Poor Donald Trump
Old cronies are starting to flip
His approval rating is starting to slip
He seems to be losing his grip
Impeachment may be more than a blip
Written for the In Other Words prompt from Patricia’s Place. We are asked to “write a story or poem of five lines or less using the word poor.”
Parsimonious, oeuvre, and fugacious are three of today’s word one-word prompts. Who uses words like these in everyday life?
Why not say “stingy,” “frugal,” or “cheap,” instead of “parsimonious”? Who are you trying to impress?
And why not “anthology” or “collective works” rather than “oeuvre”? Are you a pretentious snob who wants to impress people by using a French word?
And why use “fugacious” when what you mean is “fleeting” or “transitory”? Seriously?
What happened to using simple, easy to understand language to effectively communicate an idea or a thought? Why use words that require someone to flutter through the pages of a dictionary or thesaurus or to dig into the origin of such words?
I don’t mean to come across with a sanctimonious attitude towards my fellow one-word promoters, but honestly, people, let’s give people real, everyday words to work with.
Having said that, did I ever tell you the story of my wealthy late uncle? I’m not sure what the origin of his great wealth was, but to give the old guy his due, the oeuvre of his poetry was worth a fortune.
My uncle, despite his great wealth, was a parsimonious bastard. For a while, his poetry did make the hearts of the women in the family flutter. But his allure was fugacious, and he soon wore out his welcome.
Except when it came to the day of the reading of his will. That day the old bastard was quite popular.
This morning, in response to “due,” my One-Word Challenge prompt today, Teresa, over at The Haunted Wordsmith, posted this. I’m pretty sure her story was fiction, but what I’m about to relate to you here actually happened.
I was a rookie supervisor at a large insurance company and one day I got a call from the head of the Personnel Department (back then, Human Resources was known as “Personnel”) telling me that I needed to speak with one of my recently hired employees. She had apparently been going around writing a lot of bad checks.
I called Marylou into my office. She was this cute little thing who had just moved to the big city (Washington, DC) from a small town in South Carolina. I explained to her that I needed to talk with her about a serious matter. Before I even completed my sentence, tears started flowing down her adorable cheeks.
“I understand that you’ve been writing checks and that many of them have bounced,” I said. “Can you tell me why you’re writing all of these bad checks?”
“Bad checks?” she asked, her innocent eyes growing wide. “Why whatever do you mean by ‘bad checks’?”
“Well,” I said, “your checks are bouncing all over the place. You know that you can’t write a check for more than the balance you have in your checking account, don’t you?”
“Oh no,” she said, “that’s not right. One of the wonderful things about working for this company is that you get a free checking account.”
“Ah,” I said. “I think I know what the problem is, Marylou. What do you think a free checking account means?”
She smiled and said, “It means you can write all the checks you want for free.”
“Yes, you can write checks for free, but you have to have enough money in your account to cover the checks you write,”I explained. “Free checking is not the same as free money.”
The next day the Personnel Department added a “How to Manage Your Free Checking Account” to its first day new hire orientation.
“I love it!” Jen said. “A puppy peeking out of a frosted doughnut hole with chocolate jimmies on it. And with chocolate fudge cookie cap with blueberries on top. It’s adorable.”
“Are you kidding me?” Adam said. “That is the stupidest figurine I’ve ever seen. Look at it. It’s shit.”
“It’s crazy cute is what it is,” said Jen.
“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help overhearing. I’m Hanz Grubner, the curator, and this piece you’re admiring comes from the world famous House of Leventhal,” Grubner explained. “This particular figurine was crafted by Herr Leventhal during his canine years and this is his most whimsical work.”
“See?” Jen said to Adam. “It’s whimsical.”
Grubner turned to Jen and said, “Young lady, you have exquisite taste. This figurine is valued at $2,500.” Then he turned to Adam and said, “And you, young man, have none.”
“$2,500 for a porcelain dog popping out of a doughnut?” Adam said. “As I said, it’s shit. I’m leaving. Are you coming?” he asked Jen.
She just glared at him as they departed.
(175 words)
Written for this week’s Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers from Priceless Joy. Photo credit: Yinglan.
Comedian George Burns
Do you agree with George Burns?
Written for Linda G. Hill’s One-Liner Wednesday prompt.
