“You have arrived,” the robotic voice intoned.

“I thought we were going to Jodi’s house?” she said as they pulled up to a man standing under cover of trees. An otherwise unnoteworthy location in the forest along the highway.

“You put in the address! I have no idea where we are,” he said putting the truck in park and turning to look at her pointedly. She had a habit of getting them lost, hence the use of GPS.

“Should we ask him for directions?” she asked pointing towards the man who appeared to be waiting for them. Impossible.

“I think we should ask him not to skin us. Seriously, Amy, this is getting ridiculous. I thought you said you’ve been using the GPS?”

“Seriously, Adam,” she said snidely, mockingly, her eyes squinting and her arms crossing her chest, “I have been, and aside from the impossibly long time it takes to put in an address, the thing has been quite helpful. Now, in this instance, and forever whatever reason it is not,” sighing she dropped her arms and picked up the surprisingly heavy little machine. “Maybe there’s a typo in the street or something,” she said as she began to fiddle with it.

She startled as the knock upon the window sounded. A sharp sound in the small space of the cab. She’d made a surprised sound as she inhaled, a sound that drove Adam crazy, and she looked towards him apologetically, before rolling down the window.

“I’m sorry I had to rig your GPS,” the man said, “but this is urgent.”

Afraid to turn away from the man at her window, who was clearly insane, Any reached her hand across the seat towards Adam, clenching his hand when she found it. Perhaps if I speak calmly and smile he won’t kill us, she thought, plastering a smile on her face. “Are you lost?” she asked, looking for another vehicle and not finding one, “broken down somewhere?”

“No, ma’am, I’m not lost and neither are you. Again, apologies for rigging your GPS, but this is an urgent matter,” he looked Amy directly in the eyes and she saw that he wasn’t crazy, or at least didn’t seem to be, he was quite serious and confident. She reminded him a bit of an FBI agent in a movie she’d seen recently.

“I’m sorry, I think I misunderstood, you rigged my GPS?” she asked, “I didn’t, I mean, I don’t,” stumbling for the words she ultimately blurted, “how is that even possible?”

“Well, ma’am, you see, we’ve been trying to reach you about your vehicles extended warranty.”

Apologies to everyone who reads this. I’m so, so, so, so, SO sorry. This was terrible. It was. I know this. These prompts though…this is not my kind of writing, but I’m giving it my best…until today. This was not my best. But I hope I made you laugh. -sunday

This #writethirtyminutes session was prompted very loosely from “A Year of Writing Prompts” by Writer’s Digest, available here

My parents named me Blanca. We’re not Spanish or Mestizo or Latino or anything like that. We’re white. Like, super white. Like soooooo white. But people always ask, because my name. So I’ve learned a bit about the other cultures, a bit about the history of my name, this name that doesn’t feel like mine because I haven’t earned it. But it is mine. My name. Cause what else could I call myself? I mean, I guess I can change it when I’m eighteen or whatever, but like, it’s mine. My name. I was born and they named me and now it’s mine. I don’t even know what else I’d call myself, because my name is Blanca. I’m not a Sarah or a Jessica or a Tiffany or any other super white girl name that would be more appropriate. I’m Blanca.

Right, so the why, I’m sure you want to know why. Why in the world would two super white, ultra white, parents name their kid Blanca? Are they super woke? No. In fact, I’d argue that if they were woke they would have known better than to steal someone else’s culture. Def not woke, but I’m working on them. Still, the question: how did I end up with this name? First of all, and you may not know this because I didn’t know it til I started doing research around twelve years old, Blanca is also a French name. Like Blanche. Second of all, my parents are not French either, and the only other Blanca’s I’ve ever heard of have been Spanish speakers. So.

I’m Blanca cause when I was born it looked like I had no hair, or like that super fine and super light blonde hair that makes everyone call you a Toe Head, whatever that means, I mean, my toes aren’t blonde so whatever. Anyway, as may parents are cooing over their little blonde marvel (my mom’s a ginger and my dad’s a brunette so the odds were low) they realized that it wasn’t actually fine blonde hair on my head, but white. I was born with low melanin and therefore am what people refer to as albino.

