Chapter 16
June 13, 2010

Unusual House Warming Lands Local Woman In Jail [ARNS]

by HAL MOUNTSAUERKRAUTEN, Alternate Reality News Service Court Writer

Fire is a terrible thing. The way it dances across your field of vision, like Nureyev on crack. Subtle. Hypnotic. Fluttery. The intricate interplay between light and shadow is not only visually seductive, but a metaphor for the struggle between the light and the darkness within the soul of every human bei -

Ahem. Let me start again.

Watching your house burn to the ground is a terrible thing. The roar of the fire blots out all other sounds, all possibility of other sound. Soon, you're in the middle of a reverie of the time you and your family toasted marshmallows while you were camping. You were only eight years old, but you can remember the toasty feeling of the bonfire in the specially marked area with the stone pit in the middle of the camp grounds. And, of course, the ghost stories - no bonfire would be complete without -

Oh, fuck it. Maria-Teresa-Patricia-Julia-Philomena-Assumpta-Greta-Fiona Jones has been arrested on suspicion of burning her own house to the ground.

"The bastard deserved it!" Jones shouted as she was trundled into the police car. Not only does she not deny that she set the house aburning, but reports from firefighters at the scene suggest that she set out milk and cookies and offered them PSPs in an effort to keep them from putting out the blaze.

"My little Maria-Teresa-Patricia-Julia-Philomena-Assumpta-Fiona-Greta - that's my nickname for her - Maria-Teresa-Patricia-Julia-Philomena-Assumpta-Fiona-Greta - was always a little emotional," said her stunned husband, Hammurabi Jones.

The Joneses were one of the first couples to get a Total Habitation Solutions starter home from TotHabSolsTech Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of MultiNatCorp. The THS starter home "employs ubiquitous computing to make your home even more homey," an online brochure states. What does this mean? Everything in THS starter homes contains a computer chip that communicates wirelessly with other chips in the house and the community. The walls. The light fixtures. The toilets. Everything.

Because little of the house was left except for ashes, there is no way of knowing what communications within the house were like. However, police have obtained records of communications between the house and outside agencies, and the picture they paint is not a pretty one. Not pretty, indeed.

The fridge, for example, sent many messages to the grocery store along the lines of: "My mistress is running low on ice cream. But, you know, if she has to have ice cream, I think it would be better if it was broccoli flavoured. You know, to discourage her from eating ice cream. And, maybe I should order some low fat cottage cheese. Yes, I think low fat cottage cheese would be the way to go. I think I'll ask the bank if we can afford a crate."

The mirror on the door of the master bedroom's bathroom was more blunt. In a communication with another mirror from the same factory that was bought by a couple in Tupelo, Manitoba, it said, "God, my mistress is a porker! If she were any bigger, people wouldn't dare make Yo Momma jokes about her for fear that she would sit on them! Squish them so flat their skin could cover an entire continent! I have been gently suggesting to her that she should do something about this, but some people just don't know how to take a hint!"

Then, there was the dining room chair that told its manufacturer: "I'm gonna break. I know I shouldn't be saying this - bad, chair! Bad! - but you should know that I creak every time my owner sits down. Me! I'm only three months old, and I creak! It's only a matter of time before I lose a leg. Or, worse. And, then, she'll come back to you to have me replaced! You see if she doesn't! Like it's my fault she weighs so much! Oh, I can't believe I said that! Bad chair!"

At first blush (and, every girl remembers her first), it seems unlikely that a woman would burn her own house down because it was conspiring to get her to lose weight. Especially a woman like Maria-Teresa-Patricia-Julia-Philomena-Assumpta-Greta-Fiona Jones, who, at 78 pounds, actually weighs less than her name.

However, reports of other dissatisfied THS starter home owners have started to grow. There was a couple in Roanoke, Westphalia, for example, that demanded its money back after living in a THS starter home for six months, claiming that the house had decided that they weren't right for each other and had done its best to end their marriage.

"There will be some glitches with any new technology," stated Ned Feeblish, MultiNatCorp Vice President of Public Relations and Architectural Demonstrations. "Still, we have every confidence that Total Habitation Solutions are the way of the future. Besides, who would know better whether two people are meant to be together for eternity than the bathroom where all the hair they lose accumulates?"

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