old house (prompt substitution)

                A house in the center of the street. The house my mom lived in when she was a little girl and the house I live in now, on and the same. Fake wood paneling along the stairs and upstairs hallway that is starting to warp and crack from age. Uneven floors that have sunk into the ground over time so things roll across the floor.

Outside next to the house is an old garage, old wood that has been there for decades, some of it rotting away. The upstairs of the garage has missing boards in the floor and there are lots of large gaps in the flooring, allowing you to see the items stored up there, nothing too heavy or the floor might come crashing down. Big cracks in the concrete floor due to extreme temperature changes and frost heaves. Old and new tools scattered all over every surface in sight. No room to park a car, just table saws and tool boxes, lawn furniture and an old couch, insulation that never got put up and probably never will. The lights hum overhead, casting a flickering light that’s just enough to navigate your way through the mess and try not to trip and break your neck.

Ricochet

A small white house outside of town with a garage on the side holds two small bedrooms. The celling of the bedroom is slanted at an angle with off white walls, with what appears to be a blood stain on one side. There is one small bathroom in the entire house and a small living room. The two small storage rooms in the house have doors that are just as small. The kitchen is full of the basics, a white counter, small sink and white fridge, along with the other necessary appliances.

The stain on the wall looks suspiciously like blood. What’s the history of this house and its past tenants? Was there a bloody fistfight? Did someone get shot in this house? Has anyone died here? The house is small with one bathroom, if someone was living here with too many roommates and constantly had to share such small space tempers may run high. Maybe two roommates got into a fight one day and took it too far, staining the walls with blood. Maybe if you go dig in the backyard enough you will eventually find a body berried there, rotten and decayed, the bones poking through the flesh. Or maybe someone just accidently tripped and spilled their tomato soup all over the wall.

prompt 27

The safest place in the world for me is my dad’s big bear hugs, very cliché I know, but it’s true. Ever since I was little and I was upset or scared my dad would always be there to give me one of his big, warm, strong hugs and I would know I was safe. When I would have nightmares and go crying to my parents room, or there was a thunder storm that would make me want to hide under the bed.

 When I came home from school one day to see both my parents cars in the driveway even though they were supposed to be at work, and got the news that we had to put our dog down because she couldn’t stand up on her own anymore. The same dog we had had since I was 3 and had a big pink bow tied around her neck, my dad was waiting for me in my room and hugged me until I stopped crying. When my grandmother passed away from a stroke, after years of Alzheimer’s and slowly forgetting who I was. My dad’s mother, the one who would have all the grandkids over Easter morning to decorate Easter baskets and send us on a parade up and down the street to show them off and had a big box of dress up clothes in the basement for us to play with. My dad was there to hug me and make it just a little bit better.

                 No matter where I am or what happens to me I know I will always feel better once my dad gets there and gives me one of his big bear hugs.

theme week 6

The Bangor Public Library was one of my favorite places to go as a child. My mother would drive my sister and me there and park across the street, and then we would get out of the car and enter through the downstairs level directly into the children’s section. Shelves upon shelves stacked with books. Fairy tales, fantasy, the American Girls section that was my favorite spot. None of the shelves, except the ones lining the back wall of the large room that made up the children’s section, were more than four feet tall, so small children had an easier time reaching the books they wanted. Next to the door sat the librarians desk, where she would help kids find books and check them out, occasionally signing them up for their own library card.

 Just around the corner of the desk was the card catalog, where you could look up the book you wanted, old small square wooden drawers full of cards, a mix of new and old, all smelling like that old papery book smell. Shelves created multiple corners all over the room, most with their own child sized arm chair to curl up in and read. A few tables and chairs for adult sized people sat about the room for the parents or reading sessions. And on top of one book case sat an old Mother Goose stuffed animal that never left the children’s section, following it to the temporary location they had to move to while the old building was fixed up, welcoming the children in to read.

theme week 5

An employee goes outside to help load a TV in a customer's car. Once he is done the customer acidently slammed the employees head with the trunk of their car when they tried to close it before he was out of the way. The customer says sorry and then goes home and the employee comes in saying his vision had blacked out for a few seconds. A manager gets on the phone with whoever deals with workplace injuries and sends the employee to the hospital just in case. The manager offers to get the licence plate of the car from the security camera in he parking lot but the employee says no, he keeps saying it was an accident and he does not want to press charges. I would if it had been me, he ended up having a bad cuncussion and had to take a  few days off work because he was slurring his speach and losses his cordination. Best Buy pays for all his hospital bills and meds, still offering to help him contact the customer, but the employee still refuses. His dad wants to sue the customer but the employee still says no.

theme week 3

Standing behind the check out counter at work I watch customers rushing in and out of the store. Mothers trying to calm crying babies. Children in too big winter coats demanding video games, movies, and candy. Young couples shopping for new appliances for their just bought homes. Employees in blue shirts wheel big screen TVs up from out back and take them outside into the snow with no jackets, to load them in to the customers cars. The customers drive home with their new items and the employees come back into the store, happy to get out of the cold.

prompt 25

Doctor Who was described to me as a British sci-fi show about an alien man who traveled through space and time going on adventures. Every synopsis I could find of it online all seemed to be the same, a cheesy sci-fi show with bad effects and ridiculous stories, but I decided to check it out any way. I expected to watch a few episodes and be mildly entertained and then move on to something else. Well I got the cheesy sci-fi stories and bad effects but there was so much more.

