Buffalo, NY—At the end of St. Casmir’s fall pickleball league in Kaisertown, ballroom dance instructor Pepper Parabola underwent knee replacement surgery. In addition to her longtime boyfriend, Tim Trapizoid, helping her through the healing process, she also received support from personal care aide Penny Perpindicular. Pepper and Penny grew quite fond of each other during the convalescent period, and when a spot opened in St. Casmir’s spring pickleball league, Pepper encouraged Penny to take it. Penny accepted, igniting a bizarre love triangle, which threw all of Kaisertown and St Casmir’s pickleball league into disarray.
The spot was alongside Betty Bisector, who sometimes was Trapizoid’s mixed doubles partner. There were whispers among league members that during Pepper’s rehab, Trapizoid and Bisector worked a little too much on their Dinks and Nasty Nelsons together. Pepper was aware of these whispers, but with her new friend Penny and her long-time pickleball partner, Paulina Parallelogram, she seemed to float above all the talk and innuendo. In fact, it was Pepper, Penny, and Paulina who really stirred the league scandal pot.
The three women became inseparable. Pepper and Paulina would show up to Penny’s matches and offer support in the form of high fives, kisses on the cheek and the occasional tap on the butt. Penny would do the same for Pepper and Paulina.
It all came to a head after Pepper and Paulina defeated Penny and Betty to take first place. The three women stood at the net, congratulating each other with kisses on the mouth and staring into each other’s eyes with deep, penetrating looks. As outrageous as that was to onlookers, the three women seemed not to notice and were nowhere to be found for the next forty-eight hours.
“It’s disgraceful,” Betty screeched, lying next to Trapizoid, waiting for the little blue pill to kick in so he could dink her. All along Clinton Street—at Hectors Hardware, Kent’s Leader Drugs, and Wiechec’s, members of the community and the pickleball league spoke in hushed tones with red faces. These conversations also seemed to be laced with a bit of smoldering homosexual curiosity and envy, as well.
That Sunday, St. Casmir Pastor, Pasquale Polygonski, felt the need to address the issue. Accompanied by a bunch of nodding heads, he spoke in fire and brimstone tones, quoting Leviticus 18-22— “You shall not lie with a male such as a woman; such a thing is an abomination.”
When mass concluded, he confronted the three women, and after listening to further condemnations from him, they surrounded him and pressed their bodies against his. Pepper whispered in his ear, “We’re just friends—good friends. Want to be friends with us? We need a man to help us with our bangers, backhands, and body shots.”
Since the encounter, receipts from Sunday’s collection have gone missing, the rectory liquor cabinet was emptied, and no one has been able to locate Pastor Polygonski for three days.
