I hear the Lord’s creating seagulls today. We need to sabotage that effort. Ideas?
Annoying squawks, sir?
I like that!
They could love eating garbage, sir.
Sweet! What else?
They could pester the hell out of picnickers.
Perfect! Take the afternoon off, Trevor!
Thank you!
And Trevor?
Yes?
Pick up my blue dress from the cleaners on your way home, but keep it on the down low, huh?
Yes Mr. Satan.
If you want to join the Friday Fictioneers story-writing challenge fun, check out the details at Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’ blog Addicted to Purple. where a wonderful group of supportive writers hang out. Write a 100-word story about the picture she posts each week! It’s a whole lot of fun and I highly recommend you give whirl!
Welcome Dear Readers! It’s time for Friday Fictioneers! Which means it’s time to pack up our knapsacks with 100 words of our own choosing, hike up to the top of our imaginations and jump off!
Just a heads up. Unless you love and I mean LOVE Lemon Maringue Pie, skip Lemonmaringuepieuary and go directly to Somepumpkinpieber. Better pie and flying cars!
Welcome Dear Readers! Great News! If I was abducted by aliens last night, they returned me! Proving once again it’s the little things that make life worth living.
Speaking of making life worth living, it’s Friday Fictioneers Picture Prompt Challenge Day brought to us by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields over at her blog, Addicted to Purple. Today’s 100-word story challenge is inspired by this picture:
Welcome Dear Readers! I was thinking about candy yesterday. Maybe because Halloween is coming up or maybe becausesome days is just for sittin’ around thinkin’ ’bout candy. (Sorry, sometimes my brain, Peanuts, gets really obnoxious.)
Here’s some of the vintage gum and candy that my brain, Peanuts, remembers.
Black Jack Gum
Black Jack Gum was a whole heck of a lot of fun. It had it’s own original flavor which tasted a little like black licorice but not quite. But the really cool thing about Black Jack Gum was that it was almost black so you could put it on your teeth and make it look like your two front teeth had been knocked out. Which is always a bonus when you’re between the ages of five and twelve 61.
Double Bubble Bubble Gum
Our local store had a box of Double Bubble Gum in the candy rack.It must have been there for many years because the Double Bubble gum was as hard as a rock, and it actually hurt to chew it. When I was a kid, I thought the funnies that came with the Double Bubble bubble gum were included to make you feel better while you were experiencing the pain of chewing.
Bazooka Bubble Gum:
And an example of the comics found therein:
I bought Bazooka Bubble Gum occasionally (they were a lot softer to chew) but, frankly, I preferred the Double Bubble bubble gum solely because I thought Double Bubble comics were funnier.
Candy
I remember eating Necco Sugar Wafers as a kid. I never really cared for them much, but for some reason I would still occasionally buy them and try to eat them. These tended to be the kinds of candies that would end up in the dust bunnies under children’s beds all over America along with jelly beans, candy hearts and black licorice Saltwater taffy.
Blech!
According to Wikipedia, Necco Sugar Wafers have been around since 1847. Okay, maybe in 1847, when everything kind of sucked in general, people were fine with eating candy that tasted like Tums but why do people eat them today? Could it be that “Tums” is a classic flavor that will never go out of style?
Big Hunk
They really were big too. And they were only a nickel! I have no idea what they were made out of. They did have peanuts in them, an unpleasant fact I never let deter me because the taste of the taffy-like candy would block out the taste of the peanuts or, perhaps they used peanuts that didn’t have any flavor, which was fine by me.
Then there were Jawbreakers:
The particular jawbreaker that always sticks in my mind were the ones you could buy for a while in the 1950’s called Sputniks. They were blue and had little spikes sticking out of them. They really made your mouth sore –even more sore than stale Double Bubble bubble gum did, and they didn’t even come with comics to make you feel better while you were eating them! Plus they tasted pretty horrible.
I suspect the Sputnick Jawbreaker was part of a government propaganda program to remind children how evil the Russian’s were for having launched a satellite up in space before we did.
Well Dear Readers, that’s about all the remembering my brain, Peanuts, is capable of today. But there are lots and lots vintage candy bars that are stuck between the teeth of my brain, Peanuts synapses — which might be worth prying loose one of these days.
In the meantime, my brain, Peanuts, wonders what your favorite candy was a kid . . .
Welcome Dear Readers! The Trifecta Writing Challenge this weekend is to write 33-words that are an apostrophe, which is a literary device defined as: “A figure of speech in which some absent or nonexistent person or thing is addressed as if present and capable of understanding.”
Those Imploring Eyes!
Look at me not with those eyes!
