Flash Fiction #267

PHOTO PROMPT © Jennifer Pendergast

WHY IS A MOUSE WHEN IT SPINS?

Please ensure mind is in motion before engaging mouth.

I’m tryin’ to think, but nuthin’s happenin’!

Did I actually have my shit together in my youth, and only now is it coming unravelled quicker than a knitted sock the cat found?

Or was I always this spun, and I have just finally achieved clarity?

Old age is like waking from an epic drunk, on someone else’s couch.  It takes at least an hour for reality to come into sharp focus.

Do not operate heavy any equipment while under the influence.  Squirrel-brain is normal.  Afternoon naps are a proven effective treatment.

***

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

Adoption III

We just accepted three refugees into our home.

After parents, Mama Garden Gnome, and Papa Garden Gnome, were killed in a freak riding-mower accident, my son generously offered to take in their orphaned sons.

Poor Larry is still horrified at the sight, and is covering his eyes. Shemp hears their screams, and covers his ears, while Moe thinks that he might throw up from the gore, and is covering his mouth.

Please note that these boys are genuine, Purebred Garden Gnomes ©, not to be confused with those grape-flavored, animated impersonators, The Smurfs. Smurfs are aptly named. As an adjective ‘smurf’ means illegal/trouble-making/untrustworthy. As a verb, it means con/scam/bamboozle.

As a noun, a smurf is a money-launderer, particularly one who breaks down large amounts of illicit money, into smaller, un-noticed amounts. The next time you see Papa Smurf – that shiny thing on his vest isn’t a gold button, it’s a Bitcoin pin – deceitful little investment broker. 🙄  Our new foster-sons wouldn’t do anything like that. They are honest and upstanding – in the flower garden.

Smurfs are Smurfs in every country except Germany. In Germany, they are called ‘Strumpfs,’ which means ‘stockings.’ I found that out one day, as I was pursuing The Last of The Mohicans. The pioneer explorers of the dense northern New York forests were known as leather-stockings – lederstrumpfs, in German. They used animal hide – usually deer skin – to make tough coverings for their legs, to protect from rattlesnakes, broken branches, brambles, briars, and poison ivy and sumac. There’s none of that in our gardens.

(There are some Stooge sets that are so garish, even the son won’t buy them.)

DIZZY – MY HEAD IS SPINNING

Oh dear, gentle readers, the decline and fall of proper English usage continues apace. There are more people who know less about the language, and prove it, by writing and publishing their errors.

When I began blogging, lo these many (4) years ago, I had to click to get my output Spellchecked. Now, I don’t even have my fingers raised from the keys, before that dreaded wavy red underline tells me I’ve Miss Spelled mispilled somehow erred – which would be great, if the program actually spelled the correct word.

When I enter text into a translation program, it even tells me that my foreign language words are not spelled ‘correctly’ in English. GrammarCheck is just as bad.  It’s more powerful now, but the code-writers could have used GrammarCheck themselves.

I wrote ‘The Beatles – Let It Be’, and was ‘corrected’ to – let it is.  I typed ‘lay it down’ – and was ‘corrected’ to lie it down.  It wanted me to revise one line to – ‘any idea we were coming had’.  That program may have been upgraded by a Squarehead Kraut, because only the Germans the verb at the end of the sentence put.

Other official, commercial headshakers include:
MSN’s headline that –Seattle sets record four loudest stadium.
a Wikipedia photo, captioned ‘The Chicago L’  It’s an elevated train, Loser!
a crossword puzzle where the clue ‘Classic Chevy’ – equaled ‘TBird’, apparently built by Henry and Edsel Chevrolet.

it hardens back to a time – Only between your ears. I harken (or hearken) back to archaic usage.

beer-swaling hockey nuts – So many illiterate, bladder-emptying jokes…they’re swilling.

Rule could effect record company profits – What is the affect of incorrect usage?

I could really careless about a number – I couldn’t care less about your careless misusage.

She clamored up the stairs – making a lot of noise, as she clambered up the stairs.

Bare with me a while, seems to be an invitation to a party I can’t bear to miss.

warned of their want to cross the road – I want them to know that the correct word is wont. (not won’t)

the couple had a relationship, but only plutonic – Wow, that’s out of this world.

sense you left….your English doesn’t make any since

I’d bend over back words – Like ‘Asshole’? That’s a ‘back word’ for backwards writers.

Toe-headed people like me – More like ass-headed. tow-headed = sandy-colored hair.

I studied Shakespeare and Julia’s Cesar – You just want to pound your head, or a teacher’s.

eats chutes and leaves – Without understanding the joke – or Botany.

a bowl haircut, like Moe from the Three Stugges – A fourth stugge stooge wrote this crap.

a quilt made from old flower sacks – Filled with roses and crysanth krisan more roses. Does anybody besides me remember when flour came in sacks?

They’re being terrorists shouldn’t bother anyone. – Their being a professional writer, should!

a tee-shirt bearing her mid drift – I bear a mid-drift; she was baring her midriff.

did the ice-bucket challenge with a pale of cold milk – Well, a pail of it is white.

Farmers’ Market vendors sell beefstake tomatoes – To vampire killers?

A butcher sells male and peamale bacon

caught in the straight-jacket of social expectations – Go strait to the dictionary!

came to blows with eatchother – Please note the spacebar below

Gourmet salad dressings – tomatow and beal – Tomato, mixed with things like cranberry and mango. What in Hell is beal?

