“Show me the money, dammit!” Jake yelled at his lawyer.
“Well, here’s the problem,” Calvin said. “You never applied for a copyright on your design, so even though you claim it was a uniquely original design, someone else applied for and received a patent from the U.S. Patent Office. Do you remember when I told you that you needed to copyright your design. Why did you decide not to do that?”
Jake’s face took on a waxy appearance. He gave his lawyer a quizzical look. “What the fuck, Calvin? I thought when we discussed this you said you were going to take care of all of that legal and administrative crap, like copyright or patent applications or whatever. I’m out millions because you screwed up.
“Calm down, Jake. You’re acting a bit emotively,” Calvin said. “Fortunately I recorded our conversation. You remember, right? I told you to send me your technical drawings and detailed specifications. But you never did, even after I reminded you several times. I figured you changed your mind. Now it’s too late, Jake, and there’s no money to show you. By the way, you’ll get my bill in the morning.”
Written for Roger Shipp’s Flash Fiction for the Purposeful Practitioner. Photo credit: Alexander Schimmeck on Unsplash. Also for these daily prompts: Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (copyright), My Vivid Blog (original), The Daily Spur (decide), Ragtag Daily Prompt (waxy), Word of the Day Challenge (quizzical), and E.M.’s Random Word Prompt (emotive).
Frank (aka PCGuy) and Di (aka Pensitivity101) alternate as hosts 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 our responses. Today is Di’s turn and she wants to know…
Who sang about the green green grass of home? The guy who cuts my grass.
Where will you find The Wind in the Willows? Down by the ocean at the Willows Beach dunes.
Who was Nora Batty? She was the crazy lady who always stood outside of the grocery store and yelled at people as they left.
Who was the star of Tales of the Riverbank? The salmon swimming upstream to spawn.
Who sang ‘I’m gonna make you mine’? The Police. It was their follow-up song to “Every Breath You Take.”
What is a dowager? A breed of dog.
What do the letters LED stand for? Leverage Ending Development.
What are ‘cobbles’? A breed of cat.
What is a shoe horn? A horn in the shape of a high-heeled shoe.
What was once advertised as the fifth emergency service? The Heimlich Maneuver.
Maggie, at From Cave Walls, and Lauren, at LSS Attitude of Gratitude, alternate hosting Throwback Thursday. The idea of the prompt is for them to give us a topic and for us to write a post in which we share our own memories or experiences about the given topic. This week, Lauren chose the topic of “vacations and holidays.” She wants to know…
Did you and your family have regular vacations/holidays?
When I was a kid, we never went on vacations. Both of my parents worked, my father six days a week, 12 hours a day, my mother five days a week, eight hours a day. So vacations were something my family didn’t take. As far as school holidays, like Christmas and Easter (now known as Winter Break and Spring Break, respectively), for me, they were staycations.
Once I grew up and had my own family, we made a point of taking at least two or three major family vacations a year.
Were they like most people I knew, tied to school holidays?
Yes, when my kids were in school and still living at home, our vacations were tied to school holidays. But once they became adults and moved out of our house, my wife and I would take vacations any damn time we felt like it. Until 2020, that is. We haven’t had a real vacation since the pandemic began.
Were vacations a big deal or just time to get away?
Our family vacations were pretty big deals and required a lot of planning, from destinations to itineraries to accommodations and to reservations.
Did the whole family always travel together or did the kids go away for their own time?
When the kids were still at home, we mostly traveled as a family. Now our adult kids do their own thing.
Can you think back to a wonderful vacation memory that you treasure? Were their any fiasco vacation memories you wish never happened? Were there some that you can laugh about now, but at the time were horrible?
We loved to visit America’s national parks as a family and we all have wonderful memories from those trips. As to fiasco memories, we had one trip that was kind of a comedy of errors…at least for me. We drove to South Dakota from Chicago to visit The Badlands National Park, Mount Rushmore National Monument, and Wind Cave National Park.
Badlands National Park
It was a camping trip and we stayed at various campgrounds. Several things happened during this vacation that I wished never happened.
I backed our car into a tree
I drove for about 100 miles with the emergency brake on
I almost set our campsite on fire when I was frying a some trout we caught that day over a campfire
I tore my Achilles’ tendon playing basketball at a KOA campground one day and the next day I went horseback riding and almost fell off my horse at full gallop because I couldn’t use my right ankle in the stirrup
I had to go to the ER in Rapid City (and when I finally got back to Chicago, had to have surgery to repair my torn Achilles’ tendon)
On the drive back home, my wife had to drive because I was sick as a dog and was throwing up most of the trip
And yes, we can laugh about it now, but at the time, it was pretty horrible for me. Honesty, that was like a National Lampoon’s Vacation movie and I was Chevy Chase.
Were your vacations times to go, go, go, or were they time to relax and refresh?
Some, like when we went to the beach for a week, were more relaxing. Others were more go, go, go.
Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of your earlier posts that they might never have seen? Or remind your long term followers of posts that they might not remember? Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year.
How about you? Why don’t you reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this very date in a previous year? You can repost your Friday Flashback post on your blog and pingback to this post. Or you can just write a comment below with a link to the post you selected.
If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on this day (the 18th) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.
This was originally posted on February 18, 2018.
You Sound Uppity
Everyone else in the class would answer “Here” when the teacher called roll in homeroom. But not Mark. He would always say “Present.” He was the only one who responded to roll calls that way.
“Why do you always say ‘present’ at roll call?” one of the other students asked Mark.
“Because I am present in class,” mark answered.
“But everyone else simply says ‘here.’ Saying ‘present’ makes you sound uppity.”
“But ‘present’ is such an interesting word,” Mark said. It’s more versatile than ‘here.’”
“How so?” the classmate asked.
“Well, for one thing, it means being where you are; being ‘here,’” Mark explained. “It can also mean being in the moment, as being engaged in what is going on. I’m not just ‘here’ taking up space, I am truly ‘present,’ fully aware of what is happening around me.”
“Yes, I can see that.”
“But ‘present’ can also be a verb that means to give something to someone, like when you present someone with an award. Or you can use it as a noun to mean something someone gives you, like a Christmas present or a birthday present.”
“Ah, I get it,” said Mark’s classmate. “Like in, ‘I want to present this present to you.’”
“Exactly,” Mark said. “And it can also mean occurring now, as opposed to having occurred in the past or something that will occur in the future.”
“Wow, ‘present’ is a cool word,” admitted the classmate. “But using it instead of saying ‘here’ during roll call still makes you sound like an uppity asshole.”
It’s February 18, 2022. Welcome to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).
Today’s word is “copyright.”
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.
This, That, and the Other 