Date: Wed, 27 Nov 1996 16:07:06 -0600 From: m Subject: Story: Animal Crackers in my Soup Animal Crackers in my Soup Mona Waddell loved to eat...unpleasantly so. She was the kind of person that you hated to sit near in a restaurant for fear of getting sick. She shoveled down food like stokers providing fuel for a damaged sea vessel. Very often you could tell what she had just eaten from the stains on her enormous blouse and the corners of her mouth. Standing in her way at the soup and salad bar could lead to permanent injury, the likes of which the biggest linebacker in the NFL would have a difficult time dealing out. Such was her zeal for a meal, that she often arrived at the Waffle Hut earlier than the earliest all-night truckers. Of course, then she had to kill time until breakfast, so what did she do? EAT, of course! She invented her own meal similar to the brunch. This meal occurred between her after-midnight snack and breakfast. (This woman liked to eat!!!! Have I made myself clear?) Mona occasionally wondered about her love for food. She hadn't been so enamoured of food as a little ponytailed, blonde-haired girl. As a matter of fact, she was downright picky when she ate. Her mother had often had to force her to eat certain foods, reminding her of the starving children in other countries. "It's not polite to disobey your mother," Mother Waddell would constantly remind her. "You're no better than the beasts of the field if you don't have manners." Mona always rolled her eyes at that one. Finally, when she became a teenager, she had found a short list of acceptable foods that she liked. Things like chocolate cake, pizza, lasagna, pork rinds, cheese puffs, and enough fat grams to clog a whale's artery made her list. When she ate them, though, her mother began a new line of nagging. "It is not ladylike to eat with your fingers, Mona," she would say. "But if you HAVE to eat those chips, then eat ONE AT A TIME." Mona had gone throughout childhood and her teen years eating things one at a time. One chip at a time, one tiny bite of her hamburger at a time, and on it went. She looked forward to the day that she could escape her unreasonable mother's tyrannical reign and, as she got older, often unleashed a flurry of obscene words in the direction of her patient, but bothersome, mother. Now, here she was at thirty-one, unmarried, and sitting in her favorite family restaurant. She wore a diry pink blouse, which could have been used as a circus tent, had stringy blonde hair hanging to her shoulders, and was stuffed into a tight pair of hot pink pants. Her girth could hardly be accomodated by the booth in which she sat. The servers at this restaurant often joked to each other. They had a smoking section; now they needed a (very large) Mona section. (Other patrons would have appreciated this also; they would have the opportunity to sit in the non-Mona section.) Mona had little use for other people anyway. She was often politely spoken to by customers at the grocery store where she worked. When her mouth wasn't full of miniature Snickers bars, Mona ignored them. Her mother had FORCED her to be polite, so she now refused to have a polite attitude toward others. So here she sat in her favorite eatery, in her favorite booth, eating her favorite meal of fried catfish, hash browns, and hushpuppies. She crammed the last of the five hushpuppies in her mouth and let out a most unladylike belch, much to the chagrin of the customers who had been forced to sit in the unofficial "Mona section." Mona looked at the indignant family in the booth across the aisle from her, casting them an "I don't care what you think" glance, then lit up a cigarette. She took a couple of puffs, then placed the still-smoldering Camel in the ashtray, halfway extinguishing it. "Excuse me m'am," the man across the aisle ventured forth on behalf of his family. "We normally sit in the non-smoking section, but we had to take this tonight. If you're not going to smoke that, could you please put it out? It's been sitting there for the last ten minutes, fogging up the place." Mona had visions of her mother. "Go screw yourself," she quietly muttered as she stuffed some extra saltines from her soup into her mouth. "Why you impolite creature!" the man stammered, as he beckoned his family to leave. "You're an animal...a complete ass!" The family quickly retreated, as Mona laughed to herself. No one tells me what to do, or how to be polite, or how to eat, she thought to herself. Just then, Mona remembered the treat she had for herself in her large, beat-up purse. She reached into the handbag and pulled out a bright red box. On its side, the words "Animal Crackers" were cheerfully displayed. Mona had found the box on the way to the restaurant. A strangely behaving mongrel had threatened to attack her when she picked it up from the sidewalk, but she had just given him a swift kick with her plump foot. She looked forward to digging into the Animal Crackers. She hadn't had animal crackers since her childhood. She still remembered the first time she had tried some. Her mother had said, "One at a time, Mona. Eat only one at a time." Screw you too, Mom, Mona thought as she ripped the package open and pulled out a handful of cookies. Filling her mouth up to the limit, Mona relished the freedom from her mother's dictates. She could act any way she liked now that she was away from home. It's a dog-eat-dog world out here and only the fittest survive, Mona thought as she struggled to chew her mouthful. Who needs manners out in the real world? Mona swallowed the mushy mess in one HUGE gulp,...and that's when she first felt funny. First, she felt like something was poking out of her back. She reached back to feel a small pointed, slippery, firm object getting larger and emerging further. Her stomach then began cramping. She looked down, pulled up her shirt, and revealed her enormous belly with a horizontal slit becoming increasingly evident. It blossomed into something like a kangaroo's pouch. Mona noticed one of her hands holding her shirt was sprouting black hair and becoming shiny and simian in appearance, while the other one only managed to hold the shirt with a claw from a spotted feline paw that her nails had morphed into. Mona struggled up and raced into the nearby ladies room, causing one terrified woman to race out without buttoning her pants. The hefty grocery clerk looked at herself in the large mirror. The shark fin graced her back, while her head now appeared to be a cross between a camel and an catfish. She reached up and felt her whiskers, and suddenly spit violently at the mirror when her leopard claw scratched her hairy, scaly skin. Oddly she maintained her long stringy hair. Her lower half was still transforming, and now Mona's large head gazed downward, as she struggled to pull off her pants. One leg was becoming skinnier and equine in appearance, with strong, well defined racing horse muscles becoming prominent. Mona fell over onto the bathroom floor. Suddenly her other leg became long, then longer, and even longer, until a hoofed giraffe's hind limb was in its place. From her prone position, Mona was unable to see the mirror, but she was able to watch her fatty, buxom chest become flat and covered with turkey feathers. Then she groaned? shrieked? neighed? whinnied? squawked? with horror as her large camel eyes caught sight of her crotch. Her fleshy, feminine privates were now decidedly canine, and MALE canine, in appearance. Mona could see no other changes, and finally managed to shift her bizarre, patchwork body to a sitting position, with her giraffe leg almost pushing the bathroom door open. Her backside immediately felt uncomfortable. She worked her way to a semi-standing position, relying primarily on her primate hand to hoist her up using the countertop for leverage. She slowly turned around, and then strained her neck as she looked back toward the mirror to view her posterior... a baboon's butt. The box of Animal Crackers were found on the table as Mona continued to make new discoveries in the restroom. The waiter picked up the resealed, full container. "Oh well, a strange tip is better than no tip," he muttered to himself in annoyance as he stuffed the box in his pocket.