Children At Play

"Take me away from here," shouted Lucille to her deep red-coloured steed. Lucille's imagination successfully transformed a rather skinny 7 yr old, next door neighbor, Wendell Thacker into a giant Clydesdale.
"I'm goin'" he retorts in the truest of horse-sounding voices, but with a hint of chagrin. While it was a complex turn of creativity to take the vision of Wendell and mold it into a stallion, slightly more difficult was Wendell's job of forging a princess--flowing blond hair, white, sparkling dress, and most importantly, comfortably light--from little Lucille Veronica Jane Hammersmith--pudgy, wiry black hair, and demanding. Indeed, it was the case that Wendell's fantasy of his noble courage in the face of certain death and danger was interrupted every once and awhile by a swift shot to the ribs from the hurried princess's heels. Or when they, atop a fiery mountain, surrounded by evil trolls, depended now upon his skill and speed to jump to safety, she applied a not-so-gentle switch to his behind--enough to rouse Wendell from his fairy tale world. Of course, Lucille found it only appropriate. After all, he was a horse, she a fair maiden. But it was in those moments that Wendell was brought back to reality. The switch hurt. The heels hurt. Her heaviness was uncomfortable.
While we think those moments would be enough to undo Wendell from this world of imagination, and while we believe that surely this boy will take no more from Lucille Hammersmith, we think that those were two unordinary children, not destined for unusual glories, are simply children having a play at adventure. And we would be wrong.
Wendell, startled to reality by the switch, would from time to time lapse, not from imagination to reality, but from imagination to reality to imagination. You see, Wendell secretly loved Lucille. And so he would fall from the mountainside of trolls into burgeoning annoyance with Lucille and further into a world where love in fact truly binds soul mates together. He couldn't articulate how he knew, or anything about what marriage was like; he couldn't even tell you that he loved her. But deep in his soul, that 7 year old boy understood a timelessness to their friendship. It plummeted the depths of his little heart. And he knew it to be true.

(Beginning of a short story).
BSS

Down and Out

So...
We've all been sick lately. Ben B. had it rough this morning, Jeff is still feeling effect, Reagan experienced some of the bug also this morning, and I just officially surrendered my stomach as of 12.55 am. We all see each other a lot, so we think the bug is common to us all, and it has affected us in different ways. But the effects have lingered so with some, that we (or I'm at least) beginning to suspect otherwise.

Possible theories:
1) Everyone just happened to get sick in the same way on the same day from a different bug. This theory I call, "The Coincidence." I ate some bad lettuce, Ben B. was nervous about preaching, Jeff got food poisoning, and Reagan--well, it was just a day for the bottom to fall out.
-->Problem: Least likely to account for all the data.

2) "The Bathroom." Somehow, during the downstairs deepclean, a malicious, age-old, slumbering virus was aroused (out from behind the toilet perhaps) and set out to attach those who attempted its ruin.
-->Problem: Abe hung out with the boys who have it the deepclean (Jeff and Ben B.) and he went unscathed. Maybe the bug only hates those who hate it.

3) "The Dave." We all went to Wendy's last night, where Jeff inhaled a delicious meal of doublecheese burgers, etal. Food Poisoning?
-->Problem: I didn't eay anything from Dave.

4) "The Saboteur." We also all went to Sojourn last night, and everyone enjoyed some coffee. But perhaps a coffee bean preparer didn't wash his hands enough. Or perhaps he thought it would be a memory for the making to slip a little "Hoo-Hoo" into the pot of brewed Decaf. I'm not throwing it out. Everyont who drank (I think) also got some sickness.
-->Problem: Do people really do that?

Of all the possible suggestions, I lean towards #4. Am I saying someone at Sojourn did the deed? No. But some scoundrel polluted the Joe. And his day's coming.

BSS