amarantine-amirite

[amarantine-amirite]

Store Wars

For reasons nobody can understand, Emily always freaks out in the barbecue store. 

Losing patience while shopping with someone else isn't new. Loads of women report their husbands coming down with "illnesses" while in the mall. Some high-end shopping centres have even come up with "dude zones" for the men to hang while the women shop.

Now, men buy barbecues way more than women do. Why don’t barbecue stores have a girl zone the way clothing stores have a dude zone? Because girls don't have the same kind of allergy to shopping as men do.

Many of her peers thought the problem was just a figment of her parents' imagination. Emily's parents had to buy an electric range because of new laws in Pennsylvania that forbid gas ranges in homes with children under the age of 18. The model they'd purchased had no dials and only worked via using an app. Additionally, Emily has trouble waiting in general, and asking her to be still and quiet makes it that much harder. Her parents knew this and used it as an excuse to yell at her because they were happy with neither the aforementioned oven situation nor the customer service at the barbecue store.

This isn't a mistake, this is a pattern. But it's not the pattern people typically think of. Emily is not the only one that loses it there. 

Lucy doesn’t struggle so much with waiting, not the way Emily does. She still went berserk in the barbecue store.. 

Lucy went to visit her mom after school. She walked into the WeWork and scanned the room, spotting her focused and frazzled mom at her desk, buried in paperwork. “Hey, Mom!”

Hee mom didn’t even look up when she grumbled, “Not now, Lucy. I’m really busy.”

Lucy’s smile faded. She approached the desk, concerned about what was happening. “Is everything okay?”

“Dammit,”

Lucy hesitated, “Should I?”

Her mom ignored her. “shit, shit, shit, shit, shit”

“OK,” Lucy said, “I’ll give you a bit and…”

Mom sighed, her tone sharp and tense. “I can’t talk right now,” she huffs, “get yourself something to eat and we'll - Goddamn!”

Lucy nodded timidly, then stepped back while her mom continued to grind something that’s clearly not working.

Indeed, she left to get something to eat. She ordered a burrito bowl with honey salsa chicken and guacamole, but it didn’t help take the edge off. 

Instead of heading back to her mother's office, she wandered into the barbecue store next door to the WeWork. She spotted some goth girl with purple hair and wearing a low cut shirt. The slut, she thought, my underwear covers more skin than that girl's day wear. 

It got worse. Out of nowhere, she ran towards the girl at full tilt and rammed her in the chest. The goth girl went down like bowling pins. “Crap, oh God, no!” she winced, “oh, there goes my arrhythmia!”

Lucy stopped. She had no idea that shoving somebody to the ground would set off an arrhythmia. At best, they'd land on their backside and be humiliated. But this consequence never registered in her head because she wasn't thinking about what happens if she shoved somebody. She just shoved them. 

Lucy saw the barbecue store employees come up with a stretcher. “Hi,” Lucy nervously introduced herself. 

“I'm…I'm Rose” the goth girl responded weakly.

Three store employees got a gurney. They put on nitrile gloves, lifted Rose, and put her on the gurney.

Lucy shook her head as she watched them. “I'm really sorry about that,” she said. 

It sounded so genuine, and yet it wasn’t. If she was sorry about anything, it was being caught doing something she wasn't supposed to do, not the thing itself.

To her surprise, Rose seemed to be very understanding of the situation. “it's OK, I get it,” she nodded sympathetically, “it's busy in here.”

“I know, it’s bad,” Lucy sympathized, “I needed to get something over there”. 

Some places can get so jammed you have to shove other people out of the way to get where you need to be, the barbecue store wasn't one of them. It wasn't particularly busy in the store today. Chaotic, yes, but not busy.

Rose sat up on the gurney. “Listen to me,” she said, “you don't need to say anything more. I understand you.” She looked at herself and struggled to breathe. “And I hate that it had to end like this.”

Lucy didn't expect Rose to apologize on her deathbed. She didn't even think that she had successfully convinced her that the shoving was an accident.  

A few weeks after the shoving, the owners of the barbecue store found a barrage of West Indies crickets living in the walls of the store. This cricket has a chirp that’s extremely annoying to the point where it can cause mass hysteria in some individuals. 

