A Surprise Birthday Gift
The Book Of Life • Spring Has Sprung • Real Cave vs. Man Cave
One Minute Wit
The Book Of Life
The book of life is full of unexpected chapters,
and I can’t find my reading glasses.
50-Word Story
A Surprise Birthday Gift
“Surprise! Happy birthday, Sweetheart. It’s hard to believe you are 40. You look twenty years younger.”
“Yeah, right. If you are going to flatter me, at least make it believable. Had you said ten years younger, I might have bit. I have a surprise gift for you, also. I’m pregnant.”
Doodle
Spring Has Sprung
I used to doodle a lot as a kid. Sadly, I quit. Then a couple of years ago, a publication called Creative Humans on Medium started posting doodle prompts. What a great idea, I thought. I bought an Apple Pencil for my iPad and started doodling again. My doodles are not great art, just doodles. But they are fun to do (the whole point.) Here is an appropriate seasonal doodle.
When was the last time you doodled? It’s fun.
Goofy Fiction
Real Cave vs. Man Cave
I went for a walk in the woods and saw a hole in the side of a mountain. I thought, Maybe that’s a cave. Hey, I have a man cave. I should go in and see how my man cave stacks up against an actual cave. So I did.
The first thing I noticed was how dark it was. Score one for the man cave. No television, no refrigerator, no stereo, no sports memorabilia, no movie posters. Dude, my man cave is way better than a real cave. Then I bumped into a chair, so I sat down. It was surprisingly soft and cozy. Then it moved. Then it growled. Then it turned into a bear. I ran.
I remember passing a running deer. Then I saw a hawk diving out of the sky after a helpless tiny forest creature. I leaped up and grabbed the hawk’s talons. The hawk tried to fly away, but my weight held him down. Still, he did give me enough lift to run across the surface of a pond like a skipping stone. Then I let the hawk go, and I fell on my back at the bottom of a hill.
As I lay there trying to catch my breath, I noticed that a giant boulder was perched precariously on the edge of the hill above me. Then it started to roll down, straight at me. I rolled frantically to my left (because there was a tree to my right) and just barely got out of the way. I looked up to the top of the hill and saw another bear who—if I didn’t know better—looked like he was talking on a phone. Naturally, I had to wonder if the cave bear had called the hill bear, and they were conspiring to fashion my demise.
Impossible, I thought, but I wasn’t sticking around to find out. I ran. Well, I wanted to, but I didn’t get far before I hit some swampy marshland and started sinking like I was in quicksand.
I know that quicksand is not found in the forest, but usually by the sea. And you won’t actually sink past your chest in quicksand since you are not as dense as quicksand. But you can get stuck if you don’t know how to get out. And if you are at the sea when the tide comes in, you might drown.
Fortunately, I do know how to get out of quicksand, and this wasn’t the ocean, so I wasn’t worried about that. But this wasn’t quicksand. It was mucky marshland, and I was sinking in the gooey stuff.
All of a sudden, a stick hit me in the head. I turned and saw about 50 chipmunks holding onto the stick. I grabbed the stick, and they started pulling me out.
Once I got out, I asked the chipmunks why they helped me. Which was dumb; I don’t speak Chipmunk. But if I had to guess, it would be because in my panic to escape the bear, I grabbed the hawk who was probably diving for one of the chipmunks. And the whole chipmunk community came out to thank me for sparing one of their own by rescuing me from the muck. I gave them some Starbursts that I had in my pocket. They liked that.
After that, I decided to go back home to my man cave and watch the Olympics with my buddies. I told them what happened in the woods, but they didn’t believe me. A week later, I got a thank you card from Chip Munk. I showed my friends, but they still thought I made up the story. So I decided to post it on Facebook, where people aren’t so skeptical.
This is one of the first stories I wrote, in early 2018. It reminds me of the fun I had at the beginning of my writing adventure. And how unskilled I was. Thanks for bearing with me.
Happy Monday.
Mark
I can't help but agree: The doodle is lots of fun.
Ah! I got the doodle, Mark — spring flowers! (Right?)