Locked Down in the Basement - Part one

It’s been two months since Valentine’s Day and aunt is still mad because we completely messed up. Well, you can’t blame her, but aunt… two months? Really? Don’t you think it’s a bit over the top? Well, we thought today we should make it up to her so that she cheers up, and her cooking gets back to normal. Yesterday’s dinner was baked potatoes with jam and cheese. Ugh! You know, in retrospect, we should have remembered that uncle never remembers anything, except for locking the basement door, because well, the dark stairwell scares him. And then maybe not gone into the basement.

It's summer again, but we’re still living life with Uncle Percy. I wonder who invented the Noble virus. I’d like to go give him a good kick in the pants. Well, all of us were pretty much bored and depressed at home, so we wanted to find a way to liven things up. Suddenly, Pepper remembered that we owed aunt a surprise for Valentine’s Day, and we should do it now. Well, that was easier said than done. We had to figure something out, and then execute it with the minimal supplies provided to us.

We figured we could bring back the art convention, but suddenly memories of its ending, came flowing back. So it’s best to not do that. “I could give her a new makeup look,” Tamara suggested. “If you find your makeup kit,” I said with a devious smile. “No worries, I’ll use yours.” “Oh for the love of God, stay away from it!” “Well then give me mine back!” “No way!” “Pineapples don’t wear bathrobes,” Pepper yelled out of nowhere. “Huh? What’s that supposed to mean,” I said. “I don’t know, it sounded random enough to stop you, so I said it.” Wow. Just wow.

After a lot of thinking, we came up with a surprise, involving the basement. Pepper got cleaning supplies, I got art and craft supplies, and Tamara brought decorations. We went down into the basement and began to survey it. “Ok, the first thing we need to do is clean this place out, and then get new furniture.”

It was hard to clean, judging how easily we got distracted. We found an old album of us as kids. Three hours later, we realized we were hungry and went up the stairs to get something to eat. The door was locked. So we were stuck in the basement, no food, no water, completely cut off from humanity… “Hey guys, the cell signal here is amazing, and there are boxes of snacks,” Tamara said. Ok, maybe I’m exaggerating. It’s a house, not a jungle. And we did have water bottles with us.

We figured the triplets locked us up as a prank, and decided to scare them by not asking for help, and staying down here. Well, I don’t know for how long we’d last down here. “Well, if we’re stuck here we could just eat a little and get on with our work,” I said. Tamara looked at me like I was a blackhead she had just noticed, and needed to be removed. No, but how on earth does she deal with the pain of a pore strip. Those things are torture!

Pepper, on the other hand, liked the idea. We got trash bags out and began to go through the contents of the basement. “Oh my god, I found my first phone,” Pepper exclaimed. “Pepper, we got you your first phone last night.” “Yeah, but it dropped it down the laundry hole, so it’s in the laundry basket.” “Be more careful with it, give it to Tamara.” “Nuh-uh, no way. If that thing been in the laundry basket, I wouldn’t touch it with a five-foot pole,” Tamara said. With a sigh, she began to help us clean.

By the end of five minutes, all the tarps covering the furniture were off, and the dust was everywhere. We were sneezing like anything. I went and stood by the laundry hole, the only place that wasn’t swarmed with dust. Suddenly, a load of laundry came down the chute and we heard aunts voice say, “If you three girls are down there, please get this batch of laundry done. Oh, and the door is jammed so you’re gonna be in there awhile. The wind slammed it shut and the lock got stuck. Enjoy!” Wow. Just wow. Well, on the bright side, we have something to do. Best to get it done with.