Killing Two Birds With One Stone - A Muriel Chronicle

Killing Two Birds With One Stone -
A Muriel Chronicle

In the serene setting of a back garden, Muriel and her Aunt Floss found themselves embroiled in the high-stakes world of tea drinking and garden-admiring. “Oh, the splendor of these spring bulbs!” Muriel exclaimed, her eyes twinkling with admiration.

Aunt Floss responded with the pride of a cat who’d just learned to text, “Indeed, my dear. I’ve tended to them with the singular efficiency of using one hose attachment for both fertilizing and watering. Killed two birds with one stone, I did.”
At this, Muriel, ever the advocate for avian rights and linguistic modernization, chimed in, “You know, Aunt Floss, I reckon it’s high time we gave our dusty old sayings a bit of a facelift. For instance, that bit about avian homicide with minimal effort — you wouldn’t harm a feather on their little heads! Look at your bird baths and feeders; you’re practically the Mother Teresa of the bird world.”

“Oh, heavens no!” Aunt Floss exclaimed, clutching her pearls (which were, in fact, from a buy-one-get-one-free deal). “It’s merely a figure of speech, my dear.”
“But think of the cruelty,” Muriel pressed on. “Many of these sayings are about as palatable as a sandwich without mayo. It’s time they were retired, like old racehorses or politicians.”

Aunt Floss, who’d been slurping her tea with the decorum of a malfunctioning vacuum cleaner, paused to consider. “So, you’re suggesting rid ourselves of them with the ruthless efficiency of a clean sweep? Is that it?”
“In due course,” Muriel said thoughtfully, with the solemnity of a judge passing a sentence on a particularly recalcitrant parking violator.

“Well, in that grand purge, we’d surely be knocking off more than a couple of pigeons with our proverbial pebble,” Aunt Floss retorted, her chuckle rich with the irony of their morbid metaphorical musings.

Muriel, caught between exasperation and affection, could only exclaim, “Aunt Floss!”
Thus, amidst the floral splendor of Aunt Floss’s garden, our two heroines found themselves at the crossroads of tradition and modernity, proving once and for all that even the most benign afternoon tea could turn into a battleground for linguistic reform.