There are tiny black slugs all over the house. They crawl all over you, if you sit still or happen to fall asleep. If you don’t kill them quickly, they grow as big as alligators.
And there is a little black kitten who gets very good at killing slugs. So we get more kittens. It is a kitten-slug killing bloodbath.
The kittens win, in the end.
I want to give you my father’s ring. It is gold, with a flat black stone. When I give it to you, it sprouts a large, silver pod-shaped lump where the stone should be. Upon closer inspection, the pod is a wooden clog made of pure silver. Engraved along one side is a message from some friends who had brought it back from Holland as a souvenir. It isn’t my father’s ring.
You have a cold. I provide you with a nose-sized plumber's snake attached to the nose-hole of a scuba mask. It works like a charm.
All the women in my life have died. I am put in charge of their skulls. I clean them out with a melon baller, scooping out brains, eyeballs, everything I can find. Most of what comes out looked very much like perfectly ripe avocado. I boil their skulls in a pot until they are clean and white. Then I line them up on the windowsill above my kitchen sink, so I can look at them every day.
Your brother is buying an engagement ring. You make fun of him, because it is stretchy and made of silver stars. But then you stop and GASP because on the shelf beside it you find the perfect ring for yourself. It is made of turquoise beads, and it covers your entire ring finger. It is absolutely enormous. You buy it on the spot, and swear you are going to wear it for forty years.
