The Taffy Mafia

People are calling them the Taffy Mafia, which is cute, but I don’t know if cute is a good thing for the little monsters. They come around in packs, reaching and grabbing at you, mewling with their scratchy voices, and sure, it would be cute in two dimensions, on a screen, or drawn up in a comic strip. But when you’re surrounded by a feral pack of little girls hell-bent on forcing you to buy cheap-ass taffy, I gotta say, it’s pretty god damned scary.

Time is a funny thing, isn’t it. I mean, two years ago, when the Girl Scout problem happened, folks were in the thick of it, and you didn’t have to introduce the subject to let people know what you were talking about. It was sort of understood that you were pretty much always talking about it. "Four more in Livingston today" was always about the Girl Scout problem, and the only elucidation a person needed was "four more eaten or four more turned?"

But nowadays I have to say, "remember the Girl Scout problem? How they went viral, turning into a little zombies, and were going around with those cookies, seducing people and biting them and eating them, except for girls between the ages of 7 and 13, those they turned into Girl Scout zombies to join their horde?" And a person will reply, "Oh, yeah, what about it?" Sheesh.

This town isn’t the right size. It’s big enough to support a Girl Scout troop but not big enough to receive any kind of national attention. I mean, thank goodness that the Girl Scout problem started in Provo. Provo, people have heard of. But here, we could have a serial murderer ritualistically dismembering old ladies on the streets, one per day, and the country wouldn’t notice or even give a damn. So no one’s going to come help us with the Taffy Mafia.

And I got to tell you, as sick and twisted as it sounds, I’d almost rather we had a sadistic dismemberment in the streets, over these little girls. I mean, as gross as seeing granny guts on the street would be, that’s something you can shake your head at and get over. Catch the guy, send him to the state pen, let him fry, the end. No one is doing anything about the little girls.

I mean, they’re the wrong age, to begin with. Too old to be cuter anymore, too young to have their own personalities. All mixed up over the Girl Scout problem, even though we didn’t have Girl Scouts in this town. This town, not big enough to get over the influence of a few pastors who hold everyone’s souls hostage over whatever moral issue they think is trendy. Like that *Twilight* thing, telling little girls they couldn’t read Twilight because it was evil.

Look, I read Twilight, and it’s not evil. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s not Shakespeare, but give me a break, the Bible isn’t exactly scintillating writing either. And those stupid pastors got more little girls curious about Twilight than they would have if they’d just kept their mouths shut. You know what they should have done? Slapped a sticker on the cover of every copy that said, "Edward is a symbol of Jesus." That would have simultaneously made the book moral and no one would want to read it any more. Problem solved times two.

The pastors were anti Girl Scouts even before the Girl Scout Problem, something about Masonic imagery, I don’t know. So the girls started selling taffy instead, for the church, and they brought in enough cash to gussy up the mangers put out on Church lawns ever Christmas.

But lately it’s become bad. You’re walking down the street minding your own business, and first you hear them. No, check that, first your smell them, but you don’t realize you smell them. The sweet, sickening undertone of sugar, maybe lemons in there, maybe something chemical, a fake fruity smell. Like well chewed gum. And mixed through that, the smell of their bodies, a kind of chalky, moldy smell, hard to describe, hard to forget. And then on top of that, whiffs and catches of rot and filth.

Then you hear them. Chattering, chittering really, gobbledygook, little girl voices going at about a million miles per hour, one on top of the other, voices like a jar of bugs each one just crawling over the other in a mealy maelstrom of crunchy disgustingness.

And if you don’t run, because you’re stupid, or because you don’t know better, or you’re just too innocent to be afraid yet, you see them. Five of them, or ten of them, or God help you, twice that, all bunched up on each other, some of them holding hands, some of them hugging each other, a pack of wild little girls.

Blood-crusted jeans with the knees blown out, sneakers half on, skin desiccated and poking though toe-holes. Shirts grimy, filthy, spaghetti-stained and festooned with bits and pieces of whatever dinner than can scrounge out of garbage cans and broken shop windows, and of course, taffy, drooling day-glow from their mouths, their eyes bright and liquid, almost smiling, some of them missing half their baby teeth, mouths gaping at you as they come.

They surround you, waving boxes of taffy at you, where do they get all of this taffy? Who is supplying them with these boxes? They reach for you, clawing and grabbing, hands into your pockets, those little, filthy hands, fingers like needles grabbing for your wallet, your loose change, ripping your pants, your backpack, your purse to shreds, all the while giggling that evil high-pitched giggle; it’s enough to make you shit your pants.

Then they have the money, and your knees are too weak, you fall over, and you’re left there, in a pile of shredded pants and half-torn boxes of taffy, while they swarm away. Where do they go? Where does the money go? Why won’t anyone do anything about this?

I don’t know. But I heard the high school football team is starting to go door to door, selling buckets of popcorn to raise money for a new set of bleachers. Fuck this, I’m buying a shotgun.