Our Town – July 26, 2012

One Sunday morning in Our Town Mollie Papillion woke up thinking, “I’m in the mood for pancakes.” She walked into her kitchen and began looking for the ingredients, but soon discovered that she was out of eggs. She glanced at the clock and saw that it was only 6:00 a.m., which seemed a little too early to borrow from her neighbor, so she decided to drive down to the grocery store. “It’ll only take a minute,” she thought.

She threw her rain coat on over her pajamas, put on her indoor/outdoor slippers, grabbed her mug of coffee and started to walk outside, but realized almost immediately that her pajama bottoms had somehow gotten caught in the door behind her. She yanked at the fabric a couple of times, but it refused to budge, so she gave it one last firm tug. The material gave way with a loud rip, causing her to lose her balance and fall off the porch into the mud below. “At least I didn’t spill my coffee,” she sighed, getting up slowly and brushing herself off.

Not one to be easily deterred, Mollie continued on with her plan. She climbed into her car and drove about a block when, suddenly, a dog appeared in the road a few feet in front of her. She gasped and slammed on her brakes just in time to avoid hitting it, but, in the process, spilled her coffee all over the front of her pajamas. She tried to gather her wits about her and wipe as much coffee off of herself as she could using the old McDonald’s napkins from her car’s glove compartment. “Oh, my goodness,” she fretted, “I almost hit that dog!”

Rattled but still determined, she headed down the street again, turning on her windshield wipers so she could see through the torrents of rain that had begun to fall. She arrived at the store, got out of her car and walked towards the door, pulling her coat closed in an effort to hide the coffee stains and mud. She tried not to make eye contact with anyone as she walked down the aisle towards the dairy section, but the sound of her wet rubber shoe soles on the newly waxed floors made such a loud squeaking noise that two customers in the produce section were startled and looked up to see what was happening.

She stepped up to the display where the eggs were usually located and stopped dead in her tracks, staring in disbelief. There were no eggs. At that moment, the stress of the morning’s events finally proved to be too much for her and she shouted in desperation, “I JUST NEED SOME EGGS!”

Her words were still echoing through the store when the Soupster himself magically appeared. He quietly handed her a carton of eggs from his shopping cart and disappeared around the corner into the cereal aisle.

“Thank you, Soupster,” Mollie managed to utter as she started to cry, mascara running down her cheeks. “All I wanted this morning were some pancakes!”

– Submitted by Mary Ann Jones