Day: March 29, 2022

#WDYS — Tiptoe Through the Tulips

Fandango20 Comments

Zach could no longer hide his frustration with living in a public housing project. He would miss his friends, but he also knew that his life up to that point was not beyond reproach. So Zach decided to make a concerted effort to winnow out all of his negativity and to take action to better himself and his situation.

It was time to for a reboot, time to reinstall Zach, but version 2.0. He believed that if he closed the door on his past, another door would open up to a better future. It was a good plan and Zach was ready to move on.

But as fate would have it, Zach’s new friends were into drugs and the occult. Without being conscious of it, his Zach 2.0 friends were leading him down a very dark path. Much darker than the one Zach 1.0 was on. And soon word circulated back to the housing project that Zach, who sought only to live a better life, had succumbed to an overdose of street fentanyl.

To honor their old friend, the people of the housing project placed a jug of beautiful red tulips on the steps outside of Zach’s old unit, while several of his pals sang a rendition nod “Tiptoe Through the Tulips,” which as stupid as it sounds, was one of Zach’s favorite old songs.

Written for Sadje’s What Do You See? prompt. Photo credit: Yana Hurskaya @ Unsplash. Also for these daily prompts: Word of the Day Challenge (frustration), The Daily Spur (housing), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (reproach), Your Daily Word Prompt (winnow), Ragtag Daily Prompt (reinstall), My Vivid Blog (door), and E.M.’s Random Daily Prompt (occult).

Truthful Tuesday — Asking for Help

Fandango6 Comments

Melanie, of Sparks from a Combustible Mind, is filling in for Frank, aka PCGuy, who is taking a temporary hiatus from his Truthful Tuesday prompt. This week Melanie wants to know…

Should people be honest and just say no when asked to do something they either don’t want to do or are uncomfortable about doing?

On the surface, I would say that everyone should be honest, but I would also say that depends upon how close the person who is doing the asking is with the person who is being asked. If the person asking is a close friend or family member, then I think the person being asked should offer, if they are able, to help out, even though it might not be something that they might want to do — and probably wouldn’t do — for someone they’re not related to or close with. And, of course, that what they’re being asked to do is moral, ethical, and legal. But if they do commit to whatever they’ve agreed to do, they should follow through, regardless.

Why aren’t more people apt to tell the truth and save everyone involved a lot of time and aggravation?

That’s a good question. I think most people like to be thought of as being willing to accommodate a friend or family member in need, and may initially agree to do so, and then later regret having done so. But given the negative consequences of reneging at the last minute, if they had any doubts or second thoughts when the request for help was made, they should have been honest.

How comfortable are you with asking for help when the favor is something that will take a lot more time and work (and money with the gas price situation right now) than your relationship with the other party might warrant?

I try to be self-sufficient and am not the type who will ask for help under those conditions. Doing so will possibly end up in resentment — either on the part of the asker or the asked — and could tarnish, if not destroy, whatever the relationship was going forward. It’s sort of like the expression, “Never a borrower nor a lender be.” So if possible, I will try to find another way.

Of course, if we’re talking about my wife or kids, and there were no other options, I’d ask and I am sure that they would come to my assistance, just as I would for them if I were being asked.

I’m sorry, Melanie, that you’re having to deal with this situation and I hope that you can figure out a way to make it work today or to reschedule the surgery for when the necessary logistics can be worked out.

Go Big or Go Home

Fandango15 Comments

When, much to our chagrin, the condition of our old gas guzzler started to reach the breaking point, my wife and I had to make a decision about buying a new car. I wanted to get a hybrid model, specifically a plug-in hybrid. It uses a battery to power an electric motor and then, once the battery is nearly depleted, the car automatically switches over to use the gas powered internal combustion engine.

My wife had a different idea. “Go big or go home,” she said. “Let’s buy a fully electric vehicle and never have to buy gas again.”

Gas was around $4.50 a gallon at the time, and after giving it a lot of thought, I figured why not? Gas prices were bound to continue to go up, so let’s switch to electric. And that’s what we did.

This past Saturday, when we hosted a birthday party for our son over at our place, his father-in-law said to me, “You were quite prescient when you and your wife bought your electric car last August. With cost per gallon of gas approaching $6.50, you must be jubilant over that decision.”

“I am,” I said. “I actually smile every time I pass a gas station. It’s a great feeling.” Then I said to him, “So when are you going to get yourself an electric car so that you, too, can be inducted into the EV car club?”

He laughed and said, “As soon as there are as many electric vehicle charging stations as there are gas stations. Now that I’m retired, my wife and I have turned somewhat nomadic and we’re driving hither and yon all the time. I don’t want us to be out in the middle of nowhere and for our electric car’s battery to run out with no place to charge it up.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “I just hope it will be before the air is too polluted to breathe and the water is too brackish to drink.”

He looked at me, smiled, and said, “The good news is that, at our ages, we’ll probably be dead before that happens.”

Written for these daily from yesterday: My Vivid Blog (chagrin), The Daily Spur (condition), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (hybrid), Word of the Day Challenge (jubilant), Your Daily Word Prompt (induct), E.M.’s Random Word Prompt (nomadic), and Ragtag Daily Prompt (brackish).

Fandango’s Story Starter #39

Fandango9 Comments

It’s time for my weekly Story Starter prompt. Here’s how it works. Every Tuesday morning (my time), I’m going to give you an incomplete “teaser” sentence and your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to build a story (prose or poetry) around that partial sentence. It doesn’t have to be the first sentence in your story, and you don’t even have to use it in your post at all if you don’t want to. The purpose of the teaser is simply to spark your imagination and to get your storytelling juices flowing.

This week’s Story Starter teaser is:

When he invited her in and she saw what he was displaying out in the open in his living room, she immediately knew…

If you care to write and post a story built from this teaser, be sure to link back to this post and to tag your post with #FSS. I would also encourage you to read and enjoy what your fellow bloggers do with their stories.

And most of all, have fun.

FOWC with Fandango — Reproach

Fandango13 Comments
FOWC

It’s March 29, 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 “reproach.”

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. Show them some love.