Instead of stereotypical aliens and plot lines there were completely imaginative designs for each alien and the stories, although some average, were incredibly complex and forced you to follow each episode to find each clue that would form up the arc for the season. Little things like words spray-painted on the wall in the background of one episode seemed like nothing important, but then turned out to tie the whole season together. Characters that seemed to be one time cameos or minor to the plot turned out to be some of the most important ones in the show. Nothing was as I expected it to be. Instead of generic sci-fi I got an imaginative series that I love and cannot wait to see more of.

20. The battle begins! best buy bills.

At Best Buy customers can pay their credit card bills in store. You can have someone else pay your bill for you if they use cash, but if you want to pay with check you must have a valid photo ID on you or we can’t take it. Last November I had a young woman in her twenties who wanted to pay her mother’s bill with her mother’s check but her mother was not in the store, she was waiting in the car. I told the young women that I was sorry but I could not accept the check unless her mother was present. The woman was upset but went to the car to get her mother, who was very angry about the whole situation and went to a different cashier.

                A month later the same woman came in again to pay for her bill and when the cashier, thankfully not me, asked her for her license she freaked out. She insisted that she did not need to show her ID to pay her bill and demanded to see a manager. Once the manager came over he insisted that we did in fact need an ID so the customer angrily pulled it out, insisting that she would be paying online from now on.

                Now a week or two ago the same woman came in again, apparently deciding not to pay online like she said she would, to pay her bill for the month. She handed me her check and before I could even open my mouth she forcefully stated that an employee told her that she would no longer have to show her ID to pay her bill. I told her that I would have to check with a manager before I could take the check and called on over.

When the manager arrived the woman informed her that she was told she did not need an ID but the manager insisted that she did. The customer got extremely angry and insisted that she had talked to a red haired manager a few weeks before who told her she did not need one. The problem is that we have no red haired managers at best buy, the only red heads we have are employees.

When my manager told the customer this she insisted that it was in fact a manager, and she wanted to speak to him immediately. My manager said again that whoever she had talked to was not a manager so the customer demanded to speak to our general manager instead. He was not in the store at the time and in the end we told her that the GM, named Darin, would call her the next time he was working and took down her phone number. As soon as she heard the name Darin she insisted that he was the manager who had told her she would no longer need an ID, but Darin looks nothing like the original employee she had described to us, and she could not name the employee until we had said Darin’s name. After that the customer paid her bill and left the store. I haven’t seen her since, but I’m sure she will be back soon.

prompt 21, journey to get a puppy

Sitting in the back seat of an old, brown car with brown interior that matched the driver’s hair. A girl with the same brown hair as the man, sitting in the back seat, looking excited, sitting next to a younger girl with blonde hair like the woman in the front passenger seat. Pulling up a long driveway to an old white house with a huge white garage. There is a man in blue jeans standing at the end of the driveway, waiting for the brown haired man to get out and talk to him. The blonde woman gets out of the car and walks to the back door to let the two girls out. Suddenly the man in blue jeans is flinging the door to the garage open and a whole litter of golden retriever puppies comes running out. At least five or six puppies, all with bows tied around their necks, barking excitedly. All of the bows were blue for boys, except one. One puppy had a pink bow tied around its neck, the only girl, jumping around with her brothers just as excited to meet new people. The two men keep talking and the two girls continue to play with the puppies.

prompt 16

I love Doctor Who, the BBC sci-fi show that is turning 50 this year. Normally I'm not big on Sci-fi, but this show is one of the big exceptions. I have mostly only watched the new series that picked up again in 2005 as a continuation of the original series, but I plan on watching the original series as well. If you ask any fan of the show what it's about, you will probably just get more confused by their explanation. The show is very hard to describe and do it justice, and with 50 years of continuity it is very easy to get lost. The basic premiss of the show is easy enough to explain, an alien man who calls himself 'The Doctor' has a spaceship/time machine that can travel anywhere in space or time. Along the way he picks up many companions to travel with him and keep him company. This sounds relatively simple but there are so many characters and aliens, details and stories that this explanation cant even begin to cover it. The show is so complex and huge that the only way to really understand it is to watch it yourself.

prompt 14

Writing for me is a bit like drawing, I enjoy it when i'm in the mood to write, and when it wont come out right I get frustrated. Starting with a new, clean sheet of paper, thinking of every thing I want to do. putting pencil to the page and drawing the first lines. Erasing a piece that doesn't look right and re-drawing it. Getting irritated and scrapping the whole thing, only to start all over again. And finally, when I get what I want I proudly put it in my art book to keep forever.

