One Night Only: Rolls

Rolls
"My grandma's hearing aid is Jesus, 'cause it's a Miracle Ear!"
Jay and Jacquie sat in the airy lobby of a chain hotel in the heart of the Midwest; the duo was to
perform later that afternoon as part of their Two of A Kind Tour. The duo noshed on the hotel's spread of breakfast foods while watching The Weather Channel on the lobby's sole television; an elderly couple sat within earshot and talked about their grandkids. Several people checked out of the hotel without stopping for breakfast and others grabbed food but didn't sit down. Jacquie had scribbled some of her own one-liners on a napkin the night before and was sharing them with Jay; he chuckled at her joke.
"That's a good one! I'l have to try it."
"Cool! Here's another one for you Jay...what do they call a continental breakfast on a cruise ship?"
"What, Jacquie?"
"Eh?"
"What do you call a continental breakfast on a cruise ship?"
Jacquie rolled her eyes. "That's the joke, Jay. It's a rhetorical question, think about it. You're
on a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean and you're not on a continent, so...oh, forget it." She took a bite of her jelly-slathered blueberry bagel. "It's not funny if I have to explain it."
Jay sipped his coffee. "I see what you're trying to say, but you just need to reword it."
Jacquie smirked. "Okay, Mr. King-of-the-One-Liners, how would you say it?"
"I'd probably say, 'I went on a cruise ship, but they didn't offer breakfast because it wasn't
continental.' See, like that."
Jacquie smiled. "Your version is funnier."
Jay sipped his coffee. "That's because it isn't a question. When you ask a question, people expect an answer. If it doesn't have an answer, the joke flies over people's heads. With your version of ship joke, people are expecting you to say a punchline after the question. With the statement version, they don't expect another line because it's only one thought. Do you get what I'm saying?"
"Not one bit."
Jay sighed. "If we have to have to explain it, it isn't funny. Let's leave the joke as a statement."
One of the hotel employees brought out a platter of cinnamon rolls and placed them in the middle of the breakfast table; the rolls caught Jacquie's attention and she licked her lips.
"Ooooh, cinnamon rolls! Jay, you want one?"
"Sure...and can you get me some more coffee, please?"
Jacquie put her hands on her hips. "Do you have concrete in your pockets, Jay?"
Jay looked at her in shock. "Well, I figured since you were up..."
Jacquie smiled, took his empty cup and playfully kissed his cheek. "I was just kidding, sweetie!"
She trotted up to the breakfast table to get the rolls and coffee; Jay snuck across the table and grabbed the napkin Jacquie had written on.
"I'm so broke that, when I put my debit card in the ATM, it laughs at me...I'm so ugly that my
spouse took a picture of me with a cameraphone and the screen shattered...We played 52 pickup today, now the truck's in the shop..."
"Did you find any you like?"
Jay looked up to see Jacquie holding a plate with four rolls in one hand and his coffee in the
other; she put the plate down and Jay took his coffee and a roll. He slid the napkin off to the side, but Jacquie took it back.
"Well, there's some good ones in there, especially the 52 pickup one."
Jacquie wiped her mouth. "Well, it was late at night and you were already asleep. I couldn't doze
off, so I turned on the TV and watched some cooking shows. Mmmm, these rolls are really tasty!"
"They must be if you took four of them."
"Well, some for now, some for later, y'know?"
Jay took a sip of his coffee. "I didn't know you were such a big fan of cinnamon rolls."
"Oh, god, I love them. My mom used to make them all the time when I was little; they were really gooey and buttery. I could eat platefuls of those suckers. This was back when she was a paralegal, though; when she became the personal injury lawyer, she never had the time to make them anymore. I still kinda miss them."
"Your mom? Cook?"
"Yeah, it's an oxymoron now, but when I was a kid she gave Betty Crocker a run for her money. She could whip up all sorts of tasty goodies, but her cinnamon rolls were what she did best. The whole house would smell like cinnamon for hours."
"Maybe you can get the recipe for her."
Jacquie finished up her roll. "Jeez, Jay, why didn't I think of that? That recipe is probably
gathering dust in her cupboards. We'll be in Michigan in a few days. I can get it from her then."
