Day: March 3, 2021

Happy Together

Fandango22 Comments

“There’s already a stain on our new carpet,” Diane complained to her boyfriend. “What did you spill on it?”

“It wasn’t me, it was the cat,” Mitch said. “He threw up a hairball this morning, but I cleaned it up, so now it’s virtually invisible.”

“It’s not invisible if I noticed it,” Diane said.

“Well, it blends in with the pattern in the rug,” Mitch said. “You really have to strain to see it.”

“I don’t know why I agreed to let you get a cat,” Diane said. “He’s destroyed our furniture with his claws, he’s throwing up hairballs every other day, and I’m even finding cat fur in my food. I think we should get rid of him.”

“No way, Diane,” Mitch said, “I’d sooner get rid of you than the cat.”

“You can’t be serious,” Diane said. “You’d detonate our relationship over a fucking cat?”

“Well, consider the variables,” Mitch said. “The cat is low maintenance, not demanding, doesn’t hassle me all the time about stupid things like invisible stains on the rug. I’d say, in the scheme of things, the cat’s foibles are easier to deal with than are your idiosyncrasies.”

“Okay, fine, we’ll keep the damn cat,” Diane said.

“Great,” Mitch said. “I’m sure the three of us will be very happy together.”

Written for these daily prompts: Ragtag Daily Prompt (invisible), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (pattern), MMA Storytime (detonate), The Daily Spur (strain), Word of the Day Challenge (variable), and Your Daily Word Prompt (foible).

Fandango’s Provocative Question #111

Fandango33 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.

Today’s provocative question was inspired by this political cartoon.In case you don’t know the woman in the cartoon, she’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican freshman U.S. congresswoman from Georgia who is also known as the crazy QAnon lady. She is a far-right, pro-Trump whack-job who espouses some of the craziest of the crazy conspiracy theories.

Always confrontational and combative, she recently placed a sign outside her congressional office mocking Democratic Representative Marie Newman, whose office sits across the hall, after Newman hung a transgender pride flag next to her door in protest over Greene’s opposition to a LGBTQ rights bill. Greene’s sign said, “There are TWO genders: MALE & FEMALE. Trust The Science.”

My question today is about your beliefs about gender. Some people believe that gender identity is the personal sense of one’s own gender. It can correlate with a person’s assigned sex at birth or can differ from it. Others, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, believe that gender identity is exclusively tied to a person’s sex at birth. If you’re born with a penis, you are male; if not, you’re female. Period. Full stop.

So my provocative question is…

Do you believe that a person’s gender is inextricably tied to his or her sex at birth, or do you believe that a person can legitimately identify as a gender different from his or her birth gender? Why do you believe what you believe?

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 — Pattern

Fandango29 Comments

FOWCWelcome to March 3, 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 “pattern.”

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.