This week’s words: Antlers Evil  Evasive  Residual Barkeep Struggle  Dahlia (a type of flower, can also be a name) Transfuse Methuselah (a patriarch who lived 969 years. Gen. 5:27. an extremely old man. a very large wine bottle holding 6½ quarts (6 liters). Pluck Presentiment (a feeling or impression that something is about to happen, especially something evil; foreboding.)  Fourth Rule (There’s an exception to every rule.)

The Flower Family were eccentric. Evidenced by naming their girls Rose, Camellia and Dahlia. This story is about Dahlia Flower the youngest and most eccentric of the girls.

Life had been a struggle for Dahlia. From an early age she had been told her dad was a barkeep when in actual fact he kept the bar more upright than he should have. So after consuming the evil of the drink for most of the evening Mr. Flower, whose nickname was Petal by the way, would come home staggering down the street evading the traffic in itself a miracle no one ever attempted to explain.

Petal’s one claim to fame was that he drank in one evening a Methuselah bottle of shiraz, a very fine shiraz at that and Petal’s consumption was considered a waste of a good wine as it literally went in one end and out the other muddling his brain along the way.

It didn’t take Dahlia many years to figure her dad out. Over the years his brain had been eaten away and what residual remained allowed him to function in very basic ways. He loved his wife, he loved his daughters but Dahlia always had this sense of presentiment about her dad. Any minute now she knew something bad was going to happen and it did.

It happened one night when Mrs. Flower, known as Cactus, entered the local hotel talent quest. Cactus was known as a prickly sort of woman but underneath the harsh exterior there was a woman who loved a good laugh. She had practiced for weeks her entry and on the night she, Petal and their three girls were there in the pub. Dahlia dreaded what was going to happen as she had been her mother’s sounding board during her lengthy rehearsals. Petal was proud his wife was participating and urged her to every success.

Her entry was the Pheasant Pluckers song. It went really well until she got to the bit about having a pheasant pluck before they went to bed and that pheasant plucking was a pheasant plucking life. The crowd went crazy and Petal thinking his wife was being too risqué for the local pub attempted to pull her from the stage only Cactus wasn’t having a bar of his attentions and pushed him away which sent him careering into multiple tables, beer went flying and in the mass transfusion that occurred Petal crashed into the far wall and the elk antlers that adorned the wall come crashing down on him.

Now normally an event of that kind would have resulted in instant death but Petal and Cactus knew about the fourth rule. That rule being that in an inebriated state falling antlers are more likely to bounce of your head especially one that was as hollow as Petal’s. Sure enough they did and Petal lived to see another day. But he and Cactus had to find another watering hole to drown their sorrows in. Needless to say neither Cactus nor Petal had much pluck left in them after that night. But they did go home feeling like very pleasant pluckers after all Cactus did win the talent quest prize for best performance.

Dahlia went home thinking she’s never again show her face in the town, her sense of family presentiment now heightened beyond belief.

Here is the Pheasant Plucker’s song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m09eEgy2Zhk

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2016/07/18/wordle-118-july-18th-2016/