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This is another submission to my Creative Writing class.  Some of my story is true, but there is a thing known as "poetic license".  In other words I’ve told a couple of big whoppers and a few little fibs.

THE RECEIPT 

     While going through my aunt’s genealogy papers about my great-grandfather, a small slip of yellowed paper fell to the floor. The paper was stained and very brittle. The edges slightly charred and the writing was with pen and ink. The elegance of the handwriting was stunning and it looked to be quite old. The ink was still legible and the heading read “The Receipt”. Looking over the paper my husband and I determined that the receipt was a recipe and the recipe was for hard cider.

Here is the recipe: 3 galons cider

                     15 tcups sugar

                    Melt in walnut size

                     Yeast

                     Pore in 5 big jugs

                     Tie dride lam gut

                      to jug holes.

                      Cure 7 days

                      Keep eye on bigness of gut

                      Keep under bed.

      My husband, Charlie, and I were intrigued. We talked about “The Receipt” for days.

     “What do you remember about your great-grandfather?” asked Charlie.

     “When my great-grandfather, Isaac and his sons made the “Run” into Oklahoma Territory for free land, it was a family story that his wagon was filled with hard cider, but it’s hard to believe that a staunch Methodist would be so brash. So the story about the wagon full of booze was always discounted,” I explained.

     “You know, we might be able to get our own batch of hard cider going,” Charlie boasted.

     “I don’t know about the instructions,” I replied, “and we might not be able to get some of the ingredients and gear, but I guess it’s worth a try.”

     Charlie reached over and picked up the receipt and said, “let’s give it a go, it ought to be fun."

     We found three old coke syrup jugs we could use. We figured that one teacup of sugar would be about ¾ of a cup. The walnut size yeast must be the measurement for a hunk of yeast, we guessed that three packages of dry yeast would just about do it. We had plenty of apple juice. The only thing left was the dried lamb gut.

     “Well,” said Charlie. “when I was a boy I overheard an old guy talking about a lambskin sheath. Maybe something like that could be used.”

     “What’s a lambskin sheath,” I queried.

     “Oh, it’s an old type of prophylactic.” quipped Charlie.

     Overcoming my shock, I gasped, “Do you mean a condom?”

     “I suppose so, but I think balloons would work just as well,” snickered Charlie.

     I rooted round in the junk drawer and came up with a package of three huge Halloween balloons.

     “I wish these weren’t orange with jack-o-lantern faces,” moaned Charlie.

     “Yeah, but these are on hand and who wants to go to Wal-Mart on a Saturday afternoon?” I countered

     Sunday morning we put our efforts into making “The Receipt”. We prepared and filled our jugs, slipped the balloons on the spouts, and put them in the utility room and shut the door.

     “Just think in seven days we’ll have hard cider and I can hardly wait,” I said, wiping my hands.

     On day one we peeked in and found things going as planned. The balloons were a little puffy, but we figured this was normal, since we weren’t using dried lamb gut. The second day was pretty much like the first, except the balloons were a little more full.

     “It’s a good thing we have the big balloons because we’re going to need the extra expansion,” Charlie stated.

     On day three I opened the door and found the balloons much larger and the smell of the fermenting apple juice a little unpleasant.

     “Oh well,” I thought to myself. “This is only a trial run just to see if we can do it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

     On day four I heard Charlie scream from the utility room. When I got there I almost fainted. The balloons were fully inflated and the jack-o-lantern faces were stretched into grotesque sneers. We shut the door.

     “What in the hell are we going to do?” I asked wringing my hands.

     “Aw, let’s keep going, the balloons aren’t that full,” Charlie said, scratching his head.

     Day five, we skipped entirely. Why get ourselves in an uproar over a few ugly  balloons? The only problem was the odor. A guy can use just so much yucky air spray.

     Day six found us easing open the utility room door, but something had it blocked. I reached my hand in and turned on the light, but everything was bright orange. I couldn’t see what was blocking the door. The odor was gagging us and the desire to hurl was overpowering. I started heaving; I saw Charlie going through the knife drawer while I was on my way through the kitchen to the bathroom.

     A few minutes later, while wiping my face with a wash cloth, I said to Charlie, “What did you do?”

     “Nothing yet. I couldn’t get the knife in far enough to pop the balloons. We’ll try later on as soon as my stomach settles down and, if we can get in, I’ll get my shotgun. If I can get the barrel in far enough, maybe a little birdshot will do the trick!”

     I didn’t have to worry about the birdshot ruining my utility room, because within a few minutes we heard three loud explosions all coming from the utility room. The balloons exploded forcing the utility room ceiling into the attic.

     Days later and things are finally back to normal around the house. We studied our rendition of the ingredients for “The Receipt” and figured we probably used too much sugar and too much yeast for the size of our balloons. In addition, the utility room was too warm and that speeded up the fermentation. When I put “The Receipt” back in Isaac’s papers it dawned on me what happened the day Isaac made the “Run” into Oklahoma.

     Everyone in my family have always griped about the land Isaac ended up with. Now I know his wagon must have exploded right there on top of 640 of the driest acres in all of Oklahoma and he couldn’t go any further. That would explain the charred edges on “The Receipt”.