Poor Communication

 “I wonder what’s taking Tommy, Mack, and F.C. so long,” Charlie complained to Fred.  They said they’d leave their marks prominently displayed when they got here.”

 

 

The five old friends, having parted forty years ago due to circumstances beyond their control, had promised then that they’d get together on Veterans’ Day this year at exactly this spot, and that each would write his name where it could be easily seen.

 

 

“Maybe there’s been a mistake, or a delay because of traffic,” Fred reminded his friend, as they stood atop the boardwalk, waiting patiently for the others to arrive.

 

 

Greetings and salutations, one and all, as Rochelle , who has also so graciously supplied this week’s photo prompt, guides us through yet another Friday Fictioneers.

Annunci

Happy ‘Odd Couple’ Day

Famous ‘Odd Couple’ introduction   I’m on a few ‘The Odd Couple’ pages on Facebook. Here’s an example of how I take advantage of my prodigious knowledge of old pop  culture.

11:11

 Ralph and Sam were talking at the local park.

 

 

“Hurry up,” Ralph said.  “It’s practically 11:11. You know what that pretty girl at the Coffee Nut Cafe said.  We have to make a wish.”

 

 

“My needs are so very  few,” Sam replied. “All I ask of life are the ability to open a pack of sinus pills easily, and to get my left leg into a pair of pants without falling down.  Who could want for anything more?”

 

 

The former merely gazed at his friend in amazement. “Oh yeah, that’s you, all righty,” he admitted.  “You’re quite the regular Mr. Adventure.”

 

 

Welcome back to Rochelle’s weekly Friday Fictioneers.  This week’s photo prompt is supplied by J.S. Brand .

Freak-outs Over ‘Cultural Appropriation’ Turn Halloween Dress-Up Fun Into Nightmare — BCNN1 WP

by Jonathan Turley Halloween is again upon us. Across the United States, the prospect of frightening images have some pledging to skip the holiday or closely shield their children. It is not the scary decorations or costumes but “cultural appropriation” that has triggered a tradition of recrimination and anger. Colleges and universities have warned students […]

via Freak-outs Over ‘Cultural Appropriation’ Turn Halloween Dress-Up Fun Into Nightmare — BCNN1 WP

The Pseudo~Scholars

  Mabel always enjoyed watching her favorite uncles, Lum and Abner, during their weekly chess game.

 

“This week should give the old fellows a lot to ramble on about,” she thought. “Reformation Sunday, All Saints and All Souls Days, Guy Fawkes Day.”

 

 

As always, the doting niece sat still, riveted by their pseudo~scholarly debate.  The boys spent hours making profound observations about history, theology, philosophy, as self~professed paragons of erudition always do.

 

 

“There’s only one thing that has me going crazy with suspense, though,” she couldn’t help wondering.  “Has either of them ever once really played chess?”

 

 

Rochelle, as always, brinks us yet another of her weekly Friday Fictioneers.   Instructions can be found on her blog.  This week’s photo has been provided by Jeff Arnold. 

The Power Of Music and Storytelling

     Myrtle took Harvey to his first opera, Verdi’s “La Forza del Destino”. 

 

 

“You’ll like it,” she said. “Opera helps me relax. In German it’s ‘die Macht des Schicksals.’  It’s about a Spanish Marquis whose daughter is heartbroken because he’s forbidden her to marry a Peruvian Inca half~breed.”

 

 

“It involves all kinds of murder, subterfuge, warfare, the whole works,” she explained.  ” It just goes to show how far deceit can go…all that with such perfect singing and music.”

 

 

Staring at her in total awe, he exclaimed, “That’s how you relax?!  What does it take to get you riled up?!”

 

 

Welcome back to our weekly Wednesday’s Friday Fictioneers.  Rochelle

is our weekly fearless leader.  Read her blog so you can get all the details.  For this week’s photo prompt, we have Roger Bultot to thank.

 

Anita, Coffee

   “Anita, coffee!!” was a constant refrain at the coffee shop where Anita had been working for ten years.

 

 

“If I didn’t know better,” she told Harvey, a regular, “I’d swear my full name was Anita Coffee.”

 

 

“What’s your full name?” he asked. 

 

 

“Anita Cappuccino,” she replied.

 

 

“Knowing it would annoy her, Eunice said, ‘I understand. Every day, it’s the same grind.'”

 

 

“Floyd contributed his share, “It may never amount to a hill of beans.”

 

 

Suddenly a new customer put some money into the jukebox.  Not surprisingly, the song he played was Al Hirt’s “Java.”

 

 

It simply wasn’t Anita’s day.

 

Welcome back yet again to Rochelle’s weekly Friday Fictioneers, wherein this week Jilly Funell supplies the photo prompt.

 

Parallel Lives?

Richie Cunningham had just moved from Milwaukee to Los Angeles so he needed a new bank.

 

Upon entering a local bank, he saw the loveliest lady on the platform.

 

 

“Richie, it’s me, Helen Loomis, from Walt Whitman High,” she said.

 

 

She insisted she remembered him from the drama club, that they played Hamlet and Ophelia, and that they dated.

 

 

Oddly, everything she claimed to remember was true.  The only catch was that he went to James K. Polk High in Milwaukee.

 

 

He’d never been to California before.  They were both dumbfounded when he explained that to her.

 

 

Welcome back, yet again, to Rochelle’s  Friday Fictioneers.  The details are on her page.  Sandra Crook has supplied another of her photo prompts.

Where All the Hep Cats Get to Go

 

“The Wyoming Free Library and Wyoming United Methodist Church often collaborate on book  sales,” Muriel told Gloria. “Everybody in Wyoming and West Wyoming votes at the library on Election Day too.”

 

 

“I’m happy with it too,” Gloria said.  “Every afternoon when I come here I get to meet all kinds of characters, from frazzled parents and children to Mormon missionaries.”

 

 

“Yeah,” the former opined.  Them city slickers think they’re in the center of all the action and adventure, but hey, we’re where it’s really at.”

 

 

“Besides that,” Gloria gushed, “We’re four miles from Pittston, the tomato capital of the world.”

 

 

Welcome back yet again to Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers.  Read her blog for all the interesting details.  Thank  Sandra Crook

for the swell photo prompt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Dull Before the Interesting

“I was given me drothers between the red and blue pills,” Periwinkle told Dora. 

 

 

“That really happened?” she asked.

 

 

“You know,” he replied.  “A pill, a drink, a box.  It’s different each time.  Me point is, here’s where it got us.

 

 

“It seems very mundane considering how we got here,” she reminded him.

 

 

“Duh,” he complained.   “It can’t all be magic. There has to be some ordinary paperwork involved.  People think the imagination is all colors and multi media spectaculars.   You always have to fill out forms to get there though.”

 

 

“Yes,” she said. “Even the extraordinary is somewhat dull.”

 

 

Welcome back yet again to Rochelle’s world at Friday Fictioneers. Please go to her blog to find out all about us.  Yvette Prior has supplied this week’s photo prompt.