Lady Babsivere and the Laundering Idiots

And so it became, that while Lady Babsivere was fighting the bloodsucking vermin (read: fleas) in Yon Lands Southerly (read: Down South), Queen Ma and Sir Drinksalot (read: Trash) hatched a Nefarious Scheme.

Sir Drinksalot: I dare say, Queen Ma, while the Evil Landlord Dragon is busy recuperating in Merlin’s Leech and Poultice Emporium for the Aged (read: rehab/nursing home facility from which said EFL shall be returning soon), we could, er, um, dare I say it?? Are we sure the Landlord Dragon hasn’t placed wiretaps in this joint or summit??

Queen Ma: Oh get on with it and say it, boy!! I haven’t got all day. I’ve got to go run Archimede’s Bingo Night!!

Sir Drinksalot: Right right, good good. I think we should engage in….Renegade Pantaloon Laundering!!

Queen Ma thought on this for a good long while. After all, it had been quite unfair of the Evil Landlord Dragon to ban use of the Grand Clothes Soaping Device (read: washing machine). It wasn’t as if it had snapped any pipes in all the time they HAD used it, as the Evil Landlord Dragon alleged they would, now had they??

Queen Ma: Sir Drinksalot, you’re right!! And I AM tired of the many miles walk to the Great Public Laundering House (read: laundrymat). And the stairs??-oh the stairs!!

Sir Drinksalot: Exactly, milady. And what with that ingenious nine-iron drying method* the exceedingly clever and absolutely brilliant Lady Babsivere invented?? We’ll not want for clean clothes at all–nor will we have to traipse the Swiss Alps of Staten to get them!!

Queen Ma: Go down to the store at once and purchase as many bottles of Tide as you can. And make sure it’s unscented, you layabout, for I have allergies, and if I sneeze, it’s a sound thrashing you’ll get!!

Sir Drinksalot: Righto Mum!!

Queen Ma: Right. Then I’m off to Archimede’s Bingo Night. It’s my turn to pull the balls. I don’t like the way Marion does them anyway, she’s too slow and she never reads the numbers right!!

*Extraordinarily handy use for old golf clubs in summer time. Balance them off on two window frames, put wet laundry on hangers, hang hangers on golf clubs, dry accordingly.

Queen Ma, though, had her reservations about using the Grand Clothes Soaping Device behind the Evil Landlord Dragon’s back, no matter HOW ridiculous their reasoning for banning its use to begin with had been. So she went to the Dragon’s sibling, and inquired about same, as the Landlord Dragon has asked Queen Ma to wash some clothes for her as well, and to bring them to her at Merlin’s Poultice and Leech Emporium for the Aged.

Evil Landlord Dragon’s Sibling: Oh pray, Queen Ma, you’ve shown such kindness to my sibling, and done so much for them. Worry not about laundering your pantaloons at home. Wash away–as much as you like!!

This left Queen Ma without any reservations and they cleaned every stitch of clothing they had. Pantaloons, those funny looking hats what they had back in the medieval times that I don’t feel like researching the name of, and the same for those funny shirts, too (Alas, it is three in the AM, and I am feeling shoddy in my research, thou shalt deal with it).

For three days and three nights they laundered away. Shirts hanging from nine-irons, pantaloons laid gently over six-irons, and all the socks they could manage floated in the breeze on a sand wedge.

*Queen Ma and Trash dance gaily around bonfire made of empty Tide bottles in yard*

Queen Ma: Oh this is so wonderful!! Not having to leave the house to do laundry?!

Sir Drinksalot: If only Lady Babsivere could see us now–she’d be so jealous!! *tinkly laugh*

*cue to house in Yon Lands Southerly*

Master Ozzy: Oh Aunt Babsivere, do come here quickly–the Great Talking Machine (read: phone) ringeth. Tis Queen Ma, and she wishes to speak with you.

Lady Babsivere: Thank you kind Ozzy, now be a good lad and fetch some leeches, I saw your father earlier today, and he wasn’t looking well.

Master Ozzy: Yes Aunt Babsivere.

Lady Babsivere: Queen Ma?? Is that really you??

Queen Ma: *trilling* Why yes, it is me!! Is this talking device not amazing??

Lady Babsivere: I do admit it is rather neat, but I fear it’s just a fad. Much like pet rocks, the hula-hoop, and that crazy ‘World is Round’ business.

Queen Ma: Now that IS ridiculous. How on earth could the earth be round?? Next thing you know they’ll be saying we stay on the ground because of some ‘magical invisible force’ or something. Anyway I calleth to tell you something.

Lady Babsivere: What’s that?? Have you won the Medieval Mega Ball?? One of my ex-BFs come down with the plague?? Please don’t keep me in suspense!! I fear my heart cannot take it–I’m being driven to insanity as it is.

Queen Ma: We, that is myself and Sir Drinksalot, have been using the Grand Clothes Soaping Machine!!

Lady Babsivere: GET OUT!! *pushes the poor just-returning Master Ozzy as she says it, sending leeches flying everywhere*

Sir Drinksalot (in background): Ha ha haaaaaa!!

Lady Babsivere: Ha!! I careth not!! There’s a Grand Clothes Drying Device that is NOT endorsed by Sir Arnold Palmer and a Grand Clothes Soaping Device here, too. A Metallic Swimming Hole (read: pool). And central AC!! Take that!!

Sir Drinksalot: Booooo hiss.

Queen Ma: Well have fun, I’m doing more Laundering, without climbing any stairs!!

And though I, Lady Babsivere, had bragged on being in a place with both a washer and dryer, a pool, and central AC, I was vexed mightily. For the pool was never used, and getting to the Grand Clothes Soaping Device, while good in theory, involved a hectic route, and always ended with my being attacked by more heathenistic bloodsuckers (read: more fucking fleas). Yea verily, I couldn’t wait for my journey home, so that I too might be able to make merry and launder my own pantaloons in the comfort of my own home. O bliss!!

It was not to be.

Two days before my journey north, the Great Talking Machine rang again.

Master Ozzy: Aunt Babsivere, tis Queen Ma again!!

Lady Babsivere: Right so, be a good lad and fetch some leeches, your sisters allergies are acting up.

Queen Ma: Lady Babsivere??

Lady Babsivere: So. Have thou called to braggeth again on being able to launder thine pantaloons at home?? Cretinous bovine!!

Queen Ma: Er. No. Not as such. We’re no longer doing laundering. Something er, is afoot.

Lady Babsivere: GET OUT!! *once again pushes the poor just-returning Master Ozzy as she says it, sending leeches flying everywhere*

Queen Ma: So. How about those Metropolitans from the Land of Newest Yorke?!

{Translation: How about those Mets?!}

Lady Babsivere: Queen Ma, did the pipe burst?! I’d die if it did. It’s impossible!!

Queen Ma: No. No it did not.

Lady Babsivere: What happened then, pray tell??

Queen Ma: The fucking motor did burneth out.

And so when I traipsethed back Northerly, the first thing I had to do was GO TO THE BLOODY LAUNDRYMAT!!

So endeth another chapter in the saga of Lady Babsivere.