Free Write - Expletive Deleted

 

In place of a photo prompt for our weekly Free Write, Rick chose two words...Oh, Shit... making it a slightly different challenge. Since all three of us are in the same country now for these sessions, we decided instead of taking turns giving a prompt, we would decide on the prompt together and write for ten minutes. There are several other people whom we send to prompts so they can do a free write from a stranger's prompt.

Rick's Free Write

"Oh, shit," in my personal vocabulary, is shorthand for something I’ve done that’s stupid but not of serious consequence.

Spilled spaghetti sauce on my pants.

Dropped a dish in the sink and chipped the edge.

Hit a bad shot on the golf course.

For issues of electronics such as computer software glitches or balky printers, I’m inclined to other expletives. The semi-meaningless F***! Or, for emphasis, F*** F*** F***. These issues may eventually prove inconsequential, or not, but they are not (usually) my fault. More likely one of Bill Gates’s minions who like to tinker with program updates just for the hell of it.

I don’t swear a lot (I don’t think), and generally only at home in private.

I get it out of my system and then start trying to solve the problem.

To my recollection, I’ve never smashed a computer in anger.

Clothes will wash.

Dishes can be replaced.

The bad golf shot… well, that’ll stay with me awhile.

(Postscript: After we returned home from this free write session, I dropped a glass in the sink and it broke. Yes, I automatically said ‘Oh, shit.’)

Julia's Free Write 

Oh shit indeed!

This morning as I checked messages, I saw one from a friend and opened it.

Now, usually he sends as reel, a cartoon or an article on politics: nope, it was today’s free write prompt “Oh shit.”

And that was exactly in tune with my sentiments: turning one’s mind away once one knows is not easy!

I tried but probably wrote it a half a dozen times before we actually met.

I was brought up in a very conservative family, and environment, where we weren’t even exposed to “dirty” words.

I remember one famous road trip where my mother actually ended up forbidding the word “man”. We had it down pat, inflection, emphasis and all exactly like “damn”.

Now damn had we said damnation would have been o.k., after all, it was in the Bible.

Then there are language differences: when I first came to France my then boyfriend had me convinced that the parrot in the coffee shop was called “merde” (the French version of shit).

I still cannot use the word shit but find the German “Scheisse” ever so satisfying!

D-L's Free Write 

Gina had spent six Tuesday nights from 6:30 to 9:30 in a cake-decorating course. She had watched every episode of The Cake Boss. 

Now she was ready.

Measure the flower, add two eggs, chocolate and the other ingredients. Beat air into the batter as if she were a sadist.

Grease the pans just so. Bake, but set the times four minutes in advance of being done. Mix the sugar and chocolate for the frosting. The frosting was perfect.

Add the cowboy, cow and fence figurines and if Evan was 32, he still loved cowboys. The cake was for him along with cowboy boots for his birthday. 

Gingerly, she put every decoration on the cake. She carried the plate into the dining room which had been decorated like a western ranch house.

 Phoebe the dachshund ran under her feet. The cake flew through the air landing against the giant television.

Oh Shit! 

Rick Adams is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices.com, a weekly newsletter reporting the airline industry  top stories . He is the author of The Robot in the Simulator. AI in Aviation Training.  

Visit D-L.'s website  https://dlnelsonwriter.com, She is the author of 15 fiction and three non fiction books. Her 300 Unsung Women, bios of women who battled gender limitations, can be purchased  at https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/300-unsung-women-d-l-nelson/1147305797?ean=9798990385504 

Visit Julia's blog. She has written and taken photos and loves syncing up with friends.  Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/