It was the first time in her life that Janice had smoked a joint. If she had been asked at the beginning of the evening if it were even a possibility, she would have declared an emphatic, "No". She couldn't blame Syl, her old college roommate. She hadn't planned it. They were just getting together for a rare girl's-night-out. They had a few margharitas, and then as they were in the elevator on the way up to Syl's room they had found it. It was Syl's idea to wear their old sorority sweatshirt, and she'd brought along the "utility bag", the purse that she had constantly carried throughout college. It was a huge thing, bulky and more like a duffel, and though the other girls had made fun of it, they were always glad when she was able to reach into it and come up with a tampon, or bottle of contact lens solution, or tube of lipstick, or a joint.
They were pawing through it, when they accidentally knocked the large cig out onto the burgundy carpet. "Oh my God" said Syl, sheepishly at first, then she grabbed it and ran toward her room as the elevator doors opened. Janice followed giggling. It felt good, youthful, something she hadn't experienced in the years since graduation that now were occupied with preschool, and the night courses to get her secondary degree. She had done a good job of juggling motherhood, wifedom as she called it, and her attempts at "remaining viable in the real world". So the evening had been a real treat. They were almost out of breath by the time they rushed into the hotel room. They had run like they had really done something. In spite of herself, and possibly because of the tequila in the drinks, she was beside herself with laughter. Maybe that was why she barely hesitated when Syl had mischievously looked at her and held up the joint and asked, "Shall we?"
"Why not?" she said.
From there time had flown. It was three hours gone when she realized. She had only thirty minutes before the sitter had to be home and her husband was out of town on a sales trip. She jumped up suddenly, surprised at the instability of her legs. Had she been thinking more clearly, she would not have attempted to drive, but she clarity was not something she could enjoy in any measure at that moment. The details of the drive home were a blur. She probably wouldn't have remembered a thing except for the sobering event that occurred just as she was making the long wide turn into the housing edition.
There had been a number of complaints about the homeless men that often camped in the small park across from the new tract homes that were springing up. They were always wandering out into the road and a number of them had been very nearly run down by self absorbed soccer moms distracted by screaming children in the backseat. Fortunately no one had been injured, not that is, until that night.
She barely saw him in the flash of the headlights just before hearing the awful sound of flesh on metal. She cut the wheel suddenly and careened across two lanes before her front fender crunched against the high median. It took a second before she recovered from the impact. When she looked out through the rear window of the SUV, all that she saw in the road was the torn Hefty bag that served as the homeless man's luggage. She knew that she had hit him. His absence could only mean that she had knocked him into the high weeds of the field. She was about to get out of the car to look for him when her cell phone began ringing. It was the babysitter. For some reason the voice of the girl brought her back to a sense of reality.
"Janice? Are you okay?" said the fifteen year-old Cynthia.
"Huh, yea I'm fine."
"Thank goodness. I thought you might have gotten into an accident. I was about to call the police."
"No, no." she said taking a last look around, "I'm just a little late in getting home."
Cynthia had said the magic word, police. She knew that she was in no condition to survive an encounter with a patrolman, even without the potential of vehicular homicide in the mix. It would mean humiliation, disgrace, and probably prison. She thought about her daughter and never seeing her again. The thought was too awful so she climbed back into the car before driving home.
The next morning when she awakened to a splitting headache, Janice felt like the whole episode had been a terrible grainy dream. She got up, and dressed and fed her daughter and drove her to school. She had not planned on being gone long so all she had done to herself was to slip on a sports bra, t shirt, and shorts. There was the dent in the front fender after all, that she felt incriminated her to the entire world. She wanted to get home and out of sight as quickly as she could. She was just driving up the street toward the cul de sac when the garage door of the house across the street opened. Suddenly the minivan of her least favorite neighbor, Renee, pulled out and came to a stop directly in front of he car. Janice slammed on the brakes and screeched to a halt just shy colliding with her. Renee stared at her through the window as if sizing her up. Something like a slight smile played across her lips and she opened the door.
There had been ill will between the two women for almost a year. It had all started at the first neighborhood association meeting that Janice attended. Renee was the planning committee chairperson and was at the height of her social best. She was wearing a simply elegant wraparound dress that played up her modest bosom and diminished her modestly overabundant backside. She had been drinking, and had become a little more catty than usual, which was saying something. There was raffle going on and as it was the least glamorous job, and Janice was the most beautiful, busty and blonde and thus the most threatening to Renee, she was given the task of running the tumbler. What ensued was purely an accident. Renee had just settled with her hips against the table as she faced the crowd to begin the proceedings. What neither she nor Janice realized was that a knotted strip the of dress' side tie was draped across the gear of the tumbler. When Janice flipped the switch it shredded the garment in front of the entire gathering. For Renee several personal disclosures were made in an instant. The first was that she wasn't wearing panties. The second was that she from the waist down she shaved everything. This brought a derisive gasp of laughter from the group. The third, and possibly most damaging secret uncovered, was that she was hopelessly flat-chested. As the top tore away with the rest of the dress two fleshy silicon "falsies" were ejected toward the audience. Renee was stark naked in front of the entire neighborhood, with a bald pussy and two a cup beasts open for their perusal. On the floor in front of her were the two manufactured mammaries.
"Gee," said the nearest woman, "I would have guessed it was her ass that was padded. My mistake."