When people realize I was born with white hair they’re always shocked. “I thought you just dyed it white cause of your name,” “why would anyone name their albino kid Blanca,” “wait, so it just stayed that way?” I’ve heard it all. Some of it is insulting, upsetting, rude. Some of it is just curiosity or lack of tact. I dunno. I try not to let it get to me. People are messed up, not just kids being mean to kids, but like adults really don’t know what the hell they say sometimes either.

So here I am, an albino chick with a Latin name and honestly, it’s all good. I wouldn’t change anything. I mean, I’m super lucky because really there are a lot of issues we people with albinism sometimes have like the obvious sunburn concerns and a higher risk for skin cancer, but more than that, stuff like blindness and racists. I lucked out and have really great vision, I mean I need glasses and all, but that could be just as much due to the fact that both of my parents needed Lasik as it is to the albinism. The major thing though is people. People can be assholes.

Did you know that people actually think I’m a witch? Seriously. That costume is out at Halloween, because people already believe it. Ridiculous. Or like, a ghost. Can you see how far back into my head my eyes are rolling right now? Cause oh my god, people think I’m a ghost. Not all people, obviously, but this is a sincere issue for us. I’m lucky in my small town though that everyone has been welcoming, at least outwardly anyway. I’ve lived here my whole life and no one has ever said anything mean or bad to me. It might have something to do with the fact that we’ve studied albinism in every grade I’ve ever been in, which I think is thanks to my parents being sure it was always included in our science curriculum, but I mean, I think people would have been cool without that too. Or I hope so anyway. I dunno.

I guess it just could be worse, and I’m pretty lucky, all things considered. My parents didn’t know what they were doing when they named me, but I don’t think any parents ever do. They did their best. And when they saw a little white haired baby they said, “I’ve always thought Blanca was the prettiest way of saying white.” So I know they think I’m pretty, and that helps. I think I’m pretty too. Not like in a stuck up way, but like a confident way. And that’s cool.

This #writethirtyminutes session was prompted very loosely from “A Year of Writing Prompts” by Writer’s Digest, available here

Her mom had always called it the “magic book,” and growing up it would appear anytime people were sick or stuck in bed for any reason. The magic book contained poetry, prose, recipes, incredibly simple but beautiful drawings of foxes and squirrels and toadstools. It was easy to believe it really was a magic book because just the sight of it would have her feeling better, the anticipation of a woodland story to take her mind off her ills.

All grown up now and still feeling very much a child, she’s going through all her parents things, it must be done, and it falls to her. It’s all just stuff. The smell of her childhood is no longer on these things, they just smell musty, unwashed, the clothes are easily bagged and given to the thrift store. With the exception of the occasional bowl or mug, the kitchen is swiftly dispatched to the thrift store as well. She ought to hold a garage sale but that would take too much out of her. The thrift store runs are smooth, and the furniture she can sell to an antique store that was more than willing to give her a price that included all of it except the books.

“No one buys books anymore,” she is told.

The antique store will be there tomorrow to pick everything up, so the books must be dealt with, the shelves must be empty, the drawers, the nightstands. She is digging through every title, every leather bound and cloth bound edition. Most are going into boxes for donation to the local library which, thankfully, is happy to have them for their upcoming book sale. An occasional volume is stacked near her purse, a book she’s always wanted to read but never taken the time, The Painted Veil, The Screwtape Letters, The Art of War.

She remembers the magic book before she ever finds it. Begins searching for it subconsciously, no longer stacking books near her purse but throwing every book that is not the magic book into boxes. Faster and faster they are tossed, she’s no longer reading titles or checking bindings. She can tell immediately that this book is not it, nor this one, and into the box they go. She’s becoming frantic but is unaware. Her face now contorted by panic, by need, by an overwhelming sadness at the loss of her mother, which is suddenly there with her. The loss.

