Day: October 30, 2020

Spider!

Fandango16 Comments

It’s the next to the last day of October and tomorrow is Halloween. I have not participated in any of the numerous Halloween prompts, including Tourmaline’s Halloween Challenge, because, when it comes to Halloween, my overall feeling is “meh.”

However, her Halloween Challenge prompt word today is “spider,” and a few days ago I took this picture of a spider that had the audacity to be crawling up my bathroom wall. I’m not a fan of spiders and I don’t like it when they come into my house and invade my space. But I also don’t like killing them, either.

I managed to coax this spider onto a piece of paper and to carry him, her, or it out to my backyard where I let it walk off the paper on its eight spindly legs and presumably to see, with its eight freaky eyes, another day. But I did warn the spider that, should he/she/it darken my doorstep (or my bathroom wall) by venturing into my humble abode once again, I may not be so forgiving.

And now I can also brag that I did, in fact, respond to at least one Halloween-themed prompt.Too little, too late?

Friday Fictioneers — Mom’s Gonna Be Pissed

Fandango7 Comments

“Mom’s gonna kill me,” Brandi said to her younger brother. She got down on her knees and frantically started searching around her locker.

“What did you do?” Kenny asked her.

“Quit asking stupid questions and help me look for the house keys,” Brandi said.

“Did you lose your keys again?” Kenny asked. “Yeah, Mom’s gonna be pissed.”

“You’re not helping, jerk,” Brandi yelled at her brother. “Help me find the damn keys, would you?”

“Are you sure they’re not in your backpack?”

Brandi picked up her backpack and started searching through it. “Oh thank God!” she said, sighing in relief.

(100 words)

Written for this week’s Friday Fictioneers prompt from Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. Photo credit J Hardy Carroll.

The Obsession

Fandango22 Comments

When he was a student, our son Victor had an insatiable appetite for science. He took every science course his school offered, and didn’t ever require us to prod him to study or to do his homework. His teachers were astounded by the way he soaked up knowledge like a sponge.

He went to college and excelled in mathematics, anatomy, biology, and physiology. He earned advanced degrees in various scientific disciplines and ultimately enrolled in medical school to become a doctor.

As his proud parents, we waited with anticipation to see what he would do with his life. It held so much promise and we knew that he would make his mark in the world and become famous.

Well, our Victor did, indeed, become famous. Or perhaps infamous would be a more apt word. He grew obsessed with the study of chemical processes and the decay of living cells. So obsessed did he become that he gave up his thriving medical practice in order to devote his time to gaining insights into the creation of life through the regeneration of dead and decaying cells.

Our enormous pride in our son, a scientific prodigy, ultimately turned to shame when his obsession took him down a wrong path. One that would lead him to create his own creature, often referred to as Frankenstein’s Monster.Our beloved son Victor is all alone now. No one else is around as he sits in solitary confinement in prison, the beating of his heart the only sound he hears.

Written for these daily prompts: The Daily Spur (student), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (insatiable), Your Daily Word Prompt (require), Ragtag Daily Prompt (anticipation), and Word of the Day Challenge (monster).I also managed to use a few lines from the the song “I Think We’re Alone Now,” that Jim Adams gave us today for his Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Music Challenge.

Fibbing Friday — Frightening Fibs

Fandango17 Comments

Frank (aka PCGuy) and Di (aka Pensitivity101) alternate as host for Fibbing Friday, a silly little exercise where we are to write a post with our answers to the ten questions below. But as the title suggests, truth is not an option. The idea is to fib a little, a lot, tell whoppers, be inventive, silly, or even outrageous, in your responses. Today is Frank’s turn to host and here are his questions.

1. What is a poltergeist?

It’s statue erected in honor of a poll taker by the name of Herman Geist, who, in a lifetime of taking political polls, never ever got one right.

2. What supposedly happens if you look in the mirror and say, “Bloody Mary” three times?

It triggers menstruation, but only if you are a woman and your name is Mary.

3. What’s so unlucky about the number 13?

It’s unlucky because it’s forever stuck being a young teenager.

4. Why do banshees scream?

Because otherwise, no one would hear them.

5. What happens to a vampire in daylight?

It goes batty.

6. A Nightmare on Elm Street wasn’t about a monster who could kill people in their dreams. What was it about?

It was about that day this summer when an out-of-control wildfire in Northern California destroyed all the homes on Elm Street in Napa.

7. Who did Norman Bates dress up as in the movie, Psycho?

Young Frankenstein.

8. The Amityville Horror wasn’t about a haunted house. What was it about?

It was about that day this summer when a whale washed up onto the beach.

9. What are the three witches doing at the beginning of MacBeth?

Pole dancing in front of Jeffery Geist, the hapless political poll taker.

10. What classic monster lives under the Paris Opera House?

Banshees, because that’s the only place they can be heard without screaming.

Time Change Heads Up

Fandango5 Comments

As you know, this coming Sunday morning at 2:00 in the U.S. we are supposed to set our clocks back an hour as we transition from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time. My laptop, my iPhone, and my Apple Watch do this automagically, but I have to manually set most of the other clocks in my home back an hour.

Well, apparently WordPress requires some manual intervention as well.

I schedule my daily FOWC with Fandango prompts up to two weeks in advance. I have them set to post at 12:01 a.m. Pacific time each day. But this morning I was checking on my scheduled posts and discovered, much to my chagrin, that posts scheduled after 2 a.m. on November 1st were now scheduled to be posted an hour earlier. So instead of my November 2nd and thereafter FOWC with Fandango posts being published at 12:01 a.m. on the specified date, they were all scheduled to post at 11:01 p.m. the night before.

So, just a heads up for those of you who schedule your posts in advance. Check to see that they are, in fact, scheduled to post on the date and time you planned for them to be posted. Otherwise, as I had to do, you may have to manually go in and change the day and time you had originally scheduled them to post.