Hannibal Lecter: You were smitten. You were forty years old. You lived with him in Washington, in the suburbs. And…?
Uppity Rib: [tears begin forming in her eyes] And one morning, I just ran away.
Hannibal Lecter: No “just”, Uppity. What set you off? You started at what time?
Uppity Rib: Early, still dark.
Hannibal Lecter: Then something woke you, didn’t it? Was it a dream? What was it?
Uppity Rib: I heard a strange noise.
Hannibal Lecter: What was it?
Uppity Rib: It was… screaming. Some kind of screaming, like a child’s voice.
Hannibal Lecter: What did you do?
Uppity Rib: I went downstairs. I crept up into the dining room. I was so scared to look, but I had to.
Hannibal Lecter: And what did you see, Uppity? What did you see?
Uppity Rib: Mushrooms. The mushrooms were screaming.
Hannibal Lecter: He was slaughtering the spring mushrooms?
Uppity Rib: And they were screaming.
Hannibal Lecter: And you ran away?
Uppity Rib: No. First I tried to free them. I… I opened the top of their box, but they wouldn’t run. They just sat there, confused. They wouldn’t run.
Hannibal Lecter: But you could and you did, didn’t you?
Uppity Rib: Yes. I took one mushroom, and I ran away as fast as I could.
Hannibal Lecter: Where were you going, Uppity?
Uppity Rib: I don’t know. I didn’t have any food, any water and it was very cold, very cold. I thought, I thought if I could save just one, but… it was so heavy. So heavy. I didn’t get more than a few miles when the police picked me up. Kevin was so angry he took me to the Denny’s for dinner, and he made me pay. I never saw the dining room again.
Hannibal Lecter: What became of your mushroom, Uppity?
Uppity Rib: He sautéed it.
Hannibal Lecter: You still wake up sometimes, don’t you? You wake up in the dark and hear the screaming of the mushrooms.
Uppity Rib: Yes.
Hannibal Lecter: And you think if you blog about the poor LoLcats, you could make them stop, don’t you? You think if the Matt Harding videos are seen by a few more people, you won’t wake up in the dark ever again to that awful screaming of the mushrooms.
Uppity Rib: I don’t know. I don’t know.
Hannibal Lecter: Thank you, Uppity. Thank you.
