Today I’m holding a little celebration. And my gift to you is another installment of Flash Fiction. Today it goes out to all, no subscription required. The rules changed again (I’d think there might be no rules…) and today’s entry is a bit of whimsy I thought up while at work.

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***Without Further Ado: I Should Have Bought More Cookies.***

“Your Honor, I’d like to explain this whole thing if I might be allowed to do so.”

I figured it was worth a shot. The look on his face as he rumbled through the line of idiots was unpleasant but not outright hostile. I was just another one of those idiots standing in his courtroom at five minutes to six in the morning. If he listened I might get out of here before Consuela got home from the church.

“Mr. Rodriguez, I’ve seen your booking photo. That’s the only reason I’m letting you speak your piece. I was intrigued to say the least. I am also under the impression that the city had other charges but dropped them all. If your story is as entertaining as the picture I have on your file you might just skip out with a pristine record. So go for broke.”

I didn’t really need another syllable of encouragement. If nothing else, I could tell this story without any embellishment and walk out of here a free man.

“Thank you, Judge. I’m not really sure where I should start…”

He interrupted me with a bang of the gavel. “I want every bit of this from the moment you got up until you’re arrival in this room. Get on with it, I’ve got a date for breakfast.”

I knew I had him.

“The story actually starts before bedtime for me…

I left work at 9 in the morning. It was another night of frustration and boredom with a boss who had a little less sense than a chicken. I’d sweated over the latest software upgrade all night and about half the network was still crashed. The only reason I’d left work before noon was that my boss was upset about the overtime. He’d given the cleanup to the day shift.

My two stops on the way home were the drugstore and the bakery. Stop number one was easy: pick up the prescriptions waiting for us. One each. 30 seconds in the drive through and on to the bakery.

Halloween is not the best day of the week to spontaneously decide what you’re handing out that night. I love cookies and figured that I’d put a platter of them out and let the kids each grab one as they rang the bell. I could sit on the couch and watch zombie movies and they could get their loot. I planned to be sitting on the porch two feet away. What could go wrong?

Plenty. I hit the bakery only to find less than twenty cookies left. This was bad. But last year the number of kids was down, and the same the year before – ever dwindling numbers. I’d probably get by with 18 cookies. I didn’t have a real choice. Next year I’d order ahead. This year I just cleaned them out. I did get a dozen crullers for work the next night.

My wife was buzzing around the city of Pascagoula somewhere when I got home. Nothing but a note on the television reminding me that I had door duty while she was at the church lock-in Halloween party. The Pastor was trying to turn the best night of the year for candy fiends into an evangelism event. Best of luck, I’m sticking to Tootsie Rolls.

Anyway, I grabbed a couple of hours of sleep and got up just in time to put on my werewolf costume and wait for the first trick-or-treaters. My head was killing me. Another migraine. I left the cookie tray unattended and went into the kitchen to grab some of my pills that I’d picked up earlier in the day. I grabbed three of them and headed back to the porch just in time to hear the door bang shut and see two kids running down the sidewalk.

Horace, my cat, was sitting under the porch swing hissing. He was staring at the jack-o-lantern next to the cookies. Problem was, there were no cookies left. Those two thieving little goblins had cleaned me out. The first and last of the night unless I could come up with something.

Well, back to the kitchen for the crullers and a cola to wash those stupid pills down. I crunched them up between my teeth and swigged down half the can. Bitter little things, but they sure put the kabosh on a headache like mine.

I flipped on the television and settled in for the long haul. I had a couple of Snickers bars in the freezer if I ran out of crullers.

Twenty minutes into the movie I was down to one cruller. But the headache was gone. I was sweating like a pig inside that mask but it didn’t seem to matter. Not much at all mattered. Not even when the last cruller was gone and three urchins stood begging for their loot.

I floated to the freezer to grab the candy bars and found that my wife had nicked a few of them. This was really trouble. I grabbed what I had left and lobbed them like grenades at the kids. Seriously. Sound effects, pulled the pin, the whole deal. They ran off to the sidewalk leaving the bars on the lawn where they landed. I felt fabulous. Overheated but fabulous none-the-less.

