Little Miss was in charge of the hot mulled cider, and was asking me about ingredients. She’d pulled up a video of a recipe, in which a chirpy woman was brightly explaining that you could use cider or apple juice.   “Joe-B, do we have allspice?”   “I believe so, but can you hand me my phone?”   “Here,” said Little Miss, handing over my device. “Why?”   “Well, first I’m going to call the police, because this video is violating the basic rules of human decency, then we’ll look up a proper recipe for you,” I said, shaking my head. You can use cider or apple juice? The degradations of the human essence are too vile, sometimes, and the fact that these things are accessible to innocents is just too much. Apple juice…diseased perverts are everywhere. What’s next in this dreary, fallen world? A video on installing wallpaper?

I made the bad lady go away, Little Miss gathered up the proper ingredients, and the mulling began.

©2021 Joe Belknap Wall