Sissy's Wedding

Sissy's Wedding - A story in words and writing by Steven

The telephone rang.

Sissy took off her pinny and handed it to the postman, who looked at it as if it were a plague shroud. It had a picture of a bunny on it.

"I know who that will be," said Sissy. "It will be Michael Strong calling to ask if I've heard the news about his mother. As usual, he won't ask me out."

She picked up the receiver. "Poo poopy-doo?" she inquired. "I'm free Thusday, if anybody's interested." But it was the gas company phoning to arrange a leak and possible explosion. They would send a man. A married one, she ascertained. Now she wouldn't be free on Thursday after all.

She took her pinny back from the postman. In his anxiety at touching a garment infected with womanhood he had sucked a corner and now it was sopping with postman slobber. "Go fish," said Sissy, and the postman gratefully took to the seas in his trawler.

Sissy cut out the damp area of her pinny with a pair of pinking shears and put the garment back on. It didn't fully cover her tutu, which in her mother's eyes would have made her all but a prostitute, at the very least a kissogram. She returned to her suds. How women love their suds!

"Wheeee!" said Sissy, tossing a handful of soap bubbles into the air. She looked around for something to wash but the kitchen was spotless. She took the magnifying glass from the silken, lace-trimmed string around her neck and inspected the floor in case the postman had left any paw prints. She found a single bacterium and sprayed it with lemon-scented sulphuric acid. "Ta very much," it seemed to say. "Thank you for ending my unhygienic life. We used to be called germs, you know. We had status in those days and appeared in many television commercials. Now the best we can aspire to is a brief life in an Actimel pot and a sad and lonely end in a gullible fool's stomach."

"Well, pardon me for cleaning," gushed Sissy archly. "Save me a seat at your funeral, why don't you? It's not as if you were a baby seal or a puppy in a ribbon or something pretty and feminine."

The doorbell rang. Sissy guessed it hadn't done it all by itself and inferred that she had a visitor. She removed her pinny again and handed it to her personal hairdresser, who rubbed it lovingly against his cheek. Sissy had always assumed he was a homosexual and had no idea that he was secretly in love with her pinny. He ran to the garden shed to consummate their union.

Sissy made her way along the spotless hall to the sparkling front door. The skirt of her tutu dislodged several ornaments and she was grateful that she would now have something to do for a few minutes. But the fun of picking, wiping and putting would come later. For now she had a visitor to attend to.

Praise be, it was Michael Strong, looking rugged and masculine in his fireman's outfit. If only the fire brigade would give him a job! Life could be so unfair sometimes. "Yes," she exclaimed, "I will marry you! We will have babies, kittens and frills, and you can have a fire engine of your very own, so long as you keep it clean and don't take it anywhere near fires."

Michael coughed and shuffled his feet. "I've come to tell you the news about my mother," he said. "She's left the kitchen and she's now in the front room watching East Enders. She's wearing shoes. Just thought you'd like to know."

This was exactly the kind of news that Sissy loved. "Oh, the poor dear," she said. "Is there anything I can do? Should I bake her a pie? Shall I offer to wash her underwear? May I wash yours?"

"I don't know anything about that," growled Michael, "that's women's stuff. I just want to be a fireman. Mum says I can't get married until I'm fourteen. I'll have to be going now, I've got some football that needs playing."

Sissy closed the front door and skipped back down the hall, knocking over several more ornaments on the way. She didn't care. Michael had as good as proposed! Now she could plan the wedding. She had in mind a dress so large it would need planning permission. Fourteen acres of white satin and tulle with matching poodles and circus ponies. It would be a day to remember alright!