JOSHUA GREEN ALLEN. Who dis.

PENNINGTON GREEN. This is your aunt. I am going to paint you a word-picture.

JGA. Oh my god.

PG. There is a big rusty nail on the floor and it has been covered with acid. The kind of acid people use when they want to pour acid on a dead body they killed to get rid of the evidence.

JGA. Not that acid!

PG. Yes and the rusty nail is fresh out of the fire so it is very hot.

JGA. This word-picture is extremely vivid. Let me transfer you to our poetry division here at Old People Weekly.

PG. Joshua, I am trying to communicate with you. Next what happens is I walk across the room to change the channel on the television and I step right on this rusty hot acid nail.

JGA. I thought Mitch glued your remote control to the sofa so it would stop wandering off?

PG. Boy, I am telling you what my goddamn corns feel like!

JGA. Oh!

PG. I’m hobbling around like Sanford and Son!

JGA. I want to help, Aunt Pen. This whole situation is just so infuriating to me.

PG. Well, I’m taking the pills your mother hides from me. But until they are working I can’t do the vacuuming and I can’t make the hot Dr Pepper I need in the evenings.

JGA. Hoo boy this is worse than I thought.

PG. What is it you are doing right now? Answer me now so there’s no time for one of your horrible made-up excuses!

JGA. A guy I don’t know just came over and gave me an ancient map. He said he’d be back to pick it up in an hour but if he doesn’t come back then I have to guard this map with my life.

PG. What is the map of.

JGA. It is ancient, in a language I do not know. There is a river and a mountain and a skull.

PG. Read me the words right now with no hesitation.

JGA. Mungo chaka boba fett.

PG. That sounds like the Devil’s tongue.

JGA. Tell me about it.

PG. I guess you have your hands full. I suppose you could send your daughter over.

JGA. You know she’s the worst vacuumer in the world.

PG. Of course I know that.

JGA. She somehow gets the floor dirtier than when she started.

PG. I know! But what choice do I have?

JGA. None choice.

PG. Send her over. What will you do with that map?

JGA. I have ten more minutes till the guy’s supposed to come back. After that … I don’t know. I just don’t know. It fills me with a terrible dread. I feel this is a map not of the physical realm, but of my very soul.

PG. You should put it up on the eBay.

JGA. I … I just might, Aunt Pen. Even now my hands are trembling at the force of your words.

PG. Visiting with you always makes me tired and confused.

JGA. I hear that!

—click—