Welcome to Five Word Weekly. Each Monday, I will post five random words to Greg’s Blog at 5:00am Eastern Time (Canada/United States). Your task is to craft prose or poetry using any or all of the word prompts. How you participate is entirely up to you. Your work(s) can be a single piece, a series of stand-alone projects, or an epic serial. Let the words be the inspiration that takes you wherever your imagination leads.
Here are your prompt words for the week of April 3rd, 2023:
Be creative and have fun. I look forward to reading what each of you conjures up. Don’t forget to show your fellow bloggers some love -❤️- take some time to read, like, and comment on their responses.
Edelman lay on the beach basking in the glow of the midday sun. I watched the suntan oil sizzling on his skin as he explained that skin cancer was a fallacy spread by big pharma and the government. Although unclear on the motive he insisted it was connected to vitamin D production and much more sinister than profits and corporate greed.
The conversation slowly turned from conspiracy to a sales pitch. I’m not certain what he was trying to sell but he insisted that he took care of himself and explained that his vitamin D was silky smooth and creamy like milk.
“Would you like a…”
I was certain he was going to say ‘taste’ but just as the words should have been escaping his lips a couple of spry young punks kicked up sand into his face as they ran past. I wasn’t spared as the spray shot across my mid-rift and into my bikini. As I moved I could feel the grit chaff against the tits.
Edelman was spitting sand (and venom) as he jumped up and took pursuit. He was a hulking man with muscles popping out everywhere and washboard abs that would make Dwayne Johnson swoon. What a marvellous specimen I thought as I stood up. I tugged at the bottom of my bikini top while bouncing up and down. Hundreds of lucky white granules fell to the ground as the related ruckus erupted just up the beach. Those poor lads weren’t going to know what had hit them.
I picked up my towel and headed in the other direction. Sure he may have been a smoke show but thank God I wouldn’t have to hear about vitamin D any longer.
Is there anything more culturally inappropriate than the tomahawk chop? I can’t think of much that makes me cringe more than watching a stadium full of Braves fans do its rendition of a Native war chant while some yahoo with a drum and Aboriginal feathered headdress beats on.
This month Chel’s Terrible Poetry contest asks us to write a terrible poem about cultural appropriation using the triolet form. I have chosen the English iambic tetrameter model. To heck with my French heritage, I say let them eat cake! Now let the terribleness begin…
Aah wah aah wah wah a warriors hum, Back and forth the tomahawk chop. Warpaint, feather headdress, and drum, Aah wah aah wah wah a warriors hum, From what century did you come? Ratta tat tat tat, make it stop! Aah wah aah wah wah a warriors hum, Back and forth the tomahawk chop.
It is the start of another baseball season and I say “go, anyone but Atlanta, go!
Welcome to Four Line Fiction, a pix-to-prose challenge. Each Tuesday, at 9:00am Eastern Time (Canada/United States) I will post an image I have captured myself, featured from another blog or plucked from one of the Interweb’s many royalty-free image sites. You as the writer are to use that image as a point of inspiration to craft a masterpiece of fiction in four lines.
The image for this week is a person holding a yucca plant to look like spiky hair above the image of a skull on the front of the black t-shirt they is wearing. The subject’s face is hidden behind the plant.
Be creative and have fun. I look forward to reading the tales you spin. Don’t forget to show your fellow bloggers some love -❤️- take some time to read, like, and comment on their masterpieces.
Welcome to Five Word Weekly. Each Monday, I will post five random words to Greg’s Blog at 5:00am Eastern Time (Canada/United States). Your task is to craft prose or poetry using any or all of the word prompts. How you participate is entirely up to you. Your work(s) can be a single piece, a series of stand-alone projects, or an epic serial. Let the words be the inspiration that takes you wherever your imagination leads.
Here are your prompt words for the week of March 27th, 2023:
Be creative and have fun. I look forward to reading what each of you conjures up. Don’t forget to show your fellow bloggers some love -❤️- take some time to read, like, and comment on their responses.
Ever waste a day waiting for a delivery that never comes?
Every Monday Paula gives us an opportunity to vent and this week marks a milestone. The 100th Monday Peeve of the refreshed era! My peeve fits in quite nicely with the one she published herself although the TARGET is different!
I purchased a new electric snow thrower online. It could have been a useful tool over the winter considering how much snow fell but the price was crazy. Of course, now that it seems spring is in the air and the majority of the snow is in the rearview the unit is on sale for half price. I probably could have bought a gas-powered unit or another electric brand for cheaper but this one works on the same battery packs as my mower, blower and weed wacker making it the logical and environmentally friendly choice.