@creativepromptfills

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A Long Way To Glow

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Rivers

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I’ve Been Trying To Do It Right

It’s official. Hipster music is back in vogue.

I never cared for hipster bands. Nobody did. They’re pretentious and not very skilled. All they do is stomp-clap-guitar-hey, and everyone is overly cheery. That’s why they rub most people the wrong way. 

My issue with that style is a little more specific, and no, it’s not because it was the hold music for 911. They sound like that commercial that the state of Michigan put out when they implemented full-day kindergarten. Saying that out loud sounds forbidden, like I’m confessing something deeply personal. Full-day kindergarten doesn't affect you, you're in ninth grade. You just don't like the idea of full-day kindergarten because you hate change. 

You can’t hate change because it always takes something away from you. You need to learn to embrace change. Instead of saying the change takes something away from you, say that you're displeased because the money for the symphonic band's trip to Singapore you were looking forward to instead got handed over to procure staff and supplies for full day kindergarten.

Except there never was a trip to Singapore. I’m not upset about missing my trip because there wasn’t one. This is different; this laid bare a fundamental problem. 

When the state of Michigan rolled out full day kindergarten, they did something unusual to make sure that the kids had enough space to engage in play based learning - they lengthened the school day. This did nothing to address the crowding and proved to be highly disruptive for me because that meant instead of going 6 hours without food, I went 10 hours without food. Not good.

How does something like this happen? At my high school, kids born in odd-numbered months had lunch periods from 11:00 to 11:30, while those born in even-numbered months had lunch from 11:30 to 12:00. As a leap baby, the school couldn't decide whether to use March 1 or February 28 as the common year birthday, meaning I never got assigned a lunch period.

Today was the first day they rolled out the extended school day. I really thought I was going to make it. 

I got through school without incident, which was good. Better still, I got myself invited to dinner with one of the 12th graders. Susan, Dana’s older sister, just finished college and would start her first job out of school in a week. Dana’s friend Vickie came with them and she brought her boyfriend, Jimmy. They said their parents would arrive a bit later.

I didn’t think we’d be going to Shake Shack. Honestly, I thought we’d be going somewhere a bit nicer. We were celebrating Susan literally walking off the stage into a new job, after all. 

We entered the restaurant and sat down. I took one look at the table and said, “Oh, balls, no”.

“What's the problem?” Dana asked.

“There’s a sticker on the table that tells us to scan the QR code to see the menu and I've been grounded from my phone for three months.”

Jimmy looked at me and shook his head. “It’s not big deal”

“It is a big deal,” I shouted, “You're supposed to provide a menu in a restaurant. You gotta be stupid to do something like this”. I pointed to the QR code. 

Jimmy didn't understand my objection. “How's that a problem?”

“it’s a problem because we're sitting there like idiots, waiting to order without a menu.” 

I got up and began walking around the restaurant asking people what they ordered, how it was, how much it cost, stuff like that. Honestly, it felt like something my grandfather would do.

I saw a couple with a taco salad thing that looked good. “hi, I hope you don't mind, what are you working with, there?” I asked.

They weren't too thrilled by a random teenager sneaking up behind them while they were eating. “Yes, I mind,” the man replied, "Now go bug your parents!” 

OK grouchy, I thought, it's not like I'm a bored 8 year old sticking my fingers in your mashed potatoes.

I made my way over to the table behind them. “That looks good,” I said, eyeing the meal, “What is it?”

“Just ignore her,” the wife from the previous table said, “she's being a menace”

“no I'm not,” I grinned. I turned back to the people at the current table. “anyway…” I continued before the wife interrupted me. “Yes, you're being a menace,” she clapped back, “Why can't you order from the menu like a normal person?”

“I got grounded from my phone and it's a QR menu”

The wife tipped her head to one side. “If you're grounded, then why are you out?” she snipped.

“I'm just grounded from my phone, not grounded-grounded.”

The people from this table gestures to a kiosk. “there's a self checkout there” they said. I don't know whether they were trying to help or they wanted me to leave, but either way, I have no idea how I missed that.

