- Make it stop -

There was an eerie sense of foreboding in the Pott household when the clock struck noon. In a quarter of an hour, Samantha would be home -- and the whole cycle would begin again.

By all accounts, things had worked out almost exactly as the Potts had planned from their first year of marriage. They had got along famously, and lived with Old Mrs Pott just as they had agreed to. Luck had also been on their side when they wanted an addition to their family. It had always been their wish to have just one child, a daughter, and she had come by just as they had moved into a new, larger, house. And they both promised the other that they would do whatever it took to give their daughter whatever it is she wanted.

6 years had passed since then, and Samantha had come along nicely. Very nicely, in fact. Beautiful as any 6-year-old could be, her parents had evidently taken good care of her -- sometimes at the expense of their finances. They had provided for her as best they could, and as a result she had come to expect all her desires granted.

It was a nice, sunny day. Well, sunny enough for the grass to sparkle just a little, but not so sunny that the clothes hanging out to dry would be bleached. As usual, Old Mrs Pott, the kindly old lady that she was, was out on the front porch having her lunch of soft-boiled eggs and Johnny Kettel, who lived across the street, was having a jolly time scrambling up and down his lawn in the innocent assumption that mimicking the noise of a lawnmower would shorten the grass, when Samantha sauntered along the pathway leading up to her house.

"Hello, dear." said kindly Old Mrs Pott, kindly.
"Wotcher." came the muttered riposte, between gritted teeth.

"Why's she always eating those eggs?" Asked Samantha, when she had stepped into her house and laid her bag down lackadaisically on the living room floor.
"Grandma's old, dear, and she's lost all her teeth but one. She can't eat nothin' but eggs, the poor dear. Them eggs ain't hard so she can just suck 'em right good." Her mother replied, looking up from her knitting momentarily.
"Well, she's doing it all wrong."

Determined to right this wrong, Samantha strode out to her Grandmother and seized an egg. Poking a small hole in one, she sipped at its contents slowly and quietly, making none of the slurping noises her grandmother was producing.
"See, grandma, THAT's how you suck these eggs." Samantha said, with an indignant but triumphant tone. "And what's that Kettel boy doing out in the sun? He's already so black as it is!"

With what seemed like a slight flourish, or however close to a flourish 6-year-olds can get, Samantha walked back into the house and began to pout.
"What is it, dear?" Mrs Pott had to hastily conceal what seemed like a four-lettered word that began with F and rhymed with 'duck' as she pricked herself on her needle.
"I want a pony." Samantha gave her most pleading look, her beady eyes piercing right into her mother's soul.
"But darling, ponies are real expensive these days, with all them Chinese people wanting to make soup with the really long parts of horses and what not."
"I wanna PONY!"
Dumbfounded, Mrs Pott let out a sigh, a long, calculated sigh that was not uncommon in the Pott household, as she worked out the cutbacks they would have to make to fund this new acquisition. That expensive chair she had bought from the fancy shop for Mr Pott with the good lumbar support to help his bad back would have to go (Ed.'s hint: think labour supply curve), but it would be so.

Two weeks later, Samantha's pony came, gift-wrapped in pink ribbons and with sequins on the side. It was truly a rather noble steed, its flesh a shiny tone of brown and its long, glorious.... TAIL glistening in the sun.
Samantha was thrilled .... until the pony yawned.
"It's teeth aren't white enough!" She whinnied (not unlike the pony). "And its tonsils are red and it's tongue's too short and it's just not got a healthy throat!"

The little girl sat in a corner as her hapless, incredulous parents were speechless.
And then something happened. Samantha Pott sat up and watched as slowly, things started moving in circles around her. It began with her lawn, then her grandmother, and the door, the table, the floor, and soon it was every bit of furniture and pretty much everything around her.

"Make it stop," she cried. "Make it stop."