prompt 13

If my cat could talk I think she would have a lot to say, mostly about food.
"Feed me, feed me!! I'm wasting away! Is that ham? I love ham!"
 Or sleep.
"I'm so tired. I spent all day napping and then I had to go outside for five whole minutes! I need another nap."
Complaining about my dad.
"Stop picking on me! I want to sleep! Stop picking me up and poking me in the belly, I'm not fat!"
Whining when I'm not home.
"Where is she? She's supposed to be right here to pet me! Where did she go?!"
As it is she already talks a lot, in mews and purrs, saying things we can only guess at. But if she could talk our language I think she would have a lot to say, mostly about food or sleep.

library (prompt substitution)

At the library there are certain rules you follow. Certain edicate you adhere to least you get yelled at or kicked out by the librarian. When in a library the most important rule is to be silent, read your book in peace without disturbing the other patrons. If you absolutely need to speak to someone whisper quietly and be conscious to others around you who are trying to work or read their own things, and never talk on the phone in the library, all calls should be taken outside. Never disturb someone who is preoccupied and never spy on others and what they are reading or working on. Another big rule is no food or drink around the books least you spill something on them and damage the pages. Violation of any of these rules often leads to the librarian’s wrath and possibly being thrown out.

Working in the library on my statistics homework, I can’t figure out how to make the math program work on the computer. I look around at others people’s computers to try and see if they happen to be working on the same thing. Of course no one is and I give up completely. I go to find I silent corner where  I can call my mom but before I find one I see my friend waving at me from a table. She is sitting at a table working on her laptop, trying to come up with a design for one of her classes. I go sit with her and we begin to talk, trying to keep it to a whisper, but occasionally falling and having to be reminded by my friend to keep it down. Soon we decide to go and get lunch before we start eating in the library and incur the librarian’s wrath.

theme week 4

Looking around the school café I see a young man in blue jeans and a black t-shirt and glasses sitting on one of the tan armchairs with a black laptop in his lap, typing. Occasionally he looks sideways and talks to the girl sitting in the tan armchair to his left.  She also is wearing glasses and blue jeans. She has a black and grey t-shirt on and has a smaller silver laptop sitting in her lap. An old fashioned looking lamppost sits between their chairs and a fake tree sits in a square plant pot to the left of the girl. Across the room a woman sits at one of the tall round bar tables, wearing blue jeans and a grey jacket and a blue and grey striped hat. There is a laptop sitting in front of her and she is typing away. A pile of papers sits next to the computer and a barely drunk from bottle of cherry coke sits behind it. There is a blue and grey backpack sitting in the chair to the left of the woman and a red winter coat thrown over the back.

Looking around the school café I see a young man in blue jeans and a black t-shirt and glasses sitting on one of the tan armchairs with a black laptop in his lap, typing, and studding for a class. Occasionally he looks sideways and talks to the girl sitting in the tan armchair to his left, perhaps studding for the same class.  She also is wearing glasses and blue jeans. She has a black and grey striped t-shirt on and has a smaller silver laptop sitting in her lap, headphones hang around her neck blasting music as she studies. An old fashioned looking lamppost sits between their chairs and a fake tree sits in a square plant pot to the left of the girl. Across the room a woman sits at one of the tall round bar tables, wearing blue jeans and a grey jacket and a blue and grey striped hat. There is a laptop sitting in front of her and she is typing away. A pile of papers and a red folder of school work sits next to the computer and a barely drunk from bottle of cherry coke sits behind it, just bought. There is a blue and grey backpack sitting in the chair to the left of the woman and a red winter coat thrown over the back.

prompt 9

"I want to buy a MacBook."
"There too expensive."
"But I have a credit card that will give me no interest for 18 months, I can pay that."
"I just paid that card off and need to finish paying off my other card. Besides, the computer I have still works fine, there is no need to get a new one."
"But its not new, its almost four years old and runs on Windows Vista, and its not a MacBook."
"I don't need a new computer."
"But I want one! Mom, Dad and Gabby just got new computers! why cant I get a new one to?
"Gabby got a new computer because her old one was stolen, Dad bought Mom one for Christmas because hers was full of viruses, and Dad bought a new one because his was old and slowing down. My computer still works great and its too expensive to buy a new one."
".....I still want a MacBook."

prompt 12

Saturday, the day before the big game. I watch customers crowding the store, heading for the TVs. Vheicles fill the parking lot, giant pickup trucks, vans full of screaming kids, and multi-colored cars. Customers bundled up in bright winter jackets, hats and scarves rush toward the doors. The home theater department is busy, people are everywhere demanding TV from employees, and the employees are trying to tell the customers to please wait until its their turn to be helped. Dozens of TVs go out the door, ranging from 19 inch screens to 60 inch screens. People head back to their cars and try to cram their new televisions into their too small cars, eager to get them home and set them up to watch the Superbowl, only to take them back down the day after the game and return them so they can get their money back.