I got to the self checkout, found something that I liked and cost less than the cash I had on hand, got my meal, and returned to the table.

I didn't tip the self checkout. The cashier who gave me the food treated it like a dine and dash. She waited until I finished eating, then followed me outside and forced me to vomit up what I ate. Two guesses where the vom landed. She can't figure out why she got barfed on.  

Susan stepped outside. “You’re throwing up all over the place,” she said, “and whose fault is that?” 

The cashier’s, I thought. I tried to think of all the ways she could spend this to make the events that transpired my fault, but I couldn't think of anything.

I wiped away the vomit from my mouth and looked at Susan. “Alright,” she said, “If you could do it all over again, what would you do differently?”

I shrugged, “I don’t know, I haven’t been alive long enough to have that problem,” Usually, when people ask that question, they're talking about what you could do if you could do your life over again. They aren't talking about a specific point in time, just general regrets. Ninth-graders don't really have stuff like that.

“Wrong answer,” she replied with a serene severity behind her eyes. “Think about what you did.”

My mistake was letting myself go without eating for too long. Beyond that, I've got nothing other than don't poke me after 2:30 in the afternoon. 

[amarantine-amirite]

:-"It's the spooky season!" Fall/Halloween Prompts-:

(Y'all!!!!! I love autumn! and halloween :) Tag me if you write these!!!!)

By @me-writes-prompts

Carving pumpkins together

^^"You did not try to carve my face onto the pumpkin!" "Oh yes I did, and it looks just like you! Big and spooky, haha."

Cozy spooky movie nights in

Going to abandoned houses

Arguing over who has to rake the leaves

^^"I did it last week! You have to do it this week!!" "Love, I helped you through it!" "Fine, we can do it together."

Going on early morning walks(when it's misty and a little chilly)

Baking goods and messing up, but enjoying it anyway

S'mores!!/bonfires

Making heart-shaped candles and surprising them with them!!

Visiting a farmer's market

^^

Touring a winery

Picnics

^^You're telling me you forgot to bring a blanket? The one main thing needed for a picnic?" "Oops?"

"Alright, what are we dressing up as this Halloween party?" "Uh...how about you dress up as marshmallow and I dress up as graham crackers?" "Okay, sure!"

Pranking them by wearing a scary costume costume

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Spineless

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Gaze

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Main Character Syndrome

Both Olive and Brandi went their entire life with an unchecked belief that they were the center of the universe. It was only a matter of time before they got a rude awakening. 

Enter Nuala. Nuala broke her ankle the day before starting kindergarten. At lunch time, the teacher seated the kids in order of how “good” they’d been. Since Nuala was always late because she moved so slowly, the teacher seated her with the worst children, who constantly shouted and threw things. There was nothing anyone could do to stop this teacher from penalizing Nuala for being injured. 

It changed her. Nuala became very careful not to bump anybody, and she always said excuse me if she were trying to pass somebody. She learned to size up everyone everywhere she went, and became immune to shit talk. Most importantly, she made a habit of addressing something that could potentially become a problem quickly and with vigour. 

By the time she hit high school, she’d become an unstoppable force. She was about to hit an immovable object: two stupid girls with their expensive, crappy handbags in the sink while they did selfies in a mall bathroom. 

“Can you move your handbags so I can use the sink?” Nuala asked.

“No, just use the other sink,” Olive gestured 

Nuala looked where Olive pointed. “You mean the one with the caution tape and the out of order sign on it?”

“It’s OK,” Brandi remarked, “people just put that to be territorial, just make sure you put the tape back 

Nuala tipped her head to one side. “You sure?”

Brandi nodded. Nuala went over to the sink, moved the tape, and turned the faucet on. Turbid water spat out of the tap. She shut the sink off in disgust. “how about no, we’re back to you guys moving your hand bags”

Brandi rolled her eyes and scoffed. “We asked you already,” she huffed, “use the other sink”

“But you didn’t see that water!”

Olive did that exaggerated nod with a slow, concerned tone of voice that ultimately sounds phony. “I know you’re upset, but you have to expect the unexpected.”

“Well I certainly didn’t expect that water,” Nuala shrugged, “it had legs.”

