Flash Fiction #234

PHOTO PROMPT © J Hardy Carroll

VROOM! VROOM!

I’m not a very good bargainer, but I really wanted that second-hand Toyota Supra!  Like cars from my youth – only better.  Something I could feel as I piloted it, not computer-ridden, and self-driving.

Not midlife-crisis-red, it had a four-speed stick-shift, and was painted Electric Blue.  Travis McGee would approve.*

He was asking $18,000.

I offered $12,000 – book-value.

Standard transmission is rarer – $17,000

I’m stealing from my son’s inheritance – $13,000

It’s got four brand-new tires – $16,000

My credit card is melting. – $14,000

My wife is expecting our first. – $15,000!

Radar-detectors are illegal.  I must be careful.

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* Author John D. MacDonald invented a Miami-based character named Travis McGee. To support himself, he specialized in finding and returning items that were not precisely ‘legally’ lost, because they may not have been exactly legally owned in the first place – all for a 50% cut.  In novels written between 1964 and 1984, he drove a 1939 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud, which someone had Frankensteined into a pickup truck, and painted Electric Blue.

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Join the Friday Fictioneers.  Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

’20 A To Z Challenge – D

I am the God of Hellfire and in this episode of the A to Z Challenge, I bring you

D’EATH

(deeth)
This little-known English word is almost as uncommon as the imported surname. The D’eath family originally lived in the town of Ath in Belgium. There it would have been rendered D’Ath, or De Ath, meaning from Ath. It was also occasionally an occupational name for a gatherer or seller of kindling. In this case, the name is derived from the Middle English word dethe, which in turn is derived from the Old English word dyth, which means fuel or tinder.

Families with the name D’eath might know where it came from and what it meant. The word’s other reference is to the rather sketchy occupation, whose bundles of firewood sticks known as faggots, have deteriorated into a modern insult for homosexuals. To the superstitious, this, and its similarity to the word ‘death,’ make them uneasy when they encounter it.

Lord Peter Death Bredon Wimsey DSO is the fictional protagonist in a series of detective novels and short stories by Dorothy L. Sayers (and their continuation by Jill Paton Walsh ). A dilettante who solves mysteries for his own amusement, Wimsey is an archetype for the British gentleman detective.

In one book, the hero investigates a suspicious fatality at a company doing sensitive government work. He poses as the man’s replacement, under the name Peter D’eath, telling the manager that he hopes it will startle the guilty party into somehow revealing himself. It was an amusing but needless literary device, because the author goes on to show that it was a prank of a mail-room teen with a slingshot – an English ‘catapult’ – which caused the man to fall down a flight of stairs.

May I Have A Word?

I would prefer the correct one! 👿

PROS

A man bought a used lawn morrow – and the professional mechanic and columnist he wrote to, couldn’t fix his lawn mower – or the misspelling.

He could do the jump and live to tell the tail – I think that this tale was attached to a horse’s ass.

Headline – Weeping is not a panacea
Research shows that wapping damages lung cells – the article is about e-cigarette vaping

After the retail war you’ve raged – I raged, because war is waged

Her appearance was oft-putting – The fact that she was oft putting the wrong words into sentences was off-putting – like when she led her horse down a bridal path

The Vice-President was unceremoniously sworn in as President – It may not have been ostentatious, it may not have been the usual ceremony, or the one that you were expecting, but a swearing-in is a ceremony. Some authors speak English; others speak ‘cliché.’

He climbed the steep levy beside the river – That was very taxing, then he drove his Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry misspelled.

Mucha Do About Nothing – Apparently Mucha hasn’t read much’a Shakespeare

the movie Percy Jackson: Lightening Thief – This entertainment columnist didn’t catch lightning in a bottle.

She threw in an explicit, live, on-air. – Well (expletive), she’s not in the print business, you are.

In an online tutorial about English – Someone was incompitent….about every word in the centence

The 56-year-old hotel magnet – I’d stick to calling him a magnate

AMATEURS

Charlie was a privet detective – he investigated cases of missing hedges.

We’re else can I get 6 beers for $35.00? – Where were you when they taught about ‘there and here’? Oh yeah, out getting beer.

Don’t move here. It rain’s all the time – It rains greengrocers’ apostrophes.

Lore and behold he was lost – Lo and behold, he made it excessively complex.

I cease the chance to talk to her – Well, stop (cease) that, and seize a text book.

She opened her door, to fine him on the step. – I find that the fine was for stalking.

The cigarette burn scares that covered her body – It scares me that abusive parents leave scars.

For sale, adult bibs, tarrycloth – Don’t tarry. Look up terrycloth!

Chocolate-Flavored whipped cream in an arousal can – Don’t ask, don’t tell, what you do with your aerosol can.

The dumbest, most diluted thing I’ve heard – You’re deluded if you think you know what you are writing about

The clothes were thread barren – poor infertile, threadbare tee-shirts, unable to have children

a potion of eternal width – I can only hope that she meant a potion of eternal youth – although those Coors canned potions have produced external width.

She’s got died hair – and a dyed-in-the-wool quitter of a husband

sometimes I lie away at night – try to lie a bit closer to a dictionary, while you lie awake

Sucker Part Duex – Be pretentious enough to try to use the French word Deux, and not check its spelling

no fountain of full-proof plans – This fool is proof of his own ignorance.

Colds are caused by bacteria, not the tempter – I am tempted to believe that.

i fell like i should share – I felt that I should share this advice: CAPITALIZE your I’s

It is rare that my personal foam rings – What now?? Nerf is into telecom?

paid for one of the most expensive collages – Where they don’t teach English

when you hug a guy and smell his colon – was this in fetish rehab?

kids today learn to spell frenetically – and therein lies the problem – phonetically

the total gambit of weather-related shit – that runs the gamut of poor usage

que the confusion – cue the rush to the dictionary – again

filling out a borage of forms – and getting a barrage of ‘Huhs?’

My son is hanging out with some bad ombrés – He’s a French-Canadian, throwing shade because he can’t spell hombres.

Crosswords

Sound projectors = amps – Somebody who doesn’t know his ass from his elbow, doesn’t know the difference between amps and speakers.

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