Day: December 13, 2018

You’re Fired

Fandango12 Comments

CC0B7DFE-AC40-4984-BF49-D2B0FF58E912

“As your financial advisor, James, I strongly recommend that you consolidate your assets,” the accountant said. “Given the market volatility over the past few weeks, you don’t want to fumble the financial ball when you’re so close to the goal line.”

“Andrew,” James said to his accountant, “you’ve done a stupendous job over the years managing my money. But I think it’s time to make an adjustment.”

“An adjustment, James.” Andrew said. “Are you firing me?”

“Andrew, I have been meeting with an art broker who has a work of art, one that he describes as a true masterpiece, that he wants me to purchase,” James said. “He assures me that the value of this masterpiece will appreciate no less than tenfold, which is a far better return than you can achieve for me.”

“James,” Andrew said, “what kind of magical thinking are you and this art broker engaged in?”

“Well, Andrew,” James said, “you talked about the volatility of the market with its wide swings both up and down. But great works of art, masterpieces, always appreciate. So to answer your earlier question, Andrew, yes, you’re fired.”

Written for these one-word prompts: Scotts Daily Prompt (consolidate), Ragtag Daily prompt (fumble), Haunted Wordsmith Daily Prompt (stupendous), Word of the Day Challenge (masterpiece), and Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (magical).

Number Two

Fandango27 Comments

1C7B1692-B890-4987-9F7F-07690554C869You’re with your friends and you feel a dump coming on. How do you excuse yourself to go to the bathroom? Do you just stand up, say “excuse me,” and leave the room? Or do you have another way of announcing that you need to heed nature’s call?

My go-to expression is to say “I need to see a man about a horse.” I know that makes no sense, but that’s my signal to everyone that it’s, um, pony time? I might also announce that “it’s time for my mid-morning sit down.” Or mid-afternoon or whatever time of day it happens to be.

My other, more 21st century expression is “I need to go check the latest news,” since I never have my sit downs anymore without bringing my iPhone with me. I’ll stay there, seated and reading my iPhone, until my butt cheeks start to tingle.

My son usually tells us that “the buffaloes are at the gate.” My wife and daughter, however, make no announcements. They just stand up and disappear for a few minutes and then return, seemingly no one else the wiser (or so they hope).

So what about you? When in the company of others and the need to use the bathroom hits you, do you just get up and leave the room for a few minutes, or do you somehow announce your departure? If so, what do you typically say? And be honest — do you take your smartphone with you? Or a book or magazine?

Inquiring minds want to know.

 

Character Assassination

Fandango13 Comments

9F00B283-3619-42C7-8BE1-2427672C2F6BI hate when that happens. At around 11 pm last night I composed this post in response to the “In Other Words” prompt from Patricia’s Place. My post was about a conversation between Martha, who was complaining about her seasonal affective disorder, and Milton, who thought she was talking about a seasoning disorder.

Right before I turned out the light and went to sleep, I scheduled that post to publish at around 3:30 am my time. And when I woke up this morning, I checked to make sure it actually posted. It did. Yay!

But when I read it with my fresh and bright morning eyes, I saw that, much to my chagrin, in the middle of the post, Milton became Martin. But then, in the next sentence, Martin reverted back to Milton. WTF?

I have since gone back and edited the post. I removed Martin, may he rest in peace, in the offending sentence, and inserted Milton back where he belonged. I feel bad about taking Martin out, but it had to be done. Just business, nothing personal.

The moral to this story is that you shouldn’t compose and schedule a post when you’re really sleepy and your eyes are half closed. In the end, you, too, might have to assassinate one of your own characters.

Day 13 — The Seventies

Fandango8 Comments

30 DayJust one song from the 70s? Impossible. Can’t be done. There were way, way too many great songs from that decade.

But okay, if I have to, I’m going with the song from which I got my blogger name, Fandango. Can you guess what song it is? Well, you don’t need to guess because here it is, straight out of 1975. Party on Garth. Party on Wayne.

In Other Words — Seasonal

Fandango10 Comments

C7078BF8-1D8F-41EF-9933-131559A1F4C2“It’s called seasonal affective disorder and I get easily fatigued, very depressed, have feelings hopelessness, and tend to withdraw socially,” Martha said.

“Then you should just change your diet to less spicy foods.” Milton suggested.

“Spicy foods, Milton? What do spicy foods have to do with it?” Martha asked.

“Well,” Milton said, “if you have some kind of disorder that’s affected by certain seasonings, you should simply stop putting those seasonings on your food.”

“Milton, dearest, it’s a seasonal disorder, not a seasoning disorder.”

In other wordsThis post was written for the In Other Words prompt from Patricia’s Place. The challenge this week is to write a story or poem of five lines or fewer using the word “seasonal.”