No Flash For You!

My good friends at the 52/250 Flash have published another round of stories on the theme "home sweet home". I do not have a story this week, but it's well worth your time to read it despite, or perhaps because of, that.

Something so full of awesome it requires no introduction

100 Word Challenge: Price Check

Velvet Verbosity's 100 Word Challenge recieves no Federal tax dollars. This week's word is "bathed" and my story is called "Price Check".






"Look," Karen wanted to say, nominally In Charge but really just In Charge Of Taking Blame, her face bathed in dirty blond hair from a rapidly unwinding bun, "my older kid thinks she's going to run away with her middle school boyfriend, my younger one thinks he's going to grow up to train Pokemon, and my new boyfriend hasn't called me in four weeks. My back hurts, my knees ache, and I can't afford my rent. So forgive me if I'm not paralyzed with guilt over the fact that Tide rang up at $5.99."

From This Month's Esquire

This month's Esquire magazine (Jeff Daniels is on the cover) contains a real throat punch of an essay from Cleveland writer John Hyduk which says more about me than I probably want you to know. I'd link to it here, but it appears to be magazine only. It's well worth the price, though.

This was the paragraph that spoke the loudest to me:

"You tote a lot more to work in a lunch pail than Ring Dings. You pack alimony and autism diagnoses and car notes and the rest of the workingman's grind. Baby needs a new pair of shoes. Also braces, a better school, and a down payment on that spring field trip. And you chew whatever has been dumped on your plate in silence. You don't go into therapy. You go to work."

You'd Think I'd Be At Home With Rejection By Now....From The Rejection Files

Another 250 word story hurled back across the transom this morning. The theme was "Home Sweet Home", and the title was "Not So Nice"










She looks at him.

"I'm back," she says.

He looks at her.

"Great," he says. "How was your trip?"

She lugs one bag past him and down towards their room. Fantastic, she thinks.

"Oh, same old thing," she says. "Dull conferences. Boring speakers."

He follows with her other bag. A lot of clothes for five days, he thinks.

"Meet anyone fun?", he asks.

More than fun, she thinks.

"Nope. Just a lot of pay per view movies," she asks.

If you only knew who I was watching the movies with, she thinks.

"That's too bad," he says.

You didn't seduce a lecturer this time?, he thinks.

"What about you? What did you do?, " she says.

As if I didn't know, she thinks.

"Oh, just a lot of TV, playing on the computer, that stuff," he says.

If you only knew about the sweaty commingling we did while her kids were in school, he thinks.

"It's nice to be home," she says.

Not as nice as it would be to have followed Paul back to Seattle, she thinks.

"It's nice to have you here," he says.

Not as nice as it would be to have one more stolen afternoon with Sherry, he thinks.

"What do you want to do tonight," he says.

"Nothing," she says.

"Same here," he says.