Day: April 6, 2018

Time To Write — Plus or Minus

Fandango14 Comments

5999B4D9-E12A-43DB-B416-D883800412BD“You’re late?” Aaron said to his wife. “You mean your period?”

“Yes,” Karla said, smiling broadly. “Three weeks late, in fact. And I’m never late.”

“So is that why you’re standing there grinning like a Cheshire and holding one of those pregnancy test sticks in your hand?” Aaron asked, pointing to the stick. “Did you pee on it yet?”

“No, silly,” Karla said. “I wanted to wait until you got home.”

“Okay,” an excited Aaron said. “Let’s do this thing.”

The two walked hand-in-hand to the bathroom. When Aaron started to follow Karla into the small bathroom, she objected. “Can I have some privacy please?”

“What? It’s not like I’ve never seen you pee before,” Aaron pointed out.

“You’ve never seen me pee on a stick,” Karla said, as she walked into the bathroom and closed the door.

After a couple of minutes, Aaron grew impatient waiting for Karla to come out of the bathroom. He knocked on the door. “You okay in there?” The door swung open and Karla stood there, tears streaming down her cheeks.

F784344A-B093-43F9-AB95-BCC1B681416EAaron couldn’t tell by looking at Karla’s expression whether the indicator showing on the stick was a plus sign or a minus sign. “Are those tears of joy or tears of sorrow?” he asked.

Karla slowly walked toward Aaron, put both of her arms around his neck, stood on her toes, and whispered in his ear. “Happy Father’s Day, sweetheart.”

Written for Rachel Poli’s Time To Write prompt. The challenge is to write a story starting with the words, “You’re late.”

I’m Having a Lot of Trouble Today

Fandango9 Comments

I don’t know why I’m having so much trouble with today’s one-word prompt, “haul.” But for some reason, my mind is blank.

Maybe it’s because I’m tired. After all, I had to haul my sleepy ass out of bed at 6:00 yesterday morning so I could get to the DMV to take the written test to renew my driver’s license. I wanted to get there super early in order to avoid the inevitable long lines. But once there I learned that there was a glitch in the system and I could either wait for an indeterminate amount of time for the glitch to be fixed or come back another day. I chose the latter.

Or I could write the story about when I told my girlfriend back in the day that I had just scored some tickets to see Hall & Oates.

27D0ACE1-018E-4675-8B1A-9996DED0FD64.jpegBut instead of being as excited as I was, she gave me a weird look and said, “Why in the world would you think I’d want to see someone haulin’ oats?” I swear I’m not making that up.

Alternatively I could have explained how my best friend’s favorite expression when we were teenagers was to say we needed to haul ass whenever we were headed out to do something.

And then there’s the expression I sometimes used to say to my wife when she’d come home from a day at the mall with her lady friends. She’d walk into the house with an armload of full shopping bags and I’d typically say something like, “Quite a haul you got there.”

Or I could have told a tale about the summer I spent working for a brick mason. He was supposed to teach me the art of brick masonry, but instead I spent the summer loading a wheelbarrow full of bricks and hauling them over to where he was brick masoning.

But honestly, I got nothing today. So I think I’ll skip today’s one-word prompt. I’ll just haul my ass outta here and do something productive, like take another practice written test for my next trip to the DMV.

Friday Fictioneers — A Ground Floor Opportunity

Fandango13 Comments

img_1038Amanda called over to her shift supervisor. “Who’s gonna dust them things?” she asked, pointing to the decorative fixtures hanging from the high ceiling.

“Don’t worry about it, Amanda,” Henry said. “The property management company has a special crew they bring in every month to clean them. They have special equipment they use to vacuum those fixtures.”

Well, I’m new here, you know,” Amanda said, “but I’ll be damned if you’re gonna get me up there to dust those damn things. I get dizzy at heights.”

“No worries, Amanda,” Henry said. “You will definitely be staying on the ground floor.”

(100 words)

Written for this week’s Friday Fictioneers prompt from Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. Photo credit: Dale Rogerson.

F is for Foghorns

Fandango25 Comments

5CA697E3-CDA5-4F21-89D8-9F95001A30B3I was originally going to title this post, “F is for Fake News,” when I read that 77% of Americans who participated in a Monmouth University poll said that traditional TV news networks and newspapers were involved in reporting “fake news.”

But then I decided, in the interest of controlling my blood pressure, I would post about something far less controversial: foghorns.

I live in San Francisco, which is located on a peninsula bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east by the San Francisco Bay. My house is almost equidistant from the ocean and the bay — about three miles from each. At night, when I’m walking our dog, I can hear the haunting sounds of foghorns as ships pass through the Golden Gate.

img_1018The Golden Gate is a strait that connects the San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean. It is defined by the headlands of the San Francisco Peninsula to the south and the Marin Peninsula to the north. Since 1937, the strait has been spanned by the Golden Gate Bridge.

img_1020The Golden Gate is often shrouded in fog, especially during the summer. Heat generated in California’s central valley causes air there to rise, creating a low pressure area that pulls in cool, moist air from over the Pacific Ocean. Because it’s the largest break in northern California’s coastal mountains, a dense, persistent stream of fog enters the bay from the strait. It’s hauntingly beautiful to hear the lonely blaring of the foghorns each night.

Below, you can see a mesmerizing time-lapse video of the fog rolling over the Golden Gate Bridge. (Note: there is no sound in this video clip.)