PROMPT: Family Traditions

Daily writing prompt
Write about a few of your favorite family traditions.

1.) The Feast of St. Nicholas of Myra: It’s like Secret Santa, but each family member draws a name from a hat, and they then abscond with a prized position of the person whose name they drew and pawn it at a local pawn shop. They then hide the receipt in the house. Family members each have 15 minutes to find the receipt. If they find it, they get their shit back. If they do not, the “Secret Santa” gets to keep the cash.

2.) Hide the weasel: You hide a hungry weasel in someone’s room without telling them, and they have to find it before they get a toe bit off.

3.) Candle lighting roulette: candles are set in a revolving candelabra, which is given a spin. Family members take turns stepping forward to light the candle that is closest to them. One candle hides an M-80 firecracker which explodes to spatter the unlucky family member with hot wax.

PROMPT: Leisure Time

Daily writing prompt
What do you enjoy doing most in your leisure time?

Nothing that involves wearing a leisure suit, or a suit of any kind. Except, perhaps, a swimsuit or my birthday suit, or playing a suit in a game of cards… What were we talking about?

PROMPT: Close to Home

Daily writing prompt
Name an attraction or town close to home that you still haven’t got around to visiting.

Exhibition: Bigfoot! (a.k.a. The Sasquatch Museum.) It’s not very close, but it is by far the closest of this nation’s many Bigfoot and Sasquatch related collections.

PROMPT: For Fun

Daily writing prompt
List five things you do for fun.

1.) When getting on an elevator with strangers, I like to look at the little inspection placard with consternation and say, “Oh no… oh no, oh no!” When someone asks what’s the problem, I point to the inspector’s name and say, [for example] “John Smith is a hack. He wouldn’t know a frayed cable from a firehose. WE’RE DOOMED!”

2.) Sometimes I’ll stare at the grates on a city sidewalk. When someone asks whether I lost my keys, I’ll say, “No I saw a Leprechaun run down there with a pot of gold. I’m waiting for it to come back out so that I can murder and rob it.”

3.) Alternatively, I stare up at the sky, and when someone stops to see what I’m looking at, I say, “It’s a lovely day to be hurtling through space at two million kilometers per hour, isn’t it?”

5.) I like to skip the number four, and when someone asks why I say because it’s bad luck in China and Japan because the number four is pronounced the same as death. When the person points out that I’m not in China or Japan, I confidently bark, “That’s your opinion!” and rapidly walk off as their consternation and / or infuriation grows.

PROMPT: Differently

Daily writing prompt
What could you do differently?

Everything except fully autonomic bodily functions could be done differently. That’s the nature of human creativity.

PROMPT: Play

Daily writing prompt
Do you play in your daily life? What says “playtime” to you?

Yes. Frenetic and chaotic creativity.

PROMPT: Play or Fun

Daily writing prompt
What was the last thing you did for play or fun?

Did a little dance… and so on.

PROMPT: Performed

Daily writing prompt
Have you ever performed on stage or given a speech?

Performed? Not yet. (Unless you count “Crowd Member Milling About [with No Lines] – #7” in an Elementary School Christmas Pageant.) Given a speech? Yes. Unless it is completely impromptu, it is nowhere near the top of my list of horrifying life events.

PROMPT: Physical Activities or Exercises

Daily writing prompt
What are your favorite physical activities or exercises?

I never met a one I didn’t like.

PROMPT: Five Things

Daily writing prompt
Share five things you’re good at.
1.) Remaining incognito. (I conceal my identity by being no one of interest.)

2.) Calling animals. (They do not come, but I maintain that I'm effective at getting their attention. They give perplexed looks and seem to be thinking, "Why is that dumb-ass human making strange noises?")

3.) Slipping on ice. (It's effortless to me.)

4.) Conveying an air of indifference. (At any given moment, you'd probably conclude that I don't give a shit.)

5.) Eating rotisserie chicken. (It's not pleasant to watch, but I leave not a scrap of meat. It's like a sun-bleached skeleton when I'm done with it.)