Month: March 2021

Noisy Neighbors

Fandango15 Comments

The sound of breaking glass reverberated through the whole house. My girl and I ran into the living room to see that someone had thrown a brick through our window. There was a note tied to the brick with some twine. I carefully picked up the brick and read the note and then said to my woman, “It says, ‘We’ve asked you nicely to stop playing your music so loud after 11 pm. We live a few houses down and your music is so loud, even with our windows closed we can still hear it. You’re disturbing our peace and quiet. Maybe this will get you to pay attention.’” I looked at my watch. It was 11:30 pm. I said to my gal, “that is rude.”

She said to me, “Well, you really do play your music loud, Daniel. I mean sometimes I can’t even hear myself think. Maybe you should throw our neighbors a few crumbs and shut it down after eleven at night.”

“Damn, girl,” I said. “You want me to throw them some crumbs after they threw a brick though or window? I work a 12-hour shift from nine in the morning to nine at night every day. And by the time I get home and walk through the door, it’s after ten. When can I groove on my music if I have to shut it down at eleven?”

“Well, it’s interesting how things sometimes coincide, Daniel” she said. “Your birthday is tomorrow and I was going to wait until breakfast to give this to you, but here it is. She handed him a gift wrapped box, which he eagerly tore open.

“Oh wow,” I said. “A pair of high end Bluetooth headphones. Cool, baby. Now I can jam as loud and as late as I want. I’m going to give them a spin right now.”

“Oh no you won’t, Daniel. Not until you clean up all this broken glass on our living room rug.”

Written for these daily prompts: The Daily Spur (brick), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (note), Ragtag Daily Prompt (music), Word of the Day Challenge (crumbs), Your Daily Word Prompt (coincide), and MMA Storytime (breakfast).

One-Liner Wednesday — Stripes and Plaids

Fandango8 Comments

“Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy.”

Theoretical physicist Albert Einstein

Who knew Einstein was a comedian, too?

Written for Linda G. Hill’s One-Liner Wednesday prompt.

The Stalker

Fandango5 Comments

“Hey, did you just take a stealthie of me with your phone?” Liz asked the guy in the dirty sweatshirt and the rumpled jeans as she was stepping out of the sauna wearing nothing but a towel.

“Who me?” the guy said, flashing an embarrassed smile and giving a slight shrug of his shoulders. “I’m just a guy who takes candid photos of people for, you know, human interest purposes. You wouldn’t want to stifle my artistic creativity, would you?”

Enraged, Liz grabbed the smartphone out of the guy’s hands and started scrolling through the photos on the device. She saw dozens of pictures of herself, some where she was nude. “You son of a bitch,” she shouted at the guy. “You’ve been stalking me!” She took his phone and smashed it to pieces against the iron railing of the stairs leading down to the fitness center’s dressing rooms.

Written for these daily prompts from yesterday: Ragtag Daily Prompt (stealthie), Word of the Day Challenge (rumpled) MMA Storytime ( sauna), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (slight), Your Daily Word Prompt (stifle), and The Daily Spur (iron).

Fandango’s Provocative Question #115

Fandango27 Comments

FPQWelcome once again to Fandango’s Provocative Question. Each week I will pose what I think is a provocative question for your consideration.

By provocative, I don’t mean a question that will cause annoyance or anger. Nor do I mean a question intended to arouse sexual desire or interest.

What I do mean is a question that is likely to get you to think, to be creative, and to provoke a response. Hopefully a positive response.

This week’s provocative question is about evil. The word evil is defined as something profoundly immoral and wicked. Recently I heard someone use the phrase, “a necessary evil.” When I Googled that phrase, I saw that it refers to an evil that someone believes must be done or accepted because it is necessary to achieve a better outcome — especially because possible alternative courses of action or inaction are expected to be worse.

So the question is simply this:

Is there really such a thing as a necessary evil, or is it just a way for us to rationalize or justify doing something bad?

If you choose to participate, write a post with your response to the question. Once you are done, tag your post with #FPQ 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. But remember to check to confirm that your pingback or your link shows up in the comments.

FOWC with Fandango — Note

Fandango28 Comments

FOWCWelcome to March 31, 2021 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 “note.”

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.