Month: December 2020

Thursday Inspiration — Trophy Wife

Fandango8 Comments

When it was Bubbles turn to walk out onto the stage, all eyes of the mostly male patrons were everyone galvanized by her understated elegance.

Bubbles was no stranger to such admiration. She was graced with curves in all the right places, long blonde hair, and sultry blue eyes. She made a good living flaunting her charms in front of a bunch of horny drunks at the gentlemen’s club. But having turned thirty in 2020, she knew that her beauty wouldn’t last forever.

So she made a resolution for 2021 that she would find a rich sugar daddy who would be proud to have her on his arm and take good care of her. Bubbles had no qualms whatsoever about playing the role of trophy wife it meant she would no longer be on display as sex object at a cheap strip joint.

Written for Paula Light’s Thursday Inspiration prompt, where the theme is “bubbles.” Also for these daily prompts: Word of the Day Challenge (turn), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (galvanize), Ragtag Daily Prompt (understated elegance), The Daily Spur (stranger), MMA Storytime (2020), and Your Daily Word Prompt (resolution).

Politically Correct Nomenclature

Fandango36 Comments

My wife and I watch a lot of shows on HGTV. Shows like “House Hunters,” “House Hunters International,” “Property Brothers,” and “Love It or List It” to name a few.

I’ve noticed that, over the past month or two, when showing houses to prospective buyers, what has always been called the “master bedroom” is now referred to as either the “main bedroom” or the “owners’ suite.”

I guess the use of the word “master” for that bedroom is considered to be sexist these days.

Four Thousand

Fandango74 Comments

Dear Followers,

I discovered yesterday that my blog has reached a milestone. According to WordPress’ accounting, 4,000 of you are now following my blog.

I know that in the grand scheme of things, the number of followers a blog has is a rather dubious number. After all, my blog has nowhere near 4000 visitors per day. More like between 250 and 350. Where are the rest of you who supposedly follow my blog? Did you follow my blog, read a post or two, and then decide that my blog is not your cup of tea? Or did you follow my blog in the hope that I’d return the favor and when I didn’t, you lost interest?

Well, whatever the case, a milestone is a milestone, right? I want to express my genuine gratitude to the 4,000, 400, or 40 of you who have chosen to follow my blog, and to especially thank those of you who actually regularly visit my blog, who like my posts, and who leave your comments.

You are a prized community of fellow bloggers who have motivated me, despite the games the powers that be at WordPress have played with us (and yes, I’m talking about the block editor among other matters), to stand fast and to continue blogging. I really do love to write and I love to post what I write, but without your encouragement and support, I’d probably have called it quits earlier this year.

So, once again, thank you, thank you, thank you. I know that for many of us, blogging and being a member of this blogging community has helped us to make it through the shitshow that 2020 has been. I hope that the new year will prove to be a better year for all of us.

Sincerely,

Fandango

FOWC with Fandango — Galvanize

Fandango32 Comments

FOWCWelcome to December 31, 2020 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 “galvanize.”

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. Please 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.

The Shadow of a Man

Fandango11 Comments

“Good tidings to you, sir,” the stranger said to me. “May I ask you to help me out? It seems that I have lost my shadow. He turned around slightly and pointed toward the ground. “You see,” he said. “My silhouette is nowhere to be found.”

This strange man didn’t appear to be a homeless man talking gibberish. He didn’t smell poorly and he was reasonably well dressed in his white dinner jacket. So what was he going on about? “I’m sorry, but I’m not sure I get your meaning,” I said.

I could see that he was beginning to get irritated. “My shadow is missing!” he said in a rather loud voice, a look of frustration on his face.

Was this man exhibiting some form of satire that I could not fathom? I looked carefully at him and pointed out that one must be standing within the range of some source of light in order to cast a shadow. Since it was neither sunny out, nor were there any artificial sources of light around that might produce a shadow, I explained to him that there was nothing unusual or untoward about being unable to see one’s shadow under the circumstances.

Curiously, just at the moment at which I pointed out that there was no source of light, the sun broke through the clouds. Given that it was late in the afternoon, I was sure that the man would finally be able to see his silhouette reflected on the ground behind him, thus alleviating his anxiety.

“Oh, look,” I said, pointing to the sidewalk behind him. “There is your shadow.”

He looked down and behind him. A smile graced his face and he said to me, “Good sir, may I offer you my most sincere wishes for many happy returns?”

I was truly befuddled. Tidings? Wishes? Happy returns? What a curious man he was. Now it was my turn to become irritated with this strange man and the way he talked. I acted out my irritation by throwing a punch at him. Suddenly, I found my arms and torso being grabbed by a handful of men, all wearing the same white coats as the man who had been unable to find his shadow. These men ignobly hauled me off and threw me into a room with padding on the walls.

I heard the strange man who had been unable to find his own shadow say, “Can you believe that he took a swing at me?” to one of those who grabbed me and threw me into the room.

Then I heard a different man say, “It looks like Mr. Alexander is having another one of his episodes. The medications are supposed to control these hallucinations. Did you check to see if he got his meds this afternoon?”

What is with these people? They apparently don’t appreciate what it means to lose one’s shadow, to have no silhouette. Don’t they realize that without a shadow a man is nothing but a ghost? I looked around my padded room, but no matter where I looked — up, down, front-to-back, and side-to-side — I couldn’t find my shadow. I couldn’t see my silhouette. I had become nothing more than a ghost.

I started to scream.

Written for these daily prompts: Your Daily Word Prompt (tidings), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (silhouette), Ragtag Daily Prompt (satire), Word of the Day Challenge (wishes), MMA Storytime (returns), and The Daily Spur (punch). Photo credit: Valori Fussell.