She begins crying, a copy of Eudora Welty’s The Optimists Daughter in one hand. She has been delaying this. The crying. Not at first, the delaying, that is. At first there were no tears, this was the thing she’d known was coming, if the timing was a mystery. And now it’s happened and she’s here and suddenly there’s nothing to say, nothing more to do once the books are delivered and the furniture removed. The house will be sold by a realtor, the money forgotten in a bank account somewhere, perhaps coming in handy in the event of one of life’s unexpected turns. There’s nothing left to require her attention except the absence.

Surrounded by her grief, her tears having ruined the book in her hands, she stands, slowly, as the though the arthritis affecting her mother was now hers. She lets the book slip onto her pile as she passes her purse and heads towards the kitchen. A cup of tea ought to help, she thinks, as she takes her mug from this mornings coffee and fills it with water.

She is about to set the mug, now full of tap water and a tea bag, into the microwave when she becomes aware that the microwave isn’t quite flat. It has been set on something to boost it up higher in the cabinet, to allow the door to swing freely open. She places the mug on the counter and attempts to life the microwave with one hand, pulling the thing out from underneath it with the other.

And there it is. The book. The magic book. She feels she ought to laugh, to be surprised by this find, yet she’s sure the book was waiting for precisely this time to appear.

This #writethirtyminutes session was prompted very loosely from “A Year of Writing Prompts” by Writer’s Digest, available here

You could blame it on the Ouija board, I suppose, this whole fascination I have with getting help from others, with needing outside help, with this certainty I have that there’s a way to “fix” me. I don’t even know all the things that are broken but I learn about them slowly and then try to fix them.

The Ouija board was the first time I realized there was something that needed fixing. Typical situation, really, a slumber party of mostly eleven year old girls, someones birthday probably but who would remember that. There was Bloody Mary and Truth or Dare and some movie that I can’t remember now but was probably something rated PG13 that all our parents had given permission for because it was a special occasion or because those ratings have always been bullshit.

Anyway, it wasn’t until we were asking the spirit questions and the Ouija board pointed out that the spirit probably died alone because they didn’t shave their legs that I realized all the girls around me shaved theirs. It just hadn’t occurred to me that something so “adult” would be expected of me at eleven. But that’s cool, all the other girls had shaved legs, message received. Thank you Ouija.

And what eleven year old isn’t willing to jump into all things woman? To be an adult and have freedom, this was the goal, the only goal, unless of course one could talk ones parents into a dog, then a dog was the temporary goal. We already had a dog. So the very next day, at home and showering before bed, I shaved my legs. Uneventful. Lotion applied afterwards. The only exciting part was the feeling of newly shaved legs running through the sheets as I climbed into bed. That was delicious and, I decided, totally worth it.

As I got older there’d be hints here and there about other things I needed to fix. The rise of the internet meant there were now entire search engines at my disposal, a giant Ouija board of information. It was sometimes hard to know which things I needed to fix and which things were broken in others. That could be somewhat satisfying, it turns out, to learn there are things about others that are broken. Do they have a Ouija board to guide them or access to the internet and the gods at Google? Do other people take the time to right their wrongs?

It was through Google that I learned I didn’t have to shave my legs, a relief that came too late as now the habit is firmly ingrained and I am perhaps a bit addicted to the feeling of freshly shaved legs sliding along clean sheets. Regardless, I also learned through my engine searches that I need to know how to cook, a thing which has never appealed to me, but which I now know how to do.

It’s simple really and there’s no excuse. You open your search, type in a few of the major things you have on hand, like “chicken onion mushroom soup” and then you add “recipe” at the end. Simple. All these recipes will pop up with those ingredients and you’re off. Everyone says “if you can read you can cook,” and I guess it must be true cause I somehow manage to feed myself everyday.

The thing is though, you gotta be careful with those recipes and read them all the way through before you start making them because sometimes they want you to have ingredients you don’t have on hand and then you’re in trouble if you’ve already started. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to stop in the middle of something to run to the store. Which defeats the whole purpose of using the internet to find a recipe with ingredients you have on hand.

