The Oh, Otis! Shenanigans Episode 1: PRAYING FOR THE MANTIS By Temple Kinyon
Otis squirmed to get comfortable on his grandma’s big floral couch. It wasn’t an easy task since she’d enshrined the velvety fabric with a thick plastic covering. Otis didn’t understand why people bought furniture and then covered it up with plastic that poked and squeaked when sat upon. The summer temperatures allowed him and his six siblings to wear shorts, which was an all-around terrific thing, except that sitting on the couch now meant the back of his little browned legs would stick to the unbreathable plastic. He knew getting up from the unforgiving covering would swiftly deliver a burning feeling of ripped-off flesh. “Oh, Otis, quit wiggling!” his older sister, Doris, demanded. “Sit nice for the photo!” Otis glared at his sister, but realized all his siblings were staring him down. Apparently they were sitting all nice and stiff, unmoving, but he knew their legs would meld to the couch just like his. He stuck his tongue out at all of them, prompting six sibling tongues to stick back out at him. “Fine,” Otis relented. “But when this is over and you peel your legs off this couch and it hurts, I’m going to laugh at all of you!” And he would, too. Otis was seven, the youngest of Marvel and Mavis Swan’s brood. He normally got along with his siblings as well as any kids get along. But sometimes being the baby of the family held a lot of weight. Sometimes all of them ganged up on him when he wasn’t in alignment with their thoughts or actions. There were times, however, his brothers, Otho, Deanie, Cletis, and Chuck, would help him gang up on their sisters, Doris and Gladys. Boys versus girls always brought on a lot of punching, name calling, and hair-pulling (those girls went for the hair every time). Eventually, Mavis, would break up the melee and make all of them say something nice about each other. That little exercise inevitably ended up in fits of laughter, making Mavis the smartest mom in the world. “Everyone say cheese,” Uncle Daryl hollered. Twenty-seven family members belted out “cheese,” as Daryl snapped a succession of photos using his hand-held clicker attached to the camera with a long cord. He’d done this long enough to know it took at least twenty-five shots to get one good one.
