Day: November 1, 2019

20/20 Hindsight

Fandango6 Comments

39E625E9-865A-4370-B949-F6D0E93D065B“What would you say is your biggest regret?” David, the interviewer, asked.

“You know what’s strange?” Michael said. “There were so many opportunities to do the right thing, options that could have yielded a different outcome.”

“Can you elaborate?” David asked.

Michael’s eyes got watery. He took a deep breath, put his right hand on his chest over his heart, as if he were having a heart attack, and said, “Well, I shouldn’t have put all my eggs in one basket.”

“Well, Michael, you can’t blame yourself,” David said. “After all, even though he’s a conman, he is also a charismatic guy.”

“And yet here I am, having lost everything and spending years in federal prison, while the man I did all of these illegal deeds for is still out there, unpunished, doing his thing,” Michael Cohen said. “Using 20/20 hindsight, I rue the day I first met Donald Trump.”

This strictly fictional tale was written for these daily prompts: Ragtag Daily Prompt (regret), Your Daily Word Prompt (strange), The Daily Spur (opportunities), Word of the Day Challenge (yield), Daily Addictions (chest), and Fandango’s One-Word Challenge. Image credit, Job Carter at Cartertoons.com.

Friday Fictioneers — The Letter

Fandango20 Comments

26A9AA49-5F9A-46BB-AB6F-B4186B576C1EIt was very late and Jason was exhausted. He went to his home office, put his satchel down on his desk, noticed two empty Tupperware containers, a small, clean glass, and a large manila envelope.

He opened the envelope and read the letter.a3b59b80-f2c2-40ae-a23e-2b3258e7a0df.png(100 words)

Written for this week’s Friday Fictioneers prompt from Rochelle Wisoff-Fields.Photo credit: Fatima Fakier Deria.

Beckie’s POP of Positivity

Fandango8 Comments

7AFBFB01-1D2D-4626-80CE-82ED9B4E9812So Beckie, over at Beckie’s Mental Mess, has this weekly thing she calls the “Pop of Positivity.” Beckie explains that it’s based on one simple thing: life doesn’t have to suck all the time. “Let’s face it,” she says, “there’s a helluva lot of negativity in the real world, and it’s pretty hard to escape it. I thought of this as a means to brighten up everyone’s day. Taking time away from thinking about the negative and switch gears and think of the positive. Perhaps, we can all share some smiles along the way, too.”

Beckie tagged me to participate this week, and the theme she chose is “Funny Movie Scenes of Animals or People Acting Like Animals.” I think I’m supposed to post three examples of such scenes.

I found two kind of funny scenes from movies but the, for my third video, I chose a compilation of funny animal clips I found on YouTube.

I hope you enjoyed this Pop of Positivity! If so, do one of your own and link back to Beckie’s post!

Trick-or-Treater Tally

Fandango28 Comments

FCAC1124-129C-4375-B5D1-09B7A828A63BLast night was Halloween, a night when boys and girls dress up in scary, funny, and cute costumes and travel from house to house, asking for treats with the phrase “Trick-or-treat.”

My wife and I were prepared for Halloween night and all of the little trick-or-treaters who would come knocking at our door, would say “trick-or-treat,” and would eagerly hold out a sack or plastic pumpkin for us to drop candy into. Earlier in the day we bought three large bags of “fun-sized” candy bars: Snickers, Mounds, and KitKats.

I figured, just for grins and giggles, I’d keep an hourly tally of the number of trick-or-treaters who came to our door last night.

  • Between 5:00 – 6:00 p.m. — 0 trick-or-treaters
  • Between 6:00 – 7:00 p.m. — 0 trick-or-treaters
  • Between 7:00 – 8:00 p.m. — 0 trick-or-treaters
  • Between 8:00 – 9:00 p.m. — 0 trick-or-treaters
  • After 9:00 p.m. — 0 trick-or-treaters

Bottom line, we didn’t have a single trick-or-treater come to our door. None, nada, zip, zero!

But hey, that’s okay. Now my wife and I will be set to each have a Snickers, a Mounds, and a KitKat every day between now and Thanksgiving! Mmm.7F7C3276-88DF-4DD8-9967-D126720CFF8C

Fandango’s Friday Flashback — November 1

Fandango32 Comments

Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of you earlier posts that they might never have seen? Or remind your long term followers of posts that they might not remember?

Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year.

How about you? Why don’t you reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this very date in a previous year? You can repost your Friday Flashback post on your blog and pingback to this post. Or you can just write a comment below with a link to the post you selected.

If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on this day (the 1st) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.

This was originally posted on November 1, 2011 on my now defunct blog. It seems a fitting complement to this post about an experience at a grocery store yesterday morning.

Showing My Age

I have always prided myself on the fact (belief?) that I look younger than I am. I certainly don’t feel my age, and I often don’t act my age, either. I look at other people who are my age and am amazed at how old they look. And I think to myself how fortunate I am to not look my age. Thus, it came as quite a surprise to me last week when I learned that I apparently do look my age.

My wife and I were shopping at this marvelous San Francisco food market, Rainbow  Grocery. It’s actually a cooperative that specializes in locally grown, organic products. Among its stated goals are to “provide affordable vegetarian food products, which have minimal negative impact ecologically and socially,” and to “buy goods from local organic farmers, collectives, bakers, dairies, and other local businesses whenever possible.”

Our daughter, who is a vegetarian and believes in buying from local, sustainable sources, will love this place once she moves out here in a few months. Well, she may not be thrilled with the prices, but then she and her husband have become accustomed to paying a premium for groceries when they regularly shop at their local Whole Foods Market.

But I digress. As we were checking out, the cashier looked at me and apparently saw some old fart standing across from her. “Senior?” she asked. I actually heard what she said, but was so shocked by it that all I could do was blankly stare back at her. Seeing me literally paralyzed, my wife finally said, “Yes, he’s a senior.”Mr Old FartThe cashier then hit some button on the register and, magically, my grocery total was reduced by ten percent.

Hey, I’m all about taking advantage of senior discounts. I can ride the San Francisco public transit system for 75¢ a pop instead of $2. And my movie tickets are discounted by around $2 or $3.

But when I got my transit pass, the Senior Clipper Card, it was me who provided the documentation to confirm that I’m a senior. When I buy a movie ticket, I’m the one who checks the box for a senior ticket when I buy them online. It’s me who informs others that I qualify for a senior discount. It’s not someone else who points out that I’m an old fart.
fixin toThis traumatic event triggered a deeply suppressed memory from more than two decades ago. We were living in Dallas at the time and my wife was fixin’ to cook dinner. That’s what people in Dallas do…they’re always “fixin’” to do something…and they will occasionally get around to doing whatever it was that they were fixin’ to do.

But I digress yet again. My wife asked me to pick up a few items at the grocery store that she needed in order to finish fixin’ our dinner. I took our son, then around four or five years old, with me to the store. When we were checking out, the cashier looked at my son, smiled warmly, and asked him if he enjoyed spending time with his grandfather.  Are you kidding me? His grandfather! I was only around 40 at the time.

What is it with these damn age-fixated grocery store cashiers?