Jay sighed. "You better get it when your mother isn't home or else she'll chain you to the house so you don't run away again."
Jacquie sighed as she eyed the remaining rolls on the plate. "Or put me on a leash."
~~~~
"Okay, now all we have to do is stick them in the oven...*snort*..."
Jacquie cooked up a batch of cinnamon rolls in her parents' house; she set the timer and wiped her hands on her pants. Both of her parents were out but allowed her to use the kitchen to make her rolls.
Jay had gone into town to get her some decongestant and tissues, for her sinuses were blocked up from a bad cold and she had to use a paper towel to blow her stuffed-up nose.
"HURRRNK! HUUURRRNKK!" Her honking reverberated throughout the kichen. "Jeez, I hate getting colds!
I'm just glad Jay's not here to hear my goose impression." After cleaning up the flour mess in the kitchen, she mixed up powdered sugar and water for the icing. Jay soon arrived with Jacquie's medicine
and tissues.
"Jacquie, I'm back! Here's your things."
"Oh, Jay, you're a lifesaver." She popped a pill out of the blister pack and took it with a glass of
water.
"Say, Jacquie, what's a fudgie?"
"A fudgie?"
"Yeah. I was in line at the store and there were these two girls in line behind me. I was talking to the cashier about the area and one of the girls says to the other, 'this guy's a fudgie.' She didn't seem nice about it either."
Jacquie smiled as she mixed up more icing. "'Fudgie' is northern Michigan slang for a tourist,
especially ones from out of state. They're called fudgies because most of them walk around with boxes of fudge in their hands from all the scattered fudge shops up here. Most fudgies aren't highly regarded up here, for they cause traffic 'cause they don't know what crosswalks are."
"Oh. So I'm a fudgie?"
"Are you from around here?"
"No."
"Then you're a fudgie, whether your dumb or not. Trust me, you're a lot smarter than most fudgies."
The timer went off and Jacquie walked over to the stove.
"Oooh, the rolls are done!" Jacquie opened the pulled out a circle pan filled with freshly baked
rolls, golden brown and with filling oozing out of them. She flipped the rolls onto a plate and spread the icing all over them. "Can't you just smell that cinnamonny goodness?"
Jay sniffed the air, but it didn't smell like cinnamon at all. "I don't smell cinnamon at all. I smell
soup."
Jacquie looked at him quizzically. "Well, maybe you got the same cold I do."
"No, seriously, my nose is fine. It smells like soup in here."
"How could it smell like soup when I just made cinnamon rolls?"
"Lemme try one." Jacquie slid the plate across the counter and Jay took a hot roll. He bit into it,
but instead of tasting cinnamon, he tasted sugary buttery salty beef. He looked at wife and gave a confused face, not knowing how to break the news to her gently.
"So, Jay, what do you think?"
"Jacquie, are you completely sure you put cinnamon in these?"
"What?!? I know I did! Here, I show you the container." Jacquie pulled out the spice jar from the cabinet, looked at the label and smacked her head in exasperation.
"Oooohhh fuzzies..."
"What?"
Jacquie handed Jay the jar; the label read "Beef Buillon Powder". "The cinnamon was sitting next to that and I grabbed the wrong jar by mistake! How could I be so stupid?!?" She leaned against the refridgerator door and started half-laughing half-crying.
Jay walked over to her. "Jacquie, it's okay. Your nose was stuffed up."
"Still after two hours of work, I got to throw them out because I can't tell the difference between
beef bouillon and cinnamon...hey, did you finish that roll?"
Jay licked the icing off of his fingers. "Yeah I did, and it actually wasn't half bad. Try one."
Jacquie took a roll and tore off a piece; after swirling it in her mouth and swallowing, she shot
Jay a disgusted look. "That was one of the most disgusting things I've ever eaten, and I cooked it!"
Jay smiled in sympathy. "Well, I thought it was alright."
"Well," she said as she threw her roll into the trash, "there's your breakfast for tomorrow."
At that moment, Jacquie's dad came in the door. "Hello, my darling! What's that smell?"