My point is, I can cook now, ish, and that was something I never would have known was wrong with me if it weren’t for someone like Google pointing it out…well, it wasn’t actually Google that told me I had to cook, it was the people I found on Google while searching for something else. But still.

The thing is, I always think I’m okay, I always think there’s nothing really “wrong” with me, but then I’ll be at a garage sale or a used book store and I’ll come across something like this book I’m reading now, that helped me see what a terrible parent I am. Or I mean, what a terrible parent I would be if I had kids. I don’t even know why I picked up the book to be honest. Who picks up a parenting book when they aren’t a parent? But I did, and I found out I’m terrible at it. Or I would be. But now, because I’m reading this book, I’m not, or I won’t be. Or whatever.

So see, the thing is, my point I guess, is that you never know what you don’t know about yourself and all these things you don’t know can’t be fixed. And if you’re lucky, you start finding these things at eleven years old at a maybe birthday party, and then you just keep finding them forever afterwards. And I mean forever. There is no shortage of things that are wrong with me according to all these searches I do and all these books I’ve found.

Like this newest book I got through a search that told me I shouldn’t eat carbs. Who knew? But this book tells me that not only am I still a terrible cook, I’m also a terrible eater, but I’m fixing both, or I’m going to be able to fix both, as soon as I finish this book. And then I’ll be a good cook, a good eater, and healthier. Plus I’ll be an even better parent than the parents who only read that one parenting book because I’ll know this stuff about cooking and eating which weren’t covered in that book. And if I’m ever the parent of a girl I’ll be able to teach her about Ouija and also about how she doesn’t actually have to shave her legs but if she does the best part about it is clean sheets.

This #writethirtyminutes session was prompted very loosely from “A Year of Writing Prompts” by Writer’s Digest, available here

Obviously everyone has their own tastes and is free to do whatever they wish their own bathroom, but Sheila was having a devil of a time understanding how anyone could have intentionally come up with the disaster she was staring at. As a realtor you see some things, some really awful things, and your job is to put a positive spin on it or find a way to get your client to overlook it.

Sheila had experience with all of this and considered herself an expert, not as a result of inflated ego but because she truly had a knack with people, probably the little bit of psychology she took at the local community college before deciding she didn’t want to listen to people bitch and moan all day for a living. And wasn’t that just ironic, people don’t seem to understand that 90% of her job is listening to clients bitch and moan, and the remaining 10% is taken up by driving, paperwork, and cleaning…so much cleaning.

But this…there was no way to “clean” this into ignorable, there was no way to spin this into positive, unless it was to encourage the clients with a bit more money that this would be the perfect location for the beginning of their remodel. Ugh.

The thing was, it wasn’t dirty. This was not the toilet out of Trainspotting. Sheila would not refuse to use the bathroom if she had an urgent need to go. No, it wasn’t that the bathroom filled you with terror over what disease you might contract just by breathing within it. It was entirely…functional…just not, practical…or attractive.

Sheila’s friend, Megan, was an interior designer, a friendship born when they were in grade school and their value to each other was purely altruistic. They were not so much alike other than being female, of the same age, and in the same third grade class. At that age that’s all it really takes though. They had an instant friendship born of Barbie dolls and pets and the fact that their mothers allowed them to take turns sleeping over at each others houses on weekends.

Megan had a dramatic way of seeing things, a perfect trait for an interior designer, one her clients appreciated. It was more than just flair, although Megan had no shortage of flair, it was a boldness and a surety that would have made her an excellent actress if she wasn’t so content to remain where she was.

Sheila knew she’d have to bring Megan into this house, and into this bathroom. Clearly her wealthier clients would want to do something about it immediately, and she needed some help on how to spin it for the ones who couldn’t afford to.

She grabbed her phone from her back pocket and when it went to voice mail she left the only message she could think to, “Megan? It’s me. I’m going to need your help. Call me or come by…I’ll be here for at least an hour,” and she left the address.

