I don’t know about you guys, but I’m still sheltering in place. 1) Because I can. 2) Because I enjoy it 3) Because Mr. Monk is my spirit animal. Not the cleaning part, of course, just the germophobe part.

No week of Story A Day May can go by now without a Steffie the spy story, so here’s one for this week:

Spaghetti For Two

Steffie regarded herself in the bathroom mirror while she washed her hands and smiled cheerfully.

“Hi!” she chirped softly. “I’m Steffie, and welcome to my podcast! Today I’m continuing my monthly series, ‘101 Ways to Kill With Spaghetti’.”

Or should it be pasta? Why limit it to spag? It wasn’t as if she would actually do a podcast; thinking about it was just an amusement, like her imaginary cooking show.

Well, let it be just spaghetti. More of a challenge.

A masculine voice from the other side of the door called, “Hey, Sweetheart! You fall in, or what? Not gettin’ shy on me, are you?”

Coarsening her voice to match the man’s, Steffie called back, “Keep your shirt on! I’m doing the hand-wash thing.”

“Well, come on! I’m starving! A coupla germs won’t kill me.”

But the wrong kind of mushrooms mixed in with it would. Ricin in the Parmesan shaker would. Wheat pasta for a guy with celiac disease would. Holding his face in a bowl of sauce until he drowned in it would. Shoving a raw strand up his nose and scrambling his brains with it would. You’d need regular for that, not angel hair.

She returned to the kitchen, where her target was already at the table, already buttering a slice of bread, already eating, fingering a knife that was far too sharp for her liking.

He knows who I am. He knows I know about Dr. Frazni, that he kidnapped him, that he has him locked in the cellar.

Around a bite of buttered bread, the man said, “I couldn’t wait. The hell with your special sauce. I’m eatin’ this.”

“It’ll be ready in five minutes! You’ll spoil your appetite with that!”

With a wicked smile, he said, “In five minutes, neither one of us will be hungry.”

~*~

He was wrong, of course. Five minutes later, she and Dr. Frazni were in her car, speeding away to safety, and she was still hungry.

Welcome to my monthly series, “101 Ways to Kill With Bread and Butter”.

THE END

So we ate this. None of it was deadly.

I hear mushrooms are high in Vitamin D, which boosts the immune system. Lucky for me, I love mushrooms. The spag is dressed with the tail end of last year’s pesto. The green beans are cooked Kentucky style: to within an inch of their lives, how Charlie loves them. I drain a can of green beans and put them into a pot with salt and butter and cook all the liquid out of them. HOW HE LIKES THEM, OKAY?

I’m posting at Fatal Foodies today about pea salad with leftovers.

A WRITING PROMPT FROM ME TO YOU: What’s in the cellar?

MA