The two girls go back to doing their makeup. Olive decides to start filming a tutorial for eyeshadow. Immediately as she pressed record, Nuala asked, “You wouldn’t by any chance happen to have anything that can’t get wet in your handbag, would you?”

“No, why?”

Nuala turned on the sink. The handbag got wet. They both screamed, but she ignored it. 

“My stuff's all wet!” Brandi called out. She raced toward the hot air blower.

Nuala looked at both of them and said, “Maybe you should have thought of that before you put your bags in the sink”. 

Olive came home and put the totaled handbag back on the kitchen island. Olive’s mom arrived. “What in the ungodly fucking hellfire happened here?!” she barked.

Olive stared at the warped, bloated leather, soap stains, and dulled gold clasp that made up the water-darkened handbag. A tranquil fury boiled behind her mother’s eyes. “That handbag was an investment!” she exploded while a tiny vein began to bulge on her forehead like a high-definition roundworm. 

Olive said nothing. There wasn’t much to say. It was a product of her carelessness.

Her mother folded her arms. “What am I supposed to tell everyone?”

Olive’s voice cracked before she could stop it. “Can you not tell them the truth?”

The truth was that behavior like Olive’s or Brandi’s was the predictable end result of being raised by daycares, tablets, cartoons, anything that kept them quiet because the parents were too busy, but nobody would dare admit it. Somehow, she understood this enough that she could work with it to craft an excuse for her behaviour. “You weren’t there,” she said, “You were always busy.”

Her mother jumped back like she got tased. “Do you really think I just left the family and you never hear from me again?” she snapped. 

“You never talked to me,” Olive said. “You never showed me how to do anything. What am I supposed to do?”

From the corner of the living room, her father looked up from the book resting against his lap. “That’s not our job,” he grimaced, “We work hard to keep the lights on. You don’t learn life skills from us. That’s what school is for.”

She whipped her head around and barked, “We don’t learn anything in school!”

He shrugged. “Correct,” he said in a corporate tone as he stood up, “You learn nothing if you don’t pay attention.”

Her mother’s hand cut slowly through the air. “We’re getting off topic.” Her voice was colder now, the fire drained from it. “Olive, this was expensive. We were counting on this handbag paying for itself a couple of times over. And thanks to the delusion that you are not the center of the universe, you destroyed this!”

“I didn't even do this,” Olive protested, “Nuala did it! Be mad at her.” She then proceeded to pull up the video.

Olive’s mom shook her head. “That's part of the problem. I’m not mad that you did it. I’m mad that you got caught. Do you even understand how long it’s going to take to fix this? How much effort?”

Olive stared down at the ruined handbag. “No,” she whispered.

Unlike Olive, nothing of Brandi’s got damaged. At least, nothing material. Brandi left that bathroom with the realization that nothing she did made any sense. 

@writersbloxx

[amarantine-amirite]

RB-ing this again to respond to a message. I deleted the first post because I miscounted the stuff that was leftover from the two attempts. There were actually three things I left as CF fics.

just saw your post about ClueFinders and I actually attempted to do this a couple of times. Lost momentum trying to tie together the individual chapters, though.

Awww! Well, I don't think I'd have the time to do a full story. I am swamped in stuff. But I was still thinking of playing with it. Did you ever post any of your efforts?

[amarantine-amirite]

[amarantine-amirite]

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Quiet, Artsy & Boring

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Best Friends

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Wedding for Trouble

We convened in a large hall with red stone walls. 70 kids between the ages of 13 months to 17 years sat at a horseshoe shaped seating area that went up different levels of stairs, across from a sushi restaurant that opened into a food court. This sculpture on the ceiling of a guy using a rudimentary flying machine hung from the ceiling directly across from us.

Two kids that look to be about fourth grade age started chatting. “How do you like that flying guy?” The boy asked as he pointed to the sculpture.

The girl cowered. “I hate that guy,” she shook her head, “he scares me.”

One of the other teens who appeared to be my age looked at me and said, “I wish we could go to the wedding, but they said no kids.” I have a weird feeling her name was Coralee.

