The Rices

We were supposed to be spending the day with the Rices but it was noon already and they hadn’t showed up at the house nor were they responding to our calls or text messages. My son, in particular, was quite upset about the whole situation – the Rice boys are some of his favorite to hang out with, probably because they’re the sort who don’t think twice, upon finding one of those mysterious items kids tend to find when you send them down to the basement to play, about wearing that item as a hat. As for what the problem might have been, my wife presumed a miscommunication between herself and Mrs. Rice about the day and/or time of our get together; on the other hand, my own suspicion was that on their way over, they’d run into the Beans and, since Rice and Beans together are well known to constitute a so-called complete protein, some malnourished passerby didn’t think twice about gobbling them all up right there on the spot. “And that,” I added, “was all she wrote.” “That was all who wrote?” inquired my son. “No idea, really,” I said. “In fact, the only thing I know about her is that when something comes to a definitive end, she doesn’t write anything else, and that’s you know the thing in question has come to a definitive end.” My son regarded me mournfully. “He’s kidding,” my wife assured him. Just then, there was a knock on the door. It was the Rices – they were alive but drenched in digestive juices.