a load of...

The three sisters lived in an ordinary box at the end of a cul de sac and of all the things they enjoyed, prevarication was their favorite. Living in a box lends itself to lies, does it not? The littlest sister, Imogene, scratched her knee on a bent metal plate, and from then on she told anyone who'd listen that she had been attacked by the mother of all chipmunks. She told it so often, she even came to believe it, and at that point she needed to make up another story. It involved salties, a billabong, and prosthetics.

Supposedly in the year 1997 a very large and unruly octogenarian named Arthur came down from the upper reaches of Hamster to live with the sisters. He was loud and hairy and quite unnecessary. The way they told it, he never appeared on no census, so we cooked and ate him after a bath. Most folks believed it, seeing as they lived in a box. After a few weeks of unwelcome visits to the local grocer, the manager took up delivering cartons of overstock to their box step. The sisters were unsavory, indeed.

The foodstuffs were wanted, even if old and dented, but the cartons were a godsend so with staples and twine the sisters built several additions onto their box. Imogene was a nimble little sprite and despite her fake leg and motorized finger joints she was deft at installing the upper levels. The mailman heard that she programmed her finger circuitry to play the baby grand in the upstairs sitting room. The one with the chandelier. Some kids running by thought they heard Beethoven, or Mozart. They wouldn't know the difference anyway.

Marmalade was the grand poo bah of Box Estates and named by her mama for the family cat, who died of a ruptured spleen. The cat was loved too much and had the life squeezed right out of him. Rumor has it a cat spleen will come right up the gullet with an unnaturally large hairball and looks just like a living creature from some far off planet. The sisters subsequently learned not to squeeze so passionately, for fear of hairy spleens, and so they remained spinsters. A lesson in love – that's what they said about that.

Mama, of course, lived to the ripe old age of a hunert an' oh eight. At the time of her death the sisters lived in a bright penny mansion. It glittered in the sun and the neighbors all complained about the polish on the house. They had to install tinted windows to keep out the glare. And land's almighty, they complained. It was the complaints that killed mama off, because the neighbors finally aimed their tinted windows at the bright penny mansion and the heat set the house afire. The resulting blaze was so hot it set out feelers and burned the whole street down to ash. The sisters were all out tickling pollywogs at the creek when they heard the crackling and smelled the smoke. When they got back home there wasn't even a stick standing, only a package from the mailman filled with pies. They ate the pies with their fingers and lived in the box.

The prettiest girl of the box bunch is Penny. She's the middle girl and has an inferiority complex. Not too long ago a photographer came around to take pictures. He had heard from an explorer that there lived in a box the most beautiful girl to ever walk the planet. When he knocked on the door, it was Penny who answered, just come back from a mud bath. The mud was the only thing that saved this poor fellows life. Penny is so bright and perky and pretty, that only a coating of mud or slime or any old filth will save the common man from laying down in a pool of his own froth, thus succumbing to dehydration from lust. The sisters took him in and nursed him back to health, but he had to view Penny from behind a cardboard pinhole, like a solar eclipse. His camera never worked again and he became so poor that even now he lives off of crawdads; he sees Penny's face in the shimmering creek, and the flowing distortion of her visage keeps him forever insane.

The only regular visits the sisters ever get, in their box, is from the reigning President of the United States. The visits are so clandestine that not even the secret service officers are privy to the meetings. Marmalade is so smart that presidents often ask her advice in return for White House silverware. The sisters have never earned a cent, and they have never paid the first dollar in taxes. Only once did they ever vote in an election and it was a write-in for Penny. Had the vote been made public she would have won in a landslide. It's the biggest cover-up ever in presidential elections. Penny could have stopped wars all over the world and fed the starving in every impoverished nation just by saying 'boo'. She can even wipe her bottom all by herself, which is more than most politicians ever learned.

Together the sisters sit in the multi-box box and play games from dusk to dawn, like canasta, and then at night they put on funny animal hats and walk the neighborhood streets. Imogene likes to sneak into bedrooms and act immature. And limp. She says the limp is incoherent, but Marmalade knows the real truth. Penny on the other hand is in-between here and there. Some nights she just wants to stay at home to make shadow puppets do lewd and unnatural things on the cardboard walls, and other nights she prefers to drive men mad with her supple ways. As of now they're all sunning on the back porch, with ice tea; just knock and the maid will take you around for a chat. Go 'head, you'll learn a lot.