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“Do you want to go first?” I ask as we make our way to the top of the slide.
“Yeah, sure,” he replies. “Do you know what word we want to spell?”
I shake my head, not having the foggiest idea. “Let’s just gather a few and see what we can come up with. We’ll have to be smart about letter picking after that.”
“I agree.”
The countdown begins and Josh, Gary, and Millie are lined up on the line to start. All I can think as Joshua slides down is,Wow, my man in oil, who knew?
thirteen
Joshua
Who isthe sick bastard behind this competition? Give me oil and a hot babe, preferably the one I’m married to, any day. But when you throw in flour and honey, it’s just a flat out mess. Don’t get me wrong, watching Joey roll around in anything is a sight to see, but the fact that she looks like a stay puft marshmallow is a slight turn off. I know that’s not saying much considering I look the same, but all men fantasize about watching their girl get all oiled up. It’s just a total buzzkill when she face-plants in a pool of flour.
Joey and I are working well as a team. After three letters we agreed to go all out and spell ‘happiness’. It was her idea, and I quickly agreed. She’s clearly the brains of our operation, since she was able to come up with our word with the letters a-p-n.
We look like crap. Our hair is matted and our bodies have this caked on composite that is meant to slow us down. My shoes are ruined, as I wasn’t smart enough to take mine off like she was. This has been the worst competition to date by far. I trudge out of the vat of honey and slowly make my way to the board. Joey is already in the flour looking for our next letter. The longer it takes, the harder it is to move. The shower beckons me and I don’t care if I drag this crap through the house, I’m not waiting for the outside one to become free. I feel gross and things are sticking to places they shouldn’t be.
I make my way toward the stairs; each step seems to be slower than the last. As soon as Joey is at the board I look quickly to see what letters we need before climbing up the steps. We only need two more.
“This sucks,” Cole mumbles as he tries to knock the goop off his hand.
“I know.”
“Can’t we just forfeit?”
I shake my head. “It’s for the master suite. Someone has to win the room.”
“I don’t even care. We can just screw in the shower,” he mutters as he leans against the makeshift wall. I don’t want to think about him and Millie in the shower because one, it makes me jealous that I’m not doing that with Joey and two, I’m absolutely desperate for a shower.
“Here goes nothing.” Sitting down on the slide I push off. Flour flies up into my mouth, making me gag. You’d think by now we’d have all the flour on our bodies, but it’s procreating like magic. It seems like each time I get down here there’s more and more white crap to make my life miserable.
The first letter I find is one we don’t need, but it sticks to my hand. I shake it loose, only to have it fly and hit Cole in the back of his head.
“Sorry, man,” I say as I move the flour around more, getting on my knees to search the bottom. I find another letter, an “F”, and quickly look at the board. I’ve forgotten what I need. Joey is standing off to the side watching and if I could see clearly, I’d probably be able to see if she’s angry and telling me to hurry up. I can’t even hear well right now; my ears are clogged up full of crap. I reach down again and find another letter quickly. I pray that this is something I need because I have to get out of here.
My arm moves slowly, the flour fighting with the oil and many layers of honey. When it breaks free, an “S” stares back at me. The little boy inside of me rejoices and quickly cries when I get to the honey. I drop to my knees and then my elbows and army crawl my way through the thick amber goop. I used to like the smell of honey, but not anymore.
All bees must die after this.
As soon as I slap the “S” on the board Joey is already down the slide. She’s moving so much faster than I am. I’m in shape, but this comp is kicking my ass. I walk to the edge and cheer on Joey while she searches for the last letter needed.
“Come on, Joey,” I yell, hoping to encourage her. I let out a yelp when she jumps up and makes her way to the honey. I’d love to go in and just pull her through, but something tells me that I’d get in trouble and we’d be disqualified and there ain’t no way I’m losing now.
Joey reaches the edge and crawls a little bit of the way until she can stand. I follow and help her start to rearrange the letters to make H-A-P-P-I-N-E-S-S. We step and try to link hands, but we can’t.
“We did well, I think.”
“Yeah, it’s a strong word.” I look around and see that Cole and Millie are done, but they’re hiding their word. Can’t blame them, we did the same thing. It was Joey’s idea to not put the letters up until we were almost done.
The bell sounds as soon as Amanda and Gary finish. I look down the line and see that everyone is as uncomfortable as I am, and I have a feeling we’ll all be bitching about this for days to come.
“Well done, newlyweds.” Patrick Jonas’s voice is grating. Usually, I don’t mind when he’s on, but right now I want to strangle him. “Let’s see what we have for words. Amanda and Gary, tell us what you have?”
Joey and I face forward and wait for them to announce their word.
“Patrick, we’ve spelt computer,” Amanda answers, pride evident in her voice. It figures their word would be tech related.
