Sally made a list of what she’d need to get the next day. She didn’t want to go out in the dark.
“I’ll be fine until morning.”
She wished that her roomie Rebecca was there instead of out who knows where.
“No one can come in without an invite so I should be safe.”
She went into the kitchen and found a piece of an onion in the fridge. She sliced it up and took the pieces to her room.
“I’ll just put some at the foot of the bed and the rest in my pillow just to be safe.”
Sally got read for bed and tried to sleep. Tossing and turning for most of the night she barely slept always looking at a clock that never seemed to move. She finally managed to drift out at about four in the morning.
After opening her eyes she stretched and said, “I made it.”
Sally checked for any marks on her. She jumped into the shower and washed her hair because she couldn‘t bear to go a day without doing so. She dried off with a fluffy towel she helped herself to at some hotel and got dressed. She grabbed her keys and her list along with her purse.
“It’s daylight so I should be fine.”
Sally walked out to her blue bug and drove off.
“I need onion rings.”
She pulled into Burger King and drove up to the drive thru window. If she rant out she’d run over to Carls Jr since it would make her look crazy to go back to the same place for more onion rings. Burger King was her first choice because they were cheaper.
“May I take your order?”
“One hundred large onion rings please.”
“Excuse me did you say 100 onion rings?”
“Yes I want 100 large please.”
The guy taking the order raised his hand and took his finger circling around near his head in the widely known sign for a crazy person.
I’m just getting the kids at my school a treat. They had a choice between onion rings and pizza and of course onion rings won.”
Sally was glad that she was able to come up with a somewhat plausible explanation.
“Miss your order will take a while so you might want to park and come inside.”
“I need to run over to the grocery store so I could pay you now and come back in about twenty minutes.”
“That’ll be $182.
Sally pulled up to the window and paid with two one hundred dollar bills. He gave her a receipt and her change. Sally drove over to a parking place and parked her car.
“I’ll just pop over to Safeway and come back here for my onion rings.”
She grabbed a book and left the car in the parking lot. She walked to the corner and pushed the button to cross the street.
“What an idiot I should have taken the car.”
The light turned green so Sally started walking across the street.
“On the other hand leaving the car there will let them know I’m coming back.”
Sally walked through the door and grabbed a cart. She wished that she had one of those little cart thingies. She made a mental note into getting one of them. Sure it seemed like mostly old people used them but having one would come in handy.
“I wonder how much steak I should get.”
“Planning a barbeque?”
Sally looked up to see a man dressed in white likely the butcher.
“Yeah and I’m not sure how much steak I should get.”
“How many people?”
“Fifty maybe.”
“Sounds like a family reunion.”
Sally just smiled and nodded. She just blurted out the first number that popped into her head.
“I’d suggest getting some larger cuts so I’d say twenty. You could always freeze the meat left over.”
“Thank you very much.”
Sally put the meat into the cart and started thinking about how she was going to put the onion rings on the walls. She didn’t want to glue them after all she might get hungry and want to eat a few which is why she decided to get so many. She didn’t think tape would work although duct tape might.
“Nah that wouldn’t do at all. It would be too much of a pain to peal them off.”
She kept pushing the cart and was passing the aisle that had office supplies so she decided to go down there.
“I could use thumb tacks but I’d end up with holes all over my walls.”
She stood there thinking for a while and decided that she could try nails.
“Oh I know maybe I could string up some lights which would make things look festive and I could just dangle them from the lights and not use as many nails.”
Sally pushed the cart to the front of the store and got in line. She put the meat on the conveyor belt and paid for it and left. As she walked out she once again started talking out loud.
“I should go to Home Depot next for some nails. I guess I could have seen if they had them in the store but I doubt it but who knows.”
She walked to the corner and pushed the button to cross the street.
“I really should stop talking to myself out loud. You’d think I was a soap opera character with all the chattering I’m doing.”
