Jake cut his birthday cake at 10 PM on Thursday. Somehow, he got frosting smeared all over himself. As I tried to scrape it off the end of his nose, Jake's mother started to giggle. It's not difficult to make Mrs. Jensen giggle, but she wasn't really giggling ABOUT anything. It was sort of weird. Everybody looked at her.
"You know, I think we've been having a problem with the mice downstairs," she said, trying unsuccessfully to hide her laughter.
"Oh, really?" I asked. The mouse problem really is pretty bad, at least when cold weather starts to set in. Once, a little mouse walked right up to me in the living room, and licked my big toe as I sat at the computer typing. Jake caught the mouse in a little tin cup, and fed it some cheese. We named it Martin, and brought it outside into the yard. The mouse promptly sneaked back INTO the house the next night, along with his girlfriend, who promptly gave birth to approximately eight million baby mice, all fiending for cheese...
Mrs. Jensen was just about howling with laughter now.
Jake asked: "Uh... is this the set-up to a joke?"
She couldn't contain herself anymore, and burst out laughing so hard I thought she was going to cry.
"Well," she said, "I was just gonna say something about all that SQUEAKING coming from your bedroom..." She was giving us a Look through her laughter. "I heard 'em TWICE yesterday!"
I don't think either Jake nor I has EVER turned as red as we did at that moment. I think we surpassed "beet-red."
...which was only intensified when Jake's dad said: "Happy birthday, son," and clapped him on the back.
Now, the Jensens have known their son for 27 years now, so, by now, they must know he's a total whore. Nobody's got any interest in preserving Jake's reputation as a pure, innocent, virginal boy. That's just a lost cause. But I've been concerned, from the very beginning, about the Jensens thinking I'm at least SORT OF a good girl. I mean, I gave up on convincing them I was a virgin, but at least I made sure not to throw my crotchless panties into the washer unless I knew *I* would be the one to pull them back out... From my experience, no parents ever want to think of any girl defiling their son, even if they do know he's a whore.
But anyway, they laughed. VERY hard.
A good time, and lots of cake was had by all.
Jake's been calling me "Squeak." I've been trying to pass it off as a Tom Robbins reference, but I don't think anybody's buying it.
*sigh*
~Helena ("Squeak") Thomas*