While she waited Sheila proceeded through the rest of the house. She took some pictures and some videos, even though she wasn’t the sellers agent, she knew her buyers well and some of them would request these things. She made notes on her phone, a habit she’d picked up early on, things that were quaint or charming or especially attractive about a property, things that she’d have to remember to gloss over or to ignore entirely if minor enough that their omission wouldn’t be seen as a fault with her as an agent.

Sheila had just finished sending emails with attachments to some of her buyers when she heard the front door opening and Megan calling, “I’m heeeeere!” in a sing-song.

“Oh, thank god!” Sheila said as she walked from the kitchen and embraced her friend. “Thank you for this,” she said, taking the proffered coffee cup and looking Megan directly in the eyes. “I need you to…I just don’t know how to…follow me,” she ended lamely as she walked her friend through the living room, down a hallway, and into the master bedroom. “It’s in there,” she said, pointing through the doorway that led to the bathroom.

Megan smiled, took a deep breath bracing for the unknown, and walked through into the bathroom. She didn’t get far before she shouted, “my god, it’s a bathroom murder!” the word murder echoing off the tiles.

This #writethirtyminutes session was prompted very loosely from “A Year of Writing Prompts” by Writer’s Digest, available here

Her book collection had gotten a bit out of control. It started easily enough, a book here and there at the library book sale, a garage sale, the thrift store. Somehow though she’d amassed a collection that filled three book cases and required her stack books on end tables. It was chaotic. It was also very fulfilling, very soothing. Still and all it was simply too many books, and she decided to organize them, to start reading them, to give away the ones that weren’t favorites.

She decided to tackle the smallest book case first, pulling all the books out, looking at each book and trying to decide if it was something she’d already read or not. If so, and she was going to re-read and/or reference it again, it went on the bottom shelf. If not, and she was actually going to read it, it went on the top shelf, and otherwise it went in a bag to give to the thrift store. She continued through the first bookcase until all the books had been reorganized and found she had zero books to give away, not surprising, and only a couple books on the lower shelf.

“No time like the present,” she murmured, grabbing a book she hadn’t read yet, a lovely leather bound piece, and went to the couch. She opened it and rifled past the mishmash in the beginning to get to chapter one. She had just started reading when she decided a bit of tea was in order. Searching for a bookmark nearby and finding none, she went to splay the book on the couch arm when a piece of paper fell out.

“The universe is always listening,” she said with a smile, grabbing the paper and shoving it in her place in the book and wandering off for her tea.

She returned to the couch with her mug and some cheese and crackers, picked the book up again and took a glance at the paper she’d used as a bookmark. Opening it she found it wasn’t just a piece of paper but a hand written letter. There was no date and the dedication and sign off used pet names. She’d never be able to return it to it’s rightful owner and that made her sad, for the letter was truly beautiful, a love letter that was fairly simple and yet perfectly conveyed the depth of emotion behind every sentence, every promise.

She wondered if she’d ever receive such a letter. If she’d ever write one. She wondered if the book it was in, the one she hadn’t quite started yet, was intentional or simply what was at hand the last time the letter was read. Did the writer of the letter ever send it? Did the recipient ever read it. It was impossible to tell these things as the paper itself had been so perfectly preserved inside the book. There were no smudges or stains from tears, no rips or tears, it had never been crumpled or abused in any way. She had to believe, for herself, that the letter had been loved as much as the writer of it.

This #writethirtyminutes session was prompted very loosely from “A Year of Writing Prompts” by Writer’s Digest, available here

Living in the city she’d always feared strangers looking in her windows, it’s hard not to when your windows face their windows and everyone’s a foot away from each other. She started keeping her blinds closed all the time. She’d leave a dark house for work and return to a dark house in the evening. Weekends were spent in darkness unless she ventured out and she caught herself doing that less and less. She didn’t quite realize it but she’d stopped living and was simply going through the motions.

