ADVENTURES IN THE WITCH HOUSE (December ‘95/#16)  I lived in a house that looked like the witch house in Hansel and Gretel. Put a few cookies on the walls and bingo, I could have had shish ka kids every day of the week. The lady who owned the house was somewhat of a witch, too. She was grey and small and pinched of face. She talked constantly of mean little things. Underneath the house was the basement. The witch and her hubby, over the course of thirty years, had stored every imaginable thing there. TVs, books, tables, electrical doo dads, every single thing that had ever broken in her life was down there. I mean she was a bag lady with a home! The lock on the door to the basement was a joke. It could be snapped out of the rotten wood by the twist of wrist of a 10 year old girl. Of course, if you didn’t have the strength of a ten year girl you could just crawl under the door. One night I was sitting around watching the boob tube.  ‘Al,’ said my wife, ‘There’s somebody under the house!’ ‘There’s nobody under the house,’ I responded wearily. I knew how this was going to end. I was going to have to get up and go check the old witch’s precious junk. ‘I heard a noise! There’s somebody under the house!’ Sighing heavily I got up. ‘Hey, Aaron! Let’s go look for burglars under the house!’ ‘There’s no burglars under the house,’ my son said. ‘Your mother says there is, so let’s go look.’ We grabbed a couple of short sticks on our way out of the house. Under the house was a complex of paths leading through and around the stacked doors and boxes of lamps and things. We clicked on the light and he took one side and I took the other side. We met at the far end. ‘Well, nobody here,’ I shrugged. ‘Nope,’ said Aaron. Suddenly we looked at each other, eyes electric, a single thought exploding in our minds. We had gotten the idea at the same time! ‘There he goes!’ screamed Aaron looking at me. ‘I’ll get him!’ I screamed as I knocked over a box of tools. ‘Ow! Take that!’ Aaron ran his stick along the beams like a kid running next to a fence!  We ran through the basement hitting things and knocking things over, screaming and shouting and mocking up the most terrific battle we could. The din must have been terrific, and we made it happen the length of the house before we exploded out the basement door into the back yard. We looked up at the steps. My wife was standing there, her face white as the proverbial sheet. ‘Wha...wha...’ she stuttered. Aaron and I collapsed on the lawn in hysterical laughter. And suddenly my wife got it. She had been the object of a terrific joke.  She sputtered, furious, the fear and concern that had been welling in her suddenly backing up...and Bang! She hit the side of the house with a closed fist. I knew, from the sickening smack of it, that it was broken. And it was. To this day, whenever she reminds me of my folly, I hang my head contritely and shuffle into the next room. And in the next room I put a hand over my mouth and try to stifle the hilarity exploding within. Monster Martial Arts  Monster_Martial_Arts.htmlshapeimage_1_link_0