He wasn’t aloud to carry a gun – He had to keep quiet about what he was allowed to carry

He wrecked havoc – I hate it when someone wrecks my havoc. I just get the detritus and debris randomly distributed, only to find some OCD has wreaked order and neatness with a broom.

The hooker lifted her short skirt to display her wears – But she wears none, so bewares, don’t get caught unawares, in the warehouse, among the softwares and hardwares.

So I od not have to mention it again – It’s odd that they don’t know the correct word is ought.

Ball your eyes out – I would bawl, but at least it’s better than eyeing your balls out.

They’re just etching out a living – There’s no need for eking a living, when you can make etchings.

I’ll leave you with the tale of a reader who reached my site, riding on the search term “Archron, Ohio.” He may have found me, but he’ll never find Akron.

 

Flash Fiction # 17

 

 

 

 

 

Seinfeld Script

Once upon a time, there was an arrogant old geezer who felt he could write because he occasionally strung a few words together.  He saw a pretty picture and said, “I could compose a Flash Fiction about that.”

The more he stared, the harder his brain cells ossified.  What was that thing?  He was like Curly the Stooge, “I’m tryin’ to think – but nuthin’s happenin’.”

He read what several others had written, but that just gave him a dozen themes that he couldn’t plagiarize.  “It’s useless.” he said, “I’ll never get a 100 word story out of this.”

The end.

 

Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site, and use her Wednesday picture as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

 

Purple Jesus

I wonder already, how many of you know what I’m talking about, and how many are just shaking your heads, confused and wondering.  Did you ever go to college or university?  Did you ever get really wasted on booze?  Did these two things happen more or less in conjunction?  Chances are, you know about Purple Jesus.

Purple Jesus is the drink of choice for those who want to be a little more upscale than those who merely swill beer.  It’s the all-you-can-drink buffet served by folks who want to throw a party you won’t remember.  There’s supposed to be a recipe for it.  One bottle of Rye, one bottle of rum, one bottle of gin, and one bottle of pure, unflavored alcohol.  All “bottles” are 26ers in Canada, and fifths in the USA.  For each bottle added to the communal pot, a 48 ounce can of Welch’s Grape Juice is stirred in.

In practice, it includes whatever the BYOB guests bring.  It all gets covered by the taste of the grape juice anyway.  At the party I attended, the mixing was done in a huge canning kettle.  With two universities and a large Community College in town, there are tales of bathtubs in the students dorms, stained permanently purple.  Scrub and rinse the tub, put in a new stopper, and you’re ready to party.

The little bash I attended was supposed to be a lease-breaking party.  Two friends had signed a year’s lease, but wanted to move to a handier location after eight months.  The landlord wouldn’t let them sub-let, and didn’t want to be bothered screening a new tenant, hence, The Party.

Newly married, the wife and I arrived on-time, to find the shindig already under way.  All chairs and sofas were full, so we wound up sitting on a couple of cushions on the floor.  A short while later, we were joined by a hippie couple and their male, deodorized, pet skunk.  Cute little fellow, (the skunk) friendlier than any cat.

All of us sucked back the PJ, except the hippies; they toked up and added a contact high to the room.  They lived on the seventh floor of another apartment building, and the next day, the skunk committed suicide by walking off the balcony, or so they claimed.  Poor thing, probably thought it could fly.

Our hostess served each of us a twelve-ounce glass of this witch’s-brew, as we sat on the cushions.  The stuff goes down like Kool-Aid.  Twenty minutes later, my glass was empty.  I went to stand up to get a refill, but the hostess told me to sit, and got it for me.  Twenty minutes later, my glass was empty, again!  With no hostess in sight, I lithely arose….and apparently an earthquake tipped the building.  Holy S**t, I think I’ll just collapse sit here and coast for a while.

The party was in the middle of February, but with that many people, the doors to the snow-covered balcony were left open.  The first glass you get with the ladle.  Perhaps the second glass you get, you use the ladle.  By the third glass….ah, t’hell widdit, just dip the glass into the pot, and get grape-coated fingers.

One of the partiers did this, and then stepped out for some fresh air.  Seeing the humor potential only a drunkaholic would, he grabbed a small handful of snow, and tossed it at one of his friends.  At least it struck the wall in the same room.  The person splattered by the ricochet got up, went to the kitchen, dipped out another glassful of the magical elixir by hand, grabbed some snow, and tried to return the favor.  Soon, it looked like a pie-fight in one of the Three Stooges movies.

When the gaiety subsided because everyone was out of breath, the walls were decorated with dozens of little purple exclamation points.  The grape-encrusted snow had hit the walls, melted and run down, leaving purple tracks.  Maybe my ears were anesthetized, I didn’t think the noise level got too high.  The next day, the landlord came up to complain, and saw all the marks on the wall.  It cost them the price of repainting the room, but they got their wish.  They were out by the end of the month.

Ah, the good old days, when we were invulnerable.  Now, if I have a second small glass of Pepsi, I pay for it the next day.  Never *regular* partiers, both the wife and I cut back when we got married.  Did any of you party hardy when you were young and foolish?  Are you foolish enough to think you still can?  KayJai and her booze-cruise buddies need not respond to this poll.  They are exempt from self-incrimination.