GROUNDED FOR LIFE

 

GROUNDED FOR LIFE

 

I’ve never seen Mom so furious yet

As the day I flushed our dead hamster pet.

Her loving face twisted, sharp as a bat—

From gentle old mother to sewer-side rat.

I feared swift justice from old Sparky’s swing,

That Louisville Slugger she keeps by the swing.

“Get me the plunger!” she thundered on cue—

Like a roadrunner blur, off I flew.

“The other end, boy, if you please!

This goes in the toilet— not for your knees!”

Then plunging and pumping with warrior might,

She battled the bowl in a porcelain fight.

Clank and bash, dink and thunk—

The pipes protested with metallic funk.

But all of the plunging just wedged him in tight—

Poor Lucky was stuck out of sight.

“Fetch me a bulldozer! Plumber! A crane!

We’re not losing that rodent to sewer domain!”

“We’ve none of the above,” I timidly said.

“One more word and I’ll use your head!”

She grabbed up the pliers and started to twist,

The pipes groaned low in watery mist.

They gurgled and burped and shuddered in pain—

Then water exploded like indoor rain.

It sprayed from the joints and soaked her through,

From slippers to curls— catastrophe brew.

A giggle began deep under my ribs,

It bubbled and wobbled in mischievous fibs.

It rolled like green jelly, wobbling free—

A laugh that refused to stay in me.

Mad as a hornet she reached for a knife—

“Keep laughing and you’re grounded for life!”

She plunged a cleaver into the bowl

For one last heroic rodent patrol.

But porcelain cracked and silence fell,

No hamster rose from sewer hell.

“I give up!” she shrieked in plumber despair.

“Where are the Yellow Pages? Are they under the chair?”

And there we stood in the flooded room—

Lucky at sea in a porcelain tomb.