Clearance bonanza pricing is not my peeve although it is annoying enough in itself. You could make the argument that if you can sell at half price now that is all it was ever worth. I know, as a business major I understand it is not that simple. I remember learning a lesson from my marketing professor about inventory costs. Before taking the teaching job he had worked as a marketing consultant for a firm hired by Sears Canada to build a new warehouse facility. They found items that had been sitting in warehouse inventory for years. Their recommendation to Sears was to burn all the excess inventory and use that space for inventory that was turning over more quickly. Sears ultimately didn’t need to build a new warehouse with all the money and space they were saving. The cost of storage per square foot meant that they had already sunk something in the range of 40 to 50 times the retail price for many of the products sitting in the warehouse. So I understand the reasons for getting rid of inventory. Ultimately getting anything is better than warehousing it until next year. Especially in today’s world where a newer, better, shinier model is scheduled to come off some Chinese production line next year.
No, my beef lies solely with the courier company. The tracking number I’d been given showed the goods were to be delivered today, and even the shipment history showed the goods were “out for delivery”. That seemed pretty clear to me. I’d been told the driver would call to confirm we were home because a signature was required so I called my office to let them know I’d be late.
When the courier company called I answered and said, “We are waiting, how long until you get here?”
The woman on the other end said, “No delivery scheduled for today, I am calling to set up an appointment for tomorrow. Will you be available between 9am and 3pm?”
At first, I said, “Tomorrow, your tracking information says it is to be delivered today?”
She insisted their system didn’t say that even as I was reading it off my phone screen to her. “No Sir, we would never have delivered without an appointment first. The supplier insists that we set appointments up.”
“Ok but your system says…” I wasn’t going to win so I shifted my attention to the delivery window, another losing battle. The courier companies just can’t seem to get it right ever. What is worse, they can only provide me with a six hours delivery window. They call me to set up an appointment and the best they can do is provide a six-hour window? That doesn’t really even approximate the definition of an appointment, it’s more like, we will show up whenever the <bleep> we bloody well feel like it and if you don’t like it or aren’t there well too <bleepin’> bad!
Look, I get it for my relatively low-value Amazon shipments. If I am not there and some porch pirate nabs it, annoying but oh well. This is an $1800 piece of machinery that I have to be present to receive. Some organization on your tracking website and tighter delivery windows should be the norm! Mister Courier, you should be at my beck and call not the other way around.
Welcome to Four Line Fiction, a pix-to-prose challenge. Each Tuesday, at 9:00am Eastern Time (Canada/United States) I will post an image I have captured myself, featured from another blog or plucked from one of the Interweb’s many royalty-free image sites. You as the writer are to use that image as a point of inspiration to craft a masterpiece of fiction in four lines.
The image for this week is a macro shot of an insect sitting on top of another insect of the same species, the pair is most likely mating.
Be creative and have fun. I look forward to reading the tales you spin. Don’t forget to show your fellow bloggers some love -❤️- take some time to read, like, and comment on their masterpieces.
Welcome to Five Word Weekly. Each Monday, I will post five random words to Greg’s Blog at 5:00am Eastern Time (Canada/United States). Your task is to craft prose or poetry using any or all of the word prompts. How you participate is entirely up to you. Your work(s) can be a single piece, a series of stand-alone projects, or an epic serial. Let the words be the inspiration that takes you wherever your imagination leads.
Here are your prompt words for the week of March 20th, 2023:
Be creative and have fun. I look forward to reading what each of you conjures up. Don’t forget to show your fellow bloggers some love -❤️- take some time to read, like, and comment on their responses.
Note: Four Line Fiction has moved. It will now post on Tuesdays at 9:00am. This move is being made for a couple of reasons. First, I started Four Line Fiction because my first foray into fiction “Forgotten” was written for Three Line Tales hosted by Sonya at Only 100 Words. Sonya’s challenge disappeared at the end of 2021 and I thought I’d do something similar with #GB4LF. I am happy to say TLT has returned to Thursdays. Second, I produce a Sunday Digest post that highlights the past week on Greg’s Blog including links to (currently all but if the challenges continue to grow) some of your submissions. The move will provide a longer window of opportunity for submissions to be included in the Sunday evening post.
Welcome to Four Line Fiction, a pix-to-prose challenge. Each Tuesday, at 9:00am Eastern Time (Canada/United States) I will post an image I have captured myself, featured from another blog or plucked from one of the Interweb’s many royalty-free image sites. You as the writer are to use that image as a point of inspiration to craft a masterpiece of fiction in four lines.
The image for this week is a mixture of colours, possibly paint with shades of yellow, green, blue, grey and white on a black background. The image is cropped so that the drop appears as a semi-circle on the right of the image.
Be creative and have fun. I look forward to reading the tales you spin. Don’t forget to show your fellow bloggers some love -❤️- take some time to read, like, and comment on their masterpieces.
Greg's Blog 