Here, your honor, is where I went slightly off the rails. I’d made the decision to keep up the evenings festivities but I’d run out of treats. I’d also taken three very large Valium by mistake. They look just like my migraine pills and without my glasses I never noticed that the prescription was for a Mrs. Fred Mertz. At least that’s what the cops tell me.

So, out of candy, out of donuts, and really way too hot in that stupid mask I did the only logical thing a man under the influence of too much diazepam would do: I went upstairs, changed into the mankini my wife got me for my birthday and made up a big bowl of pancake batter. Not only would I be handing out my favorite food next to bacon, but I’d be very comfortably cool while I did it…

“That’s the thing you’re wearing in the booking photo, isn’t it Mr. Rodriguez?”

“Yes, your honor. Kind of a horrible look when I think about it, but one of the side effects of valium is feeling a bit hot. May I continue?”

“Oh, please do. It’s just getting good.”

And continue I did.

“As I was saying, I went to the kitchen and grabbed the box of pancake mix. I fired up the griddle I’d gotten for Christmas and started to make a batch. I decided to triple it, because once you run out of treats you’re in trouble. Due to the effects of my erroneous medication I wasn’t thinking all that clearly.

But I did get five truly beautiful hotcakes ready in record time. I bopped out to the porch and grabbed the tray I’d been using and brought it to the kitchen. Loaded it up with those five beauties and headed back to the porch. That’s when the screaming started. Or, maybe I should say it was the first screaming of the night. At any rate I calmed the kids down and gave them each a lovely pancake. I smiled and waved and didn’t really think all that much about the looks on mom’s face. I should have.

I settled down on the swing and got back to my movie. It was getting better all the time. The pills I guess.

I thought someone was doing a great goblin shriek and looked up to see who was so talented. It dawned on me that it was coming from the house. I grabbed the empty platter and held it up like a shield. I didn’t need to: it was the smoke detector in the hallway. I’d forgotten the pancakes and they were smoldering.

My poor griddle was ruined. I guess I’d dozed off. No more pancakes tonight. About that time the smoke detector quit sounding and I heard voices calling from the porch. No options left, I grabbed the bowl of pancake batter and the ladle and returned to my post on the porch.

Horace just hissed as I walked by him. Finicky cat. The kids on the steps went silent. I told them to hold their bags open for a treat. I think this is where it took the jump that led me here. In my addled state I filled the ladle with batter and poured exactly one silver dollar pancake sized dollop of batter into the first bag. The second bag was already moving when I reached to hit it, and instead covered the poor child with the rest of the batter in the ladle.

I guess my apologizing wasn’t enough, Dad took a swing at me. That’s when the police showed up. I ran back up the stairs to get away from the kid’s father and felt a sting in my – posterior. One of the cops had tazered me from behind.

I’m not sure which had impacted my motor skills more, the valium or 50,000 volts, but I pinballed into the table I’d set up and it launched the bowl of batter into the air. The officer who’d tazed me was right behind me and shared the bounty. Both of us were covered in the stuff.

I don’t remember a lot after that, but they did stick me in the shower and give me these orange jumpers before I went to the cell. I appreciate that kindness – the mankini wouldn’t have been such a good thing to wear in the cell. Did you know some of those guys are psychotic?

“Mr. Rodriguez, have you called your wife to let her know you’re here?”

I stared at the floor. “No. And I’m hoping she never finds out. I used my call to call in sick to work last night. If you take mercy on me, Judge, I might just skate out of this little misunderstanding. I didn’t mean to do any of that stuff, and I’m the only one really hurt by any of it. I’ll pay for the officer’s dry cleaning. But I’d really appreciate the break.”

That’s when the judge lost it. He looked at that picture, then at me in my orange jump suit, and finally at the pancake batter covered mankini in the plastic property bag. I’ll admit that at 400 pounds I shouldn’t even own one of those things, but that was kind of a cruel tone in his laugh.

“Mr. Rodriguez, go forth and sin no more. I will seal your records and expunge them if you don’t get arrested for 1 year. You’re truly on double secret probation. Happy Birthday, Mr. Rodriguez.”

O.K. That was a nice touch. After all, it is my birthday.

“Thanks Judge. And I promise you that next year I’ll get three dozen cookies and order them in advance. You can keep the mankini.”