One April Morning
A BigCloset/TopShelf Story Challenge Presented By
Erin Halfelven

The street sign pointed only one way, the little lane met the larger street but did not continue on the other side. A large Craftsman-style home occupied one corner, converted years ago into a sort of rooming-house-cum-residence-hotel-cum-bed-and-breakfast. A big squarish building with gables and porches, the one-time mansion bore it’s demotion to commercial property with the dignity of a bankrupt financier operating a hot dog wagon.

A woodlot sat on the other corner, a clutter of neat stacks of firewood and seemingly random piles of jumbled logs. The randomness, the owner would say, resulted from the necessary moving and turning of the piles of curing wood. A regular array would be less efficient at the task and would have to be unstacked and restacked to be sure the wood cured evenly. Simply moving the pile from one place to another once a week with an ancient forklift turned all the logs over and assured that each got enough sun and air to turn into perfect firewood.

The lane did not continue past the end of the woodlot or the small row of outbuildings behind the mansion. The house, being the only important building facing the street, bore a singular number and the name of the lane as its address. One April Morning.

On this particular morning, a resident of the former mansion woke to a life-changing discovery....

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Michael stumbled out of bed.

"Too much partying, Go to cut downs on the booze."

He thought to himself... barely.

Unfortunately he was less hung over and more drunk that was good for him and partially fell, partially staggered down the stairs.

He came to a halt by bashing his head and body against the side of a built-in cabinet. A previously unseen door slid open.

"W.T.F?" he exclaimed. Slurred to be honest.

Well, not exactly W.T.F. Hey, he'd been at a REALLY great party, was hung over and damn near killed himself falling down the stairs. If you did that your language would NOT be *proper English* either.

Curiosity getting to him or maybe his inhibitions being still suppressed by the cheap wapatuli from the party, he entered the strange doorway.

"Whoever put that pink Peppermint Schnapps in the ... I kill the bast... URP... tard."

Fumbling for the switch he knew MUST be near the door, an odd tingle ran though his hand and into his inebriated body from what felt more like the plastic handle of a screw driver than a light switch.

But light switch is must have been as bank after bank of old fashioned fluorescent shop lights flicker on, glowing a bit pinkish . The flickering did his hangover no favors nor the increasingly strange sensations he was getting from all over his body.

He steeled himself together... for a while.

"Looks like the owner must have got a deal on those old warm white lamps. I do admit they are less hash than those greenish cool whites but damn It makes everything look so... pink!"

"Whoa. My voice sounds weird. Must have really tied one on."

He wandered around the mazelike rooms.

"I swear the house is bigger down here than on top. Almost like that TARDIS thing on that sci-fi show my geeky cousin Billy keeps talking about. Mind you he is only a distant cousin and he's kind of cute. And for a skinny guy he sure isn't lacking in THAT department, WOOF!"

Michael started to breath faster. "What the hell was I thinking? My cousin, that twerp is cute? And well hung? I'm no fruit! I'm a girl.. I mean a man!"

His musings where brought to a halt by a sudden violent series of abdominal cramps. As if someone was manipulating his internal organs like a they were modeling clay.
Only by great force of will and after swallowing a sample packet of Midol he found lying on a counter did the cramps subside.

He tried to calm down and almost succeeded when it dawned on him the knotty pine paneling had disappeared and the walls, the ceiling even the floor were now revealed as entirely made of tools.

The only furnishings were steel roller cabinets. The drawers all lined with rubber or felt mats and covered in carefully arraigned assortments of hand and power tools. All with a disturbingly familiar logo. How familiar Michael would soon learn.

The light fixtures were a service garage mix of trouble-lights, multi-tube overhead florescent lamps. Scattered randomly were otherwise normal appearing floor lamps but with shades made out of corrugated fiberglass finished with a fringe of small combination wrenches.

The odd feeling light switches were now revealed as actual screwdriver handles.

The floor was a mosaic of various saw blades, crow bars, cordless drills, pipe wrenches, pliers, nippers and every other tool you could conceive of.

And as to conceiving.

"Like, O.M.G? Who stole my underwear and put this dress on me? Gods, I look like a Barbie Doll. What's with my voice, I sound like a girl?"

Then he say himself in a telescoping mirror, the kind auto mechanics use.

"Makeup? I have makeup on? Ooooh I just luvvv the eye shadow. My eyes look so sexy. I'll bet my yummy cousin will beg to go out with me."

Some last remnant of Michael panicked, searching feverishly for a way out, an escape. He was trapped in a nightmare world forged in the darkest depths of the Sears Roebuck Catalogue.

"Huh, I'm not a ... I'm a girl? I'm a GIRL!!!!"

Michelle tried to escape but too late.... His favorite tool was gone, replaced with a deep-well socket.

No more would Michael brag with the boys. But the boys would always find time for the centerfold sexy Michelle. No one knew their way around tools better than she nor cared for them more lovingly. They were always willing to talk shop with the Tool Girl.

Yes, Michael was the victim of a curse or was Michelle the beneficiary of a great blessing?

No matter which you think the conculsion is inescapable.

This truly was a Craftsman home.

John in Wauwatosa.

P.S. You may all groan now.