Author's Note: Ever had someone that you lived with and you couldn't stand their mother? Ever wanted to start your own business? Think this story is gonna help you with dealing with those issues? Well, that would depend on how well you read. Enjoy.

If I Mayhem
By: Jadalycya

"Just shut up!", Kelli screamed. "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!!"

"I don't feel like it!", Amy yelled back at her roommate. "You're the one who called my mom, "the evil mother of the underworld"!"

"She tried to shut me in the closet!", Kelli shouted. "She's trying to control every aspect of your's and my life!"

"She is not!", Amy screamed. "And if you're gonna be like you are now, I might as well move out!"

"You know where the door is, honey", Kelli said, pointing to the door.

Without another word, Amy stormed into her bedroom, packed up her things, including her model volcano and the toy rolling eyeball Kelli gave her as a prank gift and left, but not without, as a last bit of anger, throwing the prank eyeball at Kelli which missed her and landed in the fish tank.

Kelli continued to live on her own for the next few years, trying to start up many home businesses. First she tried custom pamphlet designer, but that went over like a liquor vendor in a Al-Anon meeting. Next she tried being a dog walker, but after being bitten by every dog that she tried to walk, she gave up. After that, she tried being a wacky pastry chef, making things that you wouldn't except and she had some success with that, but after a while, the business went downhill and she had to stop.

One day, as she was walking down Main Drive, Kelli's heel of her new pumps that she had bought broke and she had to sit down on one of the benches that all but lined the sidewalks. As she put her other flip-flops on and stood up, she saw that she was face to face with the new shop that her friend Derryl had been telling her about. It was a custom doll and puppet shop where you could buy, build, repair and design your own doll or puppet and the owner of the shop would make it just the way you wanted it. She went inside and was amazed at the many, many different dolls and puppets in the shop. On the main shelves, were the dolls that you could buy, then as you went back towards the back, you got into the personalized dolls and puppets. Kelli looked and oogled at the sheer variety of the things in the shop, and saw that no one doll was exactly the same. Each doll, or puppet, had one or two things, at least that made each one unique. When she reached the back counter, she was kind of surprised at who was standing behind it.

"Amy?", Kelli asked.

"Kelli", Amy replied, handing the man in front of her his change and box with his doll or puppet in it, Kelli wasn't sure which. "I'm surprise to see you here. You don't like puppets and dolls and things like that."

"I don't, but my friend Derryl does", Kelli admitted. "So, do you work here?"

"I own this place", Amy said.

Kelli's jaw dropped. "Really?"

"Yeah", Amy said. "After I left your place I got to thinking about what I could do that was different from the norm, and lo and behold, three years later, Doollies and Popetts was up and running."

"How'd you know that this was what you wanted to do?", Kelli asked.

"I just found something that I really enjoyed, which was dolls and things associated with dolls. Pretty much everything else just kinda fell into its place."

"Uh-huh", Kelli said.

Kelli bought a doll in the shop that, she thought, looked like a frosted blueberry cupcake and went back to her loft apartment. She paced back and forth, racking her brain about a great new cookie recipe that no one has used before. Once she glanced at the doll that she had bought from Amy's shop, it came to her.

-Two years later-

Kelli picked up the morning paper and brought it around to the back of her new house where she was eating breakfast on the back porch. On the front page there was a picture of the front of Kelli's new pastry shop, Wackin' Wallows. She opened to the page where the artical ran on her store and began to read it.

"Hmm, "The new pasrty store, Wackin' Wallows was met with some aprehension, but mainly with open minds and stomachs. As the store has only been opened for a week, the shop's most praised item was the Woopie-Oopie Kooky Cookie, a plain sugar cookie that is a stuffed, yes, stuffed, a stuffed cookie with a flavor filling that is different with every bite", Kelli read aloud to herself as she stroked her tabby cat that was sitting next to her on the table top. "Yeah, that idea of that old chemistry experiment as the seperator worked really well. I just wish I could remember what I did with the list of what went into it. Oh well, I guess my duplicator will have to work until I find it."

Kelli took a sip of her orange juice and continued to read through the paper, while down at the shop, everything was just like it always was, wacky.