Lime Shards
Martha stood, hands on her hips, looking up at one of the red painted walls in her son, Richard's, apartment. The painted job was impeccable. At least it was until you noticed the lime shards imbedded in it.
She sighed and looked around at the disarray around her. She loved parties, the excitement, the fun, the booze. And this party had plenty of all of those three things. The part she hated about parties, though, was the mess that you had to clean up afterwards. There were empty bottles of every liquor imaginable littering the ground and tables. Piles of empty glasses and plates. Confetti hanging from the lamps and covering the floor. She wanted to call some people to come and clean up the mess, but she knew after her last party, they had put her on their do not clean list. Sighing, Martha started picking up the empty bottles and making sure they were really empty. After all, why waste good booze?
As she made her way around the room, drinking every last drop of alcohol, something resting on the dinning room table caught her eye. It was a confetti thrower, the kind you only got out on New Year's. Martha walked over to it and picked it up, weighing it in her hands. Who in their right mind had brought this to a room they knew would eventually be filled with a bunch of crazy, intoxicated people? Well, at least it explained that explained the confetti. And the limes shards, she thought, a couple of fuzzy memories swimming back into her head. Somehow, during all the celebrations, a couple of lime pieces from the bar had found there way into the confetti thrower, and when it had been fired, they had imbedded themselves into the wall.
Well, she was sure that's what happened, but she was going to have a hell of a time convincing Richard of that. But, if he gave her too much trouble, she could always bring up the time when he was eight when he had put a strawberry ice cream in the dryer and had ruined the dryer and stained the clothes inside…
A Few Months Later
Martha stared at the wall that had once had lime shards imbedded in it. It had long been repainted, but Richard still didn't trust her home alone. But she had finally got him out of the house on a D.C. trip with Alexis and this time she would make sure nothing got damaged in his house. After all, these weren't the crazy type of people that she normally partied with. They were all responsible, proper people, which was more than you could say about some of the people Richard was friends with.
At the sound of some cheering, Martha was snapped out of her reverie and noticed that someone had brought one of those ice cream makers that you tossed from person to person. Awww… what the hell, she loved ice cream. And what was the worst that could happen, right?