The light turned green and she crossed the street holding the bag with the meat in it. Just to be on the safe side she asked for the meat to be double bagged. She was glad that she didn’t have far to go because it was getting a big heavy.
“I’m just glad it isn’t warm because I don’t want this meat going all icky on me.”
She walked over to her car and opened the trunk to put the bag inside and locked it up. Hopefully her order would be finished so she went into the Burger King still clutching the book just in case she had some time to kill while she was waiting. Sally always carried around a book just in case she got stuck in line or something so she’d have something to do aside from twiddling her thumbs.
“Hi I was wondering if my order was done yet.”
“You’re the Onion Ring Girl right?”
Sally just decided to smile and not think about what was being implied and just nodded.
“Go sit down we’re working on your order right now.”
Sally saw a couple people scooping onion rings into containers and placing them in bags. She saw that it would be a while so she decided to sit down and read for a while. Finally her order was done and she left Burger King and went back to her car. She put the onion rings on the passenger seat beside her and thought how yummy the onion rings smelled.
“Damn I should have gotten a drink since I’m getting hungry.”
She reached into the bag and grabbed an onion ring.
“I’ll just have one and wait until I get home to eat.”
She had left without eating so her tummy was grumbling but she wanted to go over to Home Depot while it was daylight out. She wanted plenty of time to prepare the place. She pulled into the parking lot and luckily found a space right away. She got out of the car and walked into the store. She’d been to this store a few times so she knew where the nails were so she made a beeline to where she wanted to go. She grabbed a bag and put a couple dozen nails in it. She next went to get some lights which were on sale so she grabbed some and went to the register to pay for them.
“Now I’m heading home because I’m hungry.”
She reached for another onion ring and hoped that she wouldn’t have to go out for more onion rings. She got home and still there wasn’t any sign of Rebecca.
“How long has it been since I’ve seen her.”
As Sally was thinking she grabbed another onion ring and got out of the car. She opened the door and brought in her bags and placed them on the table in the kitchen.
“First I’m going to eat.”
Sally grabbed a Dr Pepper out of the fridge and sat down to eat an order of onion rings. After she finished she washed her hands and headed out to the garage to get a hammer and a ladder.
“Ok now where am I going to hang you up?”
She decided to hang them up near the ceiling so she went to each corner of the room and started hammering in nails. She would figure out how many other nails she’d need after she started stringing up the lights. She finally finished and she looked at her work and thought it would look nice to have them all lit.
“It’s kind of like Tara’s room on Buffy.”
The onion rings were long cold but they still looked pretty tasty so Sally brought them into the room and started hanging them from the lights. She had to break them open so she could place them over the string of lights. She was still working on this when she heard someone come in.
“Sally girl what the hell are you doing?”
“I’m protecting us from vampires?”
“With onion rings?”
“Well I wasn’t too sure how I could do it with onions and onion rings are mighty tasty.”
“You idiot vampires are turned off by garlic.”
“Isn’t garlic the spread you put on bread? That would be pretty messy to smear the walls up like that. At least this way things look all festive.”
“Oh you stupid girl.”
Rebecca flashed her fangs and Sally screamed.
Sally pointed her index finger upwards and placed the other on top.
“Stay back demon.”
“Why are you giving me the T? That must be a new one.”
“It’s a cross. What kind of a vampire are you that you don’t even recognize a cross?”
Rebecca started laughing.
“You dim witted girl think of a lower case t not a capital T.”
“Oh you mean like this?”
She finally had her fingers in the form of a cross.
“Very good but that doesn’t work.”
“I have steak so you better stay away from me.”
“Yeah I saw your steak. I’d love to have some. Are you planning on cooking it?”
“No I’m going to kill vampires with it.”
“Are you serious?”
Sally just nodded sure that once again she managed to screw things up. She was able to die and had no way to stop it since the onion rings didn’t seem to be working. Instead of biting her Rebecca just walked out the door laughing at the stupid girl not wanting to turn her when she was obviously a complete moron.
By Barbara Desmond