The yarn lady and Pam had made a
lovely chicken rice dish for dinner. Being thrifty folk, they’d bagged and
frozen the leftovers for future consumption. Since Pam hadn’t come home until
nearly 6pm dinner had been late and the unwashed liner of the Instant Pot sat
on the kitchen counter. At around 2am Ursula was awakened by the sound of the
latest of the Jólasveinarnir
cursing. “Bölvaður heimskur menn!” She looked up and saw the troll sprawled
over Pam’s shoes that she’d left just inside the front door. To be fair, no one
used that door unless they were going for a walk along the lake right out front
of the house. They used the back door,
which led onto the patio or the garage if they were bringing in groceries.
“Are you hurt?” Ursula was
concerned. Some of these guys were real
touchy, and she didn’t want them to be sued in court by some Icelandic troll.
“Ah, no, I am not. You must be the one called Ursula. I am Pottaskefill, that is the
pot-scraper. I am here tonight to scrape all the goodness out of your pots and
eat it while my fellow Jólasveinarnir
torment you and your neighbors with their pranks. At least I do not have to
steal your pots, just eat from them.
Poor Stufur, he is bound to stealing all those pans, and he can’t
even dump them once he’s eaten out the crusts.
He came back to our camp that night burdened with many pans. Now he just
bangs on them in the middle of the night at the houses he visits. Ha! Children put their shoes on the windowsills,
but I suppose since cats do not have thumbs, you leave them on the floor. It is excused.” The troll nodded at Ursula.
“No, we did leave our shoes for
you on the table by the window. My
human, um, she tends to leave her shoes wherever she takes them off. I’m sorry, Mr. Potskifiller,” she replied.
Ursula showed the troll to the
kitchen where he rummaged around on the counter until he found the liner
containing the remnants of the meal. There was already a plastic serving spoon
in it, so he used that to scrape out each little bit of meat and rice. This one was particularly chatty, asking her
if she’d had some of the meal, as it was particularly tasty. She’d replied that
she wasn’t a fan of people food, other than tuna juice so no, she had not. Pottaskefill said his father had told him tales of eating some
pretty horrible foods over the years. He said how the pot-scrapers were obliged
to eat at least some of what they found in each pot in a house, and sometimes
those pots had things that even the humans hadn’t wanted. Gesturing with the
spoon he said that this, on the other hand, was delicious. He loved chicken and
he rarely had rice to eat, since it grew much further south than Ísland.
When he’d scraped every last bit
of goodness out of the pot, he reached in his pocket and presented Ursula with
a handful of cat treats, spreading them on the floor in front of her and asked,
“can I trust you to not eat the ones for your sister Clementine if I leave them
here?”
She shook her head no, her mouth
full of cat treats. He nodded and told her she was a wise cat and went to the
living room to put Clementine’s into one of the sneakers on the table by the
window.
Some time near morning Sparky
noticed the outside motion sensor lights go on and a few moments later the door
to the deck opened. Pottaskefill entered,
greeting Sparky with a hello when he saw her watching him. He was humming and told her that he’d eaten
very well that night, and unless they had a pot of dessert, he’d probably just give
whatever pot he found a quick scrape and taste and be on his way. Sparky replied that the only pots out were
ones sitting full of dishwater waiting to be scrubbed. The
troll shuddered and thanked her for warning him. “I’d probably think it was
some horrible soup you Amerískur thought up. Some of your food is just
odd. I snatched a bag of orange balls that
were mostly air with a flavor of cheese, and not even good strong goat cheese!”
He chuckled and reached his hand in his pocket.
He put a handful of Temptations on the floor in front of the chair she
had been sleeping in and put another handful in one of the sneakers by the
door. He shook his finger at her,
saying, “Now you go and wake up your brother kitty so you will not be tempted
to eat those delicious cat treats. Good
night and “Góð jól.”
Sparky marveled that he sure
knew cats and Temptations. She wanted to
eat the ones in the shoe herself but knew that BC would never believe that they’d
been skipped tonight if she tried to lie to him. Sighing, she went to wake him up.
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