A Plateful of Puns

Dear Mumsy,
I know that it's been some time since we last spoke, so this letter may come as some shock. Not near the shock that I received yesterday, though. You see, I was doing 'my thing' at my restaurant, running the kitchen with an iron skillet (cast iron, of course, it has the best heat retention), when all of a sudden I heard my patrons screaming. Well, screaming patrons aren't likely to buy food, so I hurried out to see what the fuss was about.

Standing by the counter at the front was a man with a ski mask on, holding a gun pointed at the hostess. Seeing me out of the corner of his eye, he swiveled and fired. Icecreamed and dropped to the ground, and the shot slammed into the wall above my head. I hid behind an overturned table, and I could see the patrons recoiling away from the gunman, trying to stay out of his sight. I rifled through a dozen or so ideas of how to resolve the situation peacefully, but none of them worked. I knew there was no magic bullet for this.

I bumped into my seus chef, and grabbed his shoulder. "Can you think of anything to distract him?"

He cringed and replied, "Let's not be hasty! Lettuce sleep on this, the problem will be better tomorrow."

I growled in disgust and peeked over the table to get a look at the gunman. He was raking dollar bills into a duffel bag. Slinging it over his shoulder, he ran out the door and disappeared around the corner. While one of the waiters called the police, I slumped against the floor and cradled my head in my hands. I mumbled, "I'll be pudding in overtime for days...think of the paperwork I'll have to ketchup on!"

The seus chef turned to me and said, "You should have squashed him! Why didn't you?"

I rolled my eyes. "Me, against a trigger-happy gunman? I don't think so."

And so, Mumsy, to make a long story shortening, the police arrived, did what it was they do, and now I'm in a mess. As you know, we'd only just opened, and we were in debt to begin with. The money he took was all the money we'd earned last week. I was going to pay my employees with that, and we're almost out of most of our supplies. I hate to do this, but I'm reduced to asking you for money. Just a little, to get us up and running again. Anything you can give would be wonderful!

Lovingly yours,
Daren