remembered her grandma, and the story she had told Josey about the devastating hurricane that had hit the small town many years ago. Grandma had talked about the mayflies arriving days before the storm hit and how they had blanketed everything. Patio furniture, sidewalks, roads and lawns were coated with the eerie bugs. Goosebumps rose up on her tanned arms as she tried to shield her French twist from the grasping wind gusts. She shook off the memory and grandma’s voice faded into the distance.

Josey looked around and sure enough there was Bud Taylor, the only barber in town, glaring at her from behind his blue neon sign in the window. The flapping awning over his shop window was about to turn inside out and she could only hope it would come toppling down on his bald head. She knew her alarm situation would be discussed later that day at the resident grease pit, Cornbread Corner, which masqueraded as a restaurant. Bud would go on and on about how once again she had set off the alarm, and he would probably try and attribute it to what he called, her “drinking problem.”

She flicked on the lights and the room became awash in pink. Josey loved the feeling of home she got every time she looked around her shop. In twelve years, nothing had changed and that’s the way she liked it. Growing up, she had enough changes to last her through menopause. The pink walls held faded, black velvet pictures of Elvis, paper-mache flamingos perched on rusty curtain rods, the orange lava lamp rotated its red blob back and forth, and the mirrors were adorned with every naked baby’s butt in Carington. The pungent smell of permanent solution mixed with stale cigarette butts assaulted her nose, reminding Josey she needed to make a stop at Wal Mart for another air freshener. She just loved the orange blossom one.

Stay tuned for the next episode!