Day: April 12, 2022

#WDYS — Grandma’s Dilemma

Fandango27 Comments

Grandma just couldn’t get the hang of it. She didn’t grasp the concept of answering machines. Whenever she called someone and the answering machine picked up, she couldn’t understand that there wasn’t a person on the other end, and she’d start saying, “Hello, hello, hello, it’s Grandma,” and when the voice kept talking over her, she’d get angry. And then, when she heard the tone and thought she had been hung up on, she got even angrier.

We all tried to teach her how to use the voicemail box we set up for her on her own phone, but when she listened to the messages, she didn’t realize that it was just a recording and not an actual person talking to her.

We left Grandma little notes, like “After the tone,” and “Leave us a message.” But even that didn’t work.

One day, Grandma got so angry that she called her lawyer with the intention of cutting us all out of her will. Sadly for her, and fortunately for us, her phone call to the lawyer went right to voicemail.

Grandma’s now gone, but the one thing we all have to remember her by was the voicemail message she left for the lawyer. Who knew the old bat could use such salty language?

Written for Sadje’s What Do You See? prompt. Photo credit: Taylor Heery @ Unsplash.

Speedo’s Tragic End

Fandango9 Comments

“You know that turtle, Speedy Gonzalez, I found in my backyard?” Danny asked his friend Tom.

“You mean the dingy looking one with diamond-like outlines on its shell?” Tom asked. “The one your dad ran over with the lawnmower?”

“Yeah, that was a tragedy, for sure,” Danny said. “I told my dad that he was in the backyard and to keep an eye out for him, but my dad is so forgetful these days.”

“But why would you let your turtle just roam around in your backyard like some free-range chicken?” Tom asked. “That’s just asking for trouble.”

“I was training him for the annual turtle race at the YMCA in May,” Danny explained. “He was at his peak, you know.”

“Well, Danny,” Tom said, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thanks, Tom,” Danny said, “but it’s okay. My dad felt so guilty about what he did to Speedy that he bought me a new turtle. I swear to you, Tom, it’s a literal doppelgänger of Speedy.”

You mean it has a dingy shell with diamond-shapes on it?” Tom asked, mockingly.

“Exactly,” Danny said. “And he’s even speedier than Speedy was. I’m going to win the turtle race for sure. I named him Usain Bolt and I’m going to paint a bolt of lightning on his shell.”

“Just keep your dad and his lawnmower at a safe distance,” Tom said, laughing.

Written for these daily prompts: E.M.’s Random Word Prompt (turtle), Your Daily Word Prompt (dingy), My Vivid Blog (outlines), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (tragedy), Word of the Day Challenge (forgetful), The Daily Spur (peak), and Ragtag Daily Prompt (doppelgänger).

J is for Jerry Maguire

Fandango42 Comments

For this year’s A-To-Z Challenge, my theme is MOVIES. I will be working my way through the alphabet during the month of April with movie titles and short blurbs about each movie. Today’s movie is “Jerry Maguire.”

“Jerry Maguire” was a 1996 American romantic comedy-drama sports film written, produced, and directed by Cameron Crowe. It starred Tom Cruise, Cuba Gooding Jr., Renée Zellweger, and Regina King. The movie was inspired in part by sports agent Leigh Steinberg, as well as by a 28-page memo distributed at Disney in 1991 written by Jeffrey Katzenberg.

“Jerry Maguire” was the ninth-highest-grossing film of 1996. It was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Tom Cruise, with Cuba Gooding Jr. winning Best Supporting Actor. It also received nominations for three Golden Globes, with Cruise winning for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards, with Gooding winning Best Supporting Actor.

The story is about a slick sports agent (Tom Cruise) who suddenly discovers his scruple and promptly loses his job. His sudden fall from grace motivates his quest for professional recovery, while he experiences the dawning realization that he needs the love and respect of a single mom, Dorothy Boyd (Renée Zellweger), the one loyal colleague who supports him by joining him in his new venture and sticks with him through the worst of times. Cuba Gooding Jr. plays the football star, Rod Tidwell, who remains Jerry’s only loyal client. Banking on Tidwell, Jerry and Dorothy begin to fall in love as they struggle to make their business work.

Aside from being a huge moneymaker, the movie introduced a number of new catchphrases into the vernacular, including “You complete me,” “Help me help you,” “You had me at hello,” and “Show me the money.” It is a real feel-good movie and it may even squeeze a few happy tears from your eyes.

Previous A2Z 2022 posts: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Fandango’s Story Starter #41

Fandango11 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:

Five people had already died trying to find that cursed…

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 — Tragedy

Fandango21 Comments
FOWC

It’s April 12, 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 “tragedy.”

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.