The timer going off, Mrs H pulled her ample buttocks off her most comfortable couch in order to remove from the oven her Pillsbury Orange Cinnamon Buns.  She was having a special treat for lunch, having already baked and consumed the Pillsbury Cinnamon Buns and the Pillsbury Crescent Rolls for breakfast.  Mrs. H was carbo loading.  But she didn’t plan to run that day.

Her right hand had enthusiastically cooperated in this Special Tuesday Late Morning Bake-A-Thon.  It had decided to call off its strike when she discussed with it the possibility that not cooperating in a team effort to drive the car home would be problematic.  Her negotiating position was to acknowledge the hand had been taken for granted, that it was an integral member of Team H and if it came to it’s senses it would be amply rewarded for cooperating.  

It had surely picked it’s moment, her right hand.  It was not her favored hand for nothing!   Smart.  Had the hand not negotiated in good faith, there was a distinct probability they would have remained on the side of Interstate Highway 80 East until the authorities came along and standing in the morning chill disgustedly staring through her car window at her and her surly hand, would have followed all proper procedures, contacting the various departments and personnel, and Mrs H, her right hand and all the rest of her including recently cleaned teeth and her car would have been hauled off and dispursed among various bureaucratic state waystations and instutitions that existed for precisely for these emergency purposes.   Mrs. H knew from experience not to become a turd in the waste pipe of America!

And the promised reward was cooling and nearly ready!  They had already shared a delicious breakfast of a variety of pastries with eggs and bacon.  And now for lunch they would enjoy a new round of aromatic buns with a nice can of creamed corn, her hand’s favorite.  Mrs. H’s too. 

She was watching a particularly fascinating segment about obesity on Dr. Phil, and she didn’t want to miss the part where he would yell at the fat man’s mother, “What are ya’ll DOIN'?”  in that Texas drawl of his.

You could see it coming, as the 700 lb man who could only appear on Dr. Phil by talking from his bed had a big family of cooperative people who were trying to help him.  The man would call them at various times of the day and night crying that he was starving and they would bring him giant bags of junk food – fried chicken, tacos, donuts, cheeseburgers.   Mrs H couldn’t get a cheese pizza delivered that wasn’t hard and cold but this guy had a network of people willing to bring him hot cooked take out all ready to go.  Mrs. H was impressed.   

Her secret favorite part of the show was at the end when the camera would pan to Dr. Phil’s wife, smug in very expensive clothes and her big cross necklace of many diamonds, smiling at her bald husband, acting as if she didn't know full well every woman in the world wanted to plant themselves on Dr. Phil’s face, except the smiling Mrs. Phil.  Mrs H. could tell she was tired of him, and was in it for the money.  Time and young production assistants had taken their toll on the marriage.  Mrs H had read all about it in the Enquirer.  But there was no sympathy for Mrs Phil, only fascination and a little envy.  Would Mrs H as Mrs Phil have fresh hot donuts fried up every day by her personal chef or would she sit in front of cameras smiling fakely while wearing stylish leather pants?  She wondered about that sometimes.

During the commercial, she went inside and fussed with her lunch (making sure the orange cream cheese icing was perfectly drizzled just like in the commercial) and brought it all back to the livingroom just in time with Dr. Phil’s theme music.  She pushed aside her breakfast plate and placed the bowl of creamy corn, her plate stacked with little glistening pastries and a Coke Zero right in front of her on the coffee table.  Her right hand was doing it’s job just fine, popping the tab on the soda then tearing in half and flipping a pastry into her mouth with one elegant swoop.  

What a pro, she thought crunching. 

the continued mundane hijinx of Mrs H

Chapter One: Mrs H and The Dental Hygienist