And then one day she received a phone call. It seems an uncle she could only vaguely remember having heard about, Crazy Mikey, had passed away and she was the closest living relative. He’d left her a few acres with a cabin and come outbuildings in Montana. No, he didn’t owe any taxes and there were no fines as long as she lived there for two years before selling it, which given the report from the solicitor would hopefully be enough time to clean it up.

They call it a decision when you do something like move, but really there was no other logical path to take. She gave her notice to her landlord, sold everything but a few books to help her get where she was going and what clothes she could pack in a suitcase. She took three different flights to arrive in the middle of nowhere and realized the reason she couldn’t find a hotel or any sort of services online for this little town was because there were none. It was little more than an airport and even that was stretching it.

She got off the tiny plane and looked around her at trees. Trees and mountains. And silence. She could hear a hawk or an eagle or something calling in the distance. She could hear something, a tractor maybe, yes, there it was a tractor across the street. If it weren’t for knowing someone was driving that tractor, and knowing a pilot had brought her here, she’d think she was the last person in the world.

“You got someone comin’ to meet you?” asked the pilot.

Startled she turned on an inhale and clutched her book closer to her chest. “Oh, um, no, not really. Couldn’t find any…anything online. I guess I was hoping there’d be a shuttle or a taxi or…something,” she said, her voice getting softer, quieter at the end, as the realization of what she’d just done began to hit.

“Whelp, there’s a farmer over there sometimes lets out for hire his old pickup, but he’s haying so I doubt it’s available today. Where is it you’re going to?”

“I, well, my uncle, Cr…er Michael, recently passed and I’m trying to get out to his, well, my place now I guess.”

There was a beat, a moment when she could tell he was looking at her a bit harder, a glimmer in his eye, “Crazy Mikey was your uncle, huh? Well now, I can take you back up to his place whenever you’re ready.”

“I didn’t realize anyone else called him that,” she said, blushing and wondering if that meant people would think she was crazy, too. Heaving a sigh she said, “I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

Now he looked at her like she really was crazy, “look ma’am, it’s not my business, but I can’t let you go out there without any provisions. I expect he’ll have some things put up that could get you by, but since he left us at about the time he’d be restocking everything, we don’t really know what’s there. If you don’t mind my saying so, it’s best if we stop at the shop and get you some things to get you through til you can get back to town.”

“Oh, a shop? Yes, please, that would be wonderful. Thank you,” she was a bit flustered at the idea that there’d be a shop out here, at the idea that she was going to be living far enough “out” whatever that meant from this place that was already so remote that this stranger was concerned for her welfare, she was a bit flustered by the whole thing really and began to wonder if she shouldn’t have just sold everything and inherited nothing but a few bucks after taxes.

By the time they stowed her bags in the back of the pilots truck, picked up what few groceries she could find at the shop, which turned out to be the farmers stand, and drove out to Crazy Mikey’s cabin it was getting late. Late, but not dark. It didn’t matter that it was nearly ten o’clock at night, the world was nearly light enough to hike in. She couldn’t believe it. Even more than the near daylight quality out, she couldn’t believe where the pilot had brought her.

It was a good thirty minute drive from the airport and all of that through trees like she’d never seen, and following a river she almost couldn’t believe. She’d seen that Netflix show about that nurse in the mountains, what was it, Virgin River! It was like background shots out of the show, only greener, more beautiful, real.

This #writethirtyminutes session was prompted very loosely from “A Year of Writing Prompts” by Writer’s Digest, available here

The building on Vista Street had been vacant for months. Actually, once she did the math she realized it had been years. Almost two, if she was correct, roughly the same time her last relationship went south. But suddenly there was brown paper in the windows, the outside was being painted, the inside renovated, and as she passed the building each day on her way to and from the office she saw how quickly things were coming together. She was very eager to know what it would re-open as: a gym most likely and disappointingly.