I burst out laughing. “You think you want to go, but you don't. It’ll just be boring, drunk adults and your parents awkwardly networking,” I responded. That shut her up for a couple of seconds, and then she giggled.

I wasn’t kidding. One look at the invitation to Bill and Susan's wedding would tell you that this wasn’t going to be interesting for any of us. It looked like a merger announcement in a mocked-up Wall Street Journal page. Bill Miller announces marriage to Susan Canamore. Combination delivers significant potential to drive long-term affection growth and market share of love. 

I thought it was funny, Mom didn't. In fact, my laughing at how stupid it was made her go off like a rocket. It started as an angry rant about the injustice of having to take a vacation day to attend a mandatory networking event for associates on down from 7 AM to 12 AM on a stat holiday and how all 200 guests were people that worked for the groom in some capacity and were forced to come, which segued into how awful everyone at work was. All that story did was make me feel bad for the bride.

It made sense that they didn’t want kids at the wedding. Partly because weddings are tough for kids, but mostly because of something that happened during the rehearsal dinner. Some kid innocently asked, “May I go to the bathroom?” After Susan’s mother said, “Yes, you may”, he pretended to pee. He nailed the facial expressions of relieving yourself perfectly. A little too perfectly. Then Susan asked, “Why do I smell pee?”

After a bunch of chattering from stupid kids I don’t know, the groom’s chubby, blonde, long-suffering secretary arrived. “1,2,3, eyes on me!” she bellowed as she pointed both hands at us.

“1,2, eyes on you!” we responded. The younger kids pointed, many of the teens didn’t.

She introduced herself as Natalie. She then went over the agenda for the day. We would go to a movie during the ceremony and then time for lunch. She wasn't clear about what we'd be doing after that. I didn’t think she was that smart and she seemed a bit sketchy to me, but I think it was my imagination. 

We went to the movie theater at the hotel. We sat down. The lights dimmed. Dirty Dancing came on the screen.

I only lasted five minutes before walking out of the movie. It had no captions and Dirty Dancing is a stupid movie for stupid people. 

I snuck into the gym and started power walking on a treadmill. Seriously, I looked like a runway model if runway models were chunky eleventh graders with Karen haircuts and fuzzy legs. Two minutes later, someone who I’m guessing was the officiant for the wedding opened the door and steps inside the gym. 

“Excuse me,” he shouted three times before I figured out he was talking to me.

“Hey, just a minute,” I said, somewhat out of breath 

The minister approached. “I don’t mean to interrupt,” he said, trying to be polite, “but the bride and groom are exchanging vows, and you're just too darn loud.”

I stopped the treadmill. “It can’t be that loud, can it?” I replied, "I wasn't even running.”

The minister shook his head. “You’re louder than you think,” he scolded, “I'm not exaggerating, it sounds like the Easter Bunny up here!”

I laughed, then tipped my head to one side. “who gets married in a ballroom built under a gym?”

The minister blinked. “Um, Bill and Susan?” he replied in a quizzical manner. He must have thought I was referring to the people currently getting married.

“I misspoke,” I said, “I meant to say, who builds a gym over a ballroom and doesn’t soundproof the floor?” It's a basic design thing. Gyms are noisy.

The hotel manager showed up. “You need to leave the gym, right now.”

“Is this about the noise?” I asked.

The hotel manager pointed to a sign that says no children under the age of 19 permitted in the gym. “There's no kids allowed in the gym.”

I had no words. Then Natalie showed up. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

I tried to think of a good excuse, but all I could come up with was, “I didn’t understand the movie.”

To nobody's surprise, Natalie was not impressed. “Nice try,” she responded, “Come on. It's time to go”

Natalie led me out of the gym. She called my mother to come pick me up. That meant mom had to leave the networking event early. 

As it turned out, I wasn't the only one that had to go home early. Somebody, and I'm guessing this was the same kid that peed his pants at the table at the rehearsal dinner, took an entire carafe of red wine and dumped it all over the bride during the first dance. Both the bride and groom had to crawl around with a towel to mop it up and the dance floor remained sticky the rest of the night. 

I still don't understand why Mom was so upset with me when we left. She didn't even want to go anyway.

[amarantine-amirite]

Unraveling Threads