pinheads: Charity, Prudence (crossposted to drabblemania)

(Charity and Prudence and their brood of siblings will soon be appearing at 7sinsspinning. So yes, this is a teaser, why do you ask?)

"Stand up straight."
"What?" Prudence wiggled and inhaled deeply, admiring the foam of white orchids and the way they traced the ribbon trim of her red dress, blossoms falling across her bare shoulders carelessly. By the end of the night they would be nothing but a crushed memory of scent, but at the moment they were beautiful, and the moment was what mattered.
Charity glared up at her with an irritated expression and took the pins out of her mouth. "I said stand up straight. And stop fidgeting." She vindictively stabbed the nearby pincushion and turned back to the business of basting the rest of the hem.
"Do I look wonderful?"
"Yes, Pru, you look fantastic." Charity replied dryly. "Skin like milk and hair like flowing honey. Now do you remember what you're going to this party for?"
"To meet up with the arch-general's attache from Rigel Seven?"
"Very good."
"And to make him fall hopelessly in loooooooooooove with me." Prudence ogled herself again, running long-nailed hands along her bodice as though this were a trial run for the inevitable frolic with the arch-general's attache.
"No." Charity replied sharply.
"But he's so dreeeeeeeeeeeeeamy." Prudence pouted, her full, quivering lip bloodied with lipstick.
"No." Charity replied slowly and carefully, as though she were talking to a rather slow child. When dealing with Pru, this wasn't far off. "You're supposed to be getting the information for the new military base out of his briefcase."
"Oh, that."
"Yes, oh that." Charity sighed, shaking her head. She ran her needle through the cloth again once or twice and inspected her handiwork. Not the best job she'd ever done, but it would have to do; it was serviceable, in any case. She struggled to her feet. "I knew I should have done this myself."
"You can't dance." Prudence replied absently, still enraptured by her own reflection.
"I am painfully aware of that." Charity replied tartly, taking a moment and reaching out her hand to steady herself with the table. She limped over to the desk, dragging her left foot behind her, and then turned to hand Prudence a small white clutch purse and a pair of elbow length gloves. "Off you go. You don't want to keep Mr. Dreamy Military Attache waiting, after all. And Pru?"
"Yeah?" Prudence turned, halfway out the door.
"Remember. We're after him for money. That's money, not marriage. Money. Try not to get too attatched."
"I will." Prudence flounced out the door in a swirl of red pseudosilk and trailing white petals.
Charity sat down at the desk, idly fidgeting with the pincushion and shaking her head.
"Curse you father, I could have done this myself." she muttered blackly, stabbing herself accidentally as a swipe toward the pincushion missed. With a muffled curse, her hand flew reflexively to her mouth in an attempt to soothe it. "Damn."

Notes from a Sunday night in Southeast PDX

• First, from earthlaughs: My Penis May Be A Terrorist. (If I have to tell you this probably isn't worksafe, you're not paying attention.)
  
• Second: Does ginger freeze? And I mean well, not into a soggy ickly lump of goo.
  
• In the vein of There Needs To Be A Word For Such Things (sub i) - The act of getting all nice and comfy and settled and then realizing you have to go to the bathroom.
  
• TNTBAWFST, (sub ii) - The feeling you get at the end of the weekend around 5-6 or so. You know what I mean.
  
• Risked certain death today by disassembling furniture while kneeling underneath it and having it nearly crush me. I'm still here. I'll leave that to you to decide as to whether that's good or not.
  
• To the person in our complex that's using cheap knockoff bounce sheets: Look, if I give you the price difference, will you please go out and buy a box of the real stuff? I swear. Those things smell like burning "we're supposed to call this fresh" scent. Kind of like when we went through Montana and Montana and Montana and Montana and it was on fire? Except not exactly, because it's like Fake Plastic Montana instead. I'd love it if you'd use Bounce Free, but regular bounce is better than that crap. Of course, so is hitting myself in the finger with a ball peen hammer; the pain goes away sooner, too.
  
• And my telekinesis is on again. *fumbles for off switch, can't find it*
  
• Also! Are there any people under the age of 65 who like butter pecan ice cream? I have /never/ found one.
  

The Same Thing Happens Every Night

Bill Cosby did a skit (which is great, you can find it on 'Bill Cosby, Himself', which also contains 'Chocolate Cake for Breakfast') called The Same Thing Happens Every Night.
Now permit me at this time to say that the man is a genius and should at least be given a minor sainthood. Because it's true. The Same Thing Happens Every Night.

We have The Screaming Tantrum trick.
We have the I'm Going To Get Out Of Bed Six Times And Come Out And Play And Hope No One Notices trick.
We have the I'm Going To Play In My Room Until Mom Or Dad Notice And Then Scamper Back To Bed Like Nothing's Happened trick. (Even though Mom and Dad are right there, so the likelihood of this is effectively nil, but we are not yet three, so ... yeah.)
We have the I'm Going To Sit Up And Play In My Bed And Think I'm Being Tricky Trick.
(We also have me nearly killing myself on the cat, whose contribution to this game is to lie directly in the hallway and/or the floor of the microkitchen. And of course this is the larger of the two cats, so it's more likely that I fall and kill myself on him. The cat has it in for me. I mean, I feed it, so I don't understand why it feels I need to die, but apparently I do.)
And then, eventually, we go to sleep.

Eventually.