Winter Text Exchange (Necromancer)
Winter Text Exchange
Ramon: Where you at? I hope you’re close to home. We have a situation.
Sam: New phone-who dis?
Ramon: So funny.
Sam: Sorry, just last time there was a situation, Frank thought zombies had invaded Best Buy.
Ramon: …?
Sam: It was just Black Friday shoppers. Frank was trying to get a GoPro for the gnomes, and he’d never gone into the fray before.
Ramon: Our little boy is growing up.
Sam: I would be proud, but it meant I also had to go to Best Buy on Black Friday, a thing which I refuse to do. Never again, I say.
Ramon: =(
Sam: I could have been home. With mashed potatoes. James made me my own bowl. It was glorious.
Ramon: Sorry Frank ruined your “moment” with your starch.
Sam: First, don’t demean it by putting it in quotes. It was beautiful and you’re being judgmental. Like I haven’t seen you put away four packs of bacon for a snack.
Ramon: I turn into a bear, Sammy.
Sam: And I raise the dead. We all need our fuel.
Ramon: GIVE ME THE BLOOD OF YOUR TUBERS, PEASANTS
Sam: Didn’t you have a situation?
Ramon: It’s about the gnomes.
Sam: Ah, the gnomes—the reason the facepalm emoji is in my favorites. Did they steal the neighbor’s chickens again?
Ramon: No, no. Nothing like that.
Sam: Good.
Ramon: Unrelated question, did our neighbors have a goat?
Sam: Goat, past tense?
Ramon: It’s just, they have one roasting on the spit and I don’t know where they got it.
Sam: the spit or the goat?
Ramon: Either.
Ramon: Sam?
Ramon: Can’t find the facepalm emoji?
*
Sam: Did the neighbors have a goat?
James: I have concerns about your use of the past tense. Do I owe the neighbors a weregild?
Sam: What the fuck is a weregild?
James: It’s the value placed on stolen property or an injured or slain person. The perpetrator would then have to pay the wounded party an agreed upon sum of money.
Sam: Your vocabulary terrifies me sometimes. No one should just have that word at the ready.
James: Your vocabulary terrifies me, too, but for a very different reason.
Sam: Yes, I’m a peasant, I know. So do we owe the neighbors a weregild?
James: Was it a pygmy goat?
Sam: I don’t know. Let me ask.
*
Sam: Regular goat or pygmy goat?
Ramon: It’s a pretty big goat.
*
Sam: Big goat.
James: Then no. They probably got it off the Internet. Someonegave them unfettered access out of a misplaced desire toward egalitarianism. Despite grave concerns that I put forth, I should add.
Sam: You shouldn’t add. You should keep some things to yourself. Wait, you can buy goats on the Internet?
James: Sam, you can buy anything on the Internet.
*
Sam: It’s probably an Internet goat.
Ramon: Cool. That’s not the problem anyway.
Sam: …there’s more? Please say no.
Ramon: The gnomes built a wicker man.
Sam: A wicker man?
Ramon: They said we need it for a bountiful harvest.
Sam: WE DON’T HAVE CROPS, RAMON.
Ramon: James has a small garden.
Sam: WE DO NOT NEED A WICKER MAN FOR JAMES’S GARDEN
Ramon: I should maybe mention that along with the goat they have several kegs of root beer, mostly empty.
Sam: Drunken gnomes, a goat on a spit, and a wicker man. Happy Holidays from the LaCroix household. Get a picture. That’s going to be my holiday card this year.
Ramon: Can you hit Costco? We’re going to need a flat of fire extinguishers, some burn ointment, and some salmon.
Sam: New phone, who dis?
Ramon: Someone needs to keep an eye on the gnomes to make sure they don’t put someone insidethe wicker man before we set in on fire.
Sam: Do you think they’d do that? Usually their shenanigans are more on the whimsical side of things.
Sam: Don’t think I didn’t see you slipping an order of salmon in there. Bears, man.
Ramon: I’m hungry. Salmon is delicious. Don’t start stereotyping. Not cool, Sammy.
Sam: Sorry. Back to the gnomes?
Ramon: They’ve been hitting that root beer pretty hard, and they’ve started compiling a list of people they have grudges against. It’s a short list and most of those people live here. So if you don’t want harm to befall any of us or any delivery people…
Sam: Costco on a weekend before the holidays—a zombie horde that doesn’t obey me.
Ramon: At least it’s not the mall.
Sam: Truth.
*
Sam: I can’t find my Costco card.
James: I took it away after the last trip when you brought home a case of spray cheese and a giant trampoline.
Sam: You’re no fun.
James: Spray cheese isn’t food. Giant trampolines are dangerous. Combined they are monumentally hazardous and tremendously idiotic.
Sam: I didn’t combine them.
James: You didn’t have to—everyone else did it for you. I had to glue one of the enchanted statues back together and use a pressure washer to remove the cheese from the house. Some of it’s still there. NOT. FOOD.
Sam: STILL. DELICIOUS.
Sam: Fine. I’ll pick you up and you can come with me.
James: You’re paying me overtime and hazard pay. Costco on the weekend? I’d rather be chewed on by rabid weasels.
*
Frank: Where did the goat come from? Do we owe someone a weregild?
James: See?
Sam: Just because Frank used it does not make it a common word. You’re corrupting him. Frank, whatever you do, don’t climb into the wicker man.
Frank: The gnomes built a wicker man? Cool! We doneed a bountiful harvest and the guy that delivers the milk has been giving me the stink eye.
Sam: Frank, no. You’re getting Stockholm syndrome from the gnomes. I’m concerned.
Frank: But the strawberries were so small last summer and we hardly got any peas.
Sam: Then I will buy you more peas. Leave the milkman alone.
Frank: They’re better fresh.
James: He has a point.
Sam: Then I will take you to the farmer’s market!
Frank: It’s not the same. James’s are better.
James: Thank you, Frank. I pride myself on my green thumb.
Sam: You pride yourself on everything.
*
Sam: I’ve changed my mind. Put Frank in the wicker man.
Ramon: Seems harsh.
Sam: We’ll let him out before the gnomes burn it in effigy.
Ramon: Still seems dangerous.
Sam: I will double your salmon.
Ramon: Deal.
Sam: Bears.
Ramon: Braaaaaainns.
Sam: Now who’s stereotyping?