Those imploring eyes!
I confess my heart is not made of stone.
And likely to be kind.
Were it not for the emptiness I feel inside!
image by Linda Vernon Potato manipulation by Linda Vernon
Welcome Dear Readers! Happy Friday! Well after a long week of slaving over a hot keyboard, this blog is taking the day off, and is serving up this archived Pottery Barn post for your viewing pleasure! Have a great Friday! See you tomorrow!
Dear Readers! The new Pottery Barn Catalog just arrived and not a moment too soon! For you see, in this issue of The Catalog, Pottery Barn finally provides solutions to how we, as boring, ordinary citizens, can become more intriguing!
“Your Home Tells the Intriguing Story of who you are, where you’ve been and what inspires you most.” — Pottery Barn Catalog August 2012
What Pottery Barn means by this is that your home WILL tell an intriguing story of how intriguing you are IF you purchase fake-intriguing-story-about-you decor from Pottery Barn.
Frankly, PB suspects you’re not all that intriguing which is why Pottery Barn has taken the liberty of punching up your life through the use of decor that implies you are all that and a bag of potato chips. Let’s look as some examples, shall we?
The intriguing story this Pottery Barn wall decor says about you is:
You don’t quite understand about the alphabet.
Oh sure we all learned our ABC’s . . . except for you. Why? Because you were too busy helping Pottery Barn’s “Grams.”
Pottery Barn’s White Board ($56) featuring “Grams”
For you see, you were always hunting for truffles at Martha’s Vineyard with your beloved Pottery Barn Grams and therefore; you never attended school with all the other “saps” which means you can’t read or write. So now you obsessively nail gigantic wooden letters to your walls. So what? That’s not weird, it’s intriguing!
The intriguing story this Pottery Barn vignette says about you is:
You’re favorite snack is honey and shredded Parmesan cheese.
Ah! Nothingquenches the thirst and eases the hunger pangs quite like a refreshing jar of honey and a big ol’ heaping bowl of shredded Parmesan cheese after a long day of helping Grams frantically dig for truffles at Martha’s Vineyard in the backyard estates of the rich and famous before they come home.
You and Grams prefer a snack that sticks to your ribs, your fingers as well as your Pottery Barn Vintage Printer’s Customizable Cabinet! Oh sure, let people roll their eyes at how messy you are! That’s the difference between them and you. They’re stupid, and YOU’RE INTRIGUING!
The intriguing story this Pottery Barn Blackboard says about you is:
Your grandmother is a drug dealer.
If you look closelyat this blackboard, you will see that somebody has written “EMPTY Da Da Da Da.” and “Do EMPTY 4”
And you knowyou didn’t write it because you are too intriguing to know how to read and write. Could it have been Grams?
Wait a minutewhy are the police leading Grams out to that police car?
What? All those truffles Grams was digging up (and sampling) turned out to be hallucinogenic mushrooms which she apparently was selling to earn money to purchase intriguing-story-about-you decor from Pottery Barn?
Ha ha! That Grams! While most grandmothers are sitting at home in their rocker knitting sweaters, reading Reader’s Digest and clipping coupons, YOUR Grams is trading cigarettes, working out and filing appeals!
And if thatdoesn’t make YOU intriguing, Pottery Barn doesn’t know what does!
Welcome Dear Readers! I am so excited! As you may know, from time to time this blog takes it upon itself to attempt to cheer up American Literature’s most Gloomy Gus, Edgar Allan Poe. And in that light, I feel this blog is making a little progress. Check out Edgar Allan Poe’s new magazine!
WE can only hope, Dear Readers, that this his new positive attitude has staying power!
Welcome Dear Readers to Friday Fictioneers located at the corner of Fiction Street and Ears Avenue.
Friday Fictioneers is a 100-word story writing challenge hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields at Addicted to Purple where challengers write a 100-word story about the picture that Rochelle posts every Wednesday.
And this week’s story prompt picture is: buddy-uddy-uddy-uddy (← drum roll)
Viola!
Copyright – Jan Wayne Fields
I’d rather be Parallel Universing
Anna! Look! We’re in the Parallel Universe!
It’s almost exactly like our universe, Bob. Our names are even the same!
Ugh! Anna, the ocean’s saltwater! Don’t cry Anna. It’s not that bad.
I miss our Lime Jello ocean.
At least they have the same statue! Doesn’t that make you feel better?
No.
Why?
She’s not holding a stick of Arid Extra Dry deodorant like ours is.
Oh Anna, cheer up! Look! Some of the words on the plaque are the same as ours!
Which ones?
. . . your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free . . .