And then one day, there was a sign out front:

NOW OPEN
le donjon
Fine French Cuisine et Suite

She went straight home, changed out of her work wear and took a shower, shaving for the first time in months. She got out of the shower and into a little black dress she’d been saving for her next date, but since she had no idea when that would be she decided to treat herself. A quick smear of eyeshadow and a bit of mascara, a flash of lipgloss, lipstick never looked quite right on her skin, and she was out the door with her little strappy sandals clicking away.

She decided to walk as it was only a half mile away and a lovely evening. She rarely got outside anymore it seemed, always at work or at home pretending to sleep on the couch, Netflix inquiring on occasion if she was still watching. The air was perfect, she could finally tell it was autumn, the crispness to the air becoming apparent, cool and clean and promising. She noted the leaves changing and the advertisements in shop windows promising pumpkins and cinnamon and sweater weather.

The restaurant was clearly just opening for dinner when she arrived and she asked if she needed reservations. “Non, non mademoiselle. This is the advantage of opening mid-week, no one is even aware. We expect it will be overflowing this weekend though, eh? Tonight you will have a friend?”

“No,” she replied with a smile, “seulement moi.”

“Ah, you speak French! You’re accent is suberbe! Ou avez-vous appris a parlerfrancais?”

“Merci. I learned in high school and rarely get a chance to practice, you’re very kind.”

“Par ici, mademoiselle,” he said, bowing slightly and waving the menu towards a table for two.

As she walked in, the waiter following discreetly behind her and pulling out her chair, she noted the luxury all about her. Fine carpets, beautiful linen tablecloths reaching all the way to the ground, the cutlery all obviously new and hand polished, the romantic dim lighting and framed artwork strategically placed around to muffle sounds. This would be the perfect place for a date, she thought as she sat down and was gently pushed forward, her napkin swept off the table in front of her and gracefully lowered to her lap for her.

“You may expect the wine list first, no? If you will permit me, I have a recommendation? You peruse the menu first, oui, and I will bring for you the perfect accompaniment for each course. You trust me,” the waiter placed the menu in her hand before continuing, “whatever you pick, you must start with the apero. I will be right back.”

While she was convinced this meal was going to be terrible for her bank balance, she was so charmed by her surroundings and the knowledge that this would be the best meal she’d eaten in perhaps her entire life, that she set to perusing the menu with gusto. Only as she was reviewing the first course, the promised apero not making it onto the menu as more than a given with no description, that she became concerned. Surely there had been a mistake. Typos definitely. Or more like two different documents had been printed at the same time and the printer glitched, printing the two together, for there, listed under “premier cours” were some unexpected entries:

premier cours
quiche lorraine
scalp massage
brie au four
hand massage
tarte a l’Oignon
lower back massage
souffle au fromage

Should she say something to the waiter? He was clearly going to be very embarrassed if this was his restaurant, as she suspected, or owned by his family. But to not say anything, wouldn’t that be worse. She was obviously their first patron and they’d put so much work into this place that she’d hate to see it fail. He was coming towards her bearing a drink and a plate, she had only moments to decide what to do, and then there he was, placing the small glass and plate before her with a flourish and a smile.

“Voila,” he said, “have you determined your meal, mademoiselle?”

She was blushing furiously, but managed to stammer out, “well, ye…er, no…you see mmm I believe your menu may have some errors?”

“Ah non, c’est terrible!” he said bending down to look at her menu, “please, show me this.”

She pointed to “scalp massage” and then to “hand massage” and her index finger was on it’s way towards “lower back massage” when the waiter began laughing. “Ah, no, mademoiselle, no no no, these are not errors. We are a full service restaurant and you Americans are so tense, yes? So much of this stress and working that you do. We want you to enjoy your meal, to relax, and how will you do this in a traditional four or even five course situation if we do not offer these things?” he looked at her expectantly and also as though she were so silly to not see the necessity behind his words, their simple truth. “And so, I will give you some time. You enjoy this pastis and olives and peruse the menu. I shall return anon.”

She was immediately grateful there was no mistake in the menu but also still confused by something that seemed so obvious to him and so out of place to her. She took a sip of the pastis, mmm like drinking licorice, and