Day: November 4, 2019

Coming Out of the Closet

Fandango9 Comments

“You need to wake up to what’s going on,” Marvin shouted. “It’s time for you to come out of the damn closet and admit who and what you are, dammit.”

I’m awake, dude. Would you please turn down the volume of your rhetoric for once in your life,” Gordon said. “I’m just trying to keep my life on an even keel, you know what I mean?”

Yeah, that’s your problem, Gordy,” Marvin said. “You never want to rock the boat. But it’s time to be true to who you are. You need to own it.”

“Fine, you’re right,” Gordon said. “I admit it. I do like cats better than dogs. I’m a cat person. Are you happy now?”1CE6CFF5-30FC-46D3-B424-416CB12F45CF

Written for these daily prompts: The Daily Spur (closet), Daily Addictions (awake), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (volume), and Word of the Day Challenge (keel). Image credit: Ross Marinaro.

TMP — Pay Attention, Dammit

Fandango7 Comments

7702A965-1F3A-47EA-ACB9-620D9D6C462FEvery Monday, Paula Light, with her The Monday Peeve post, gives us an opportunity to vent or rant about something that pisses us off.

Today, I’m going to focus on people who walk their dog (or dogs) while talking, typing on, or looking at their smartphones. Focusing on a smartphone while dog walking is distracting at best and potentially dangerous at worst. And it’s also inconsiderate of others, both human and canine.

Between my wife and I, we walk our dog four to five times a day and we look at walking her as our primary responsibility. We have our phones with us in case of emergency, but we don’t walk our dog and use our smartphone at the same time. Sure, I may go to a park bench and sit down to give our dog a rest and whip out my smartphone to check my newsfeed or the latest sports scores. But that’s for a few minutes at most, and when we start walking again, my phone goes back into my jeans pocket.

But I see people all the time who are walking their dogs and paying attention only to what’s on their smartphones. I’ve even seen one woman trip over her dog because she was texting with one hand when the dog on the leash stepped in front of her to smell something. She took a nasty fall and scared the shit out of her dog. I mean literally, the dog took a shit right there and then.

I’ve come across people whose dogs haven’t been properly socialized or aren’t well trained. The dog will, much to the surprise of their preoccupied owners, go after my dog. If they’d have looked up from their phone, they would have seen me and my dog coming and made sure that their own dog was under control. And then there are those who don’t even notice that their dog took a dump, much less interrupt their screen time to clean up after their dog.

So my rant today is aimed at all of those dog owners who pay more attention to their smartphones than they do to their dogs.TMP

Share Your World — Touchy-Feely

Fandango13 Comments

Share Your WorldFor this week’s Share Your World questions, Melanie (at Sparks From a Combustible Mind) gets into some touchy-feely stuff. I’m not a real touchy-feely kind of a guy, but I’ll do my best.

What is the meaning of true love?

To me, true love is when you care for someone more than you care for yourself.

Do acts of kindness have a motive?

They shouldn’t have a hidden motive or agenda. They should simply be a selfless act of generosity.

If we live in a civilized world why do we see so many distinctions between rich and poor?

I’m not sure that living in a civilized society and living in one with economic imbalances are inextricably linked. In almost any society, there are going to be the haves and the have nots. In some cases it’s about power, in other cases, it’s about wealth. It does seem, though, that the economic system in the United States has contributed to the income inequities we are experiencing today, a situation that has been exacerbated since the orange moron became president and was led by the nose by the Republicans in Congress to sign a tax bill that benefited large corporations and the very wealthy while doing nothing for the average citizen, thus increasing the economic discrepancy between the rich and the poor. We need to vote the Republicans out of office so that we can at least take baby steps to reverse the course of income inequity.

Do we love ourselves more in the virtual world than in the real world?

I’m not sure I understand this question. I am the same in the real world as I am in the virtual world. I would like to say that I’m younger and more handsome in the real world, but alas, I am who I am.

Gratitude Question:
Are you grateful?

I am grateful for everything. I have a beautiful, wonderful wife and family. I’m in relatively good health (for an old fart) and I’m grateful for that. I’m also in a fairly comfortable financial situation in retirement, where I don’t have to worry about every penny, so I’m grateful for that. And if Donald Trump is removed from office, one way or another, I’ll be extremely grateful for that.

Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge #39

Fandango11 Comments

FFFCWelcome to “Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge.” Each week I will be posting a photo I grab off the internet and challenge bloggers to write a relatively short flash fiction piece inspired by the photo. While there are no definitive style or word limits, I suggest trying to keep your posts to under 300 words.

I want to sincerely thank everyone who has participated in these challenges so far. Your posts have been very creative. I hope this week’s image will also generate some great posts as well.

So now it’s time for this week’s Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge. The image below is from Papafox at Pixabay.com.54A4C10F-132F-429C-836C-B11A313749B8For the visually challenged, the image shows a large chimpanzee sitting on a stool on a stage strumming on an electric guitar and smoking a cigarette.

If this picture inspires you and you wish to participate, please write your post, use the tag #FFFC, and link back to this post.

The issue with pingbacks not showing up seems to have been resolved, but you might check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

Please take a few minutes to read some of the other responses to this photo challenge.

FOWC with Fandango — Volume

Fandango24 Comments

FOWCWelcome to November 4, 2019 and to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). It’s designed to fill the void after WordPress bailed on its daily one-word prompt.

I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (US).

Today’s word is “volume.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments.

The issue with pingbacks not showing up seems to have been resolved, but you might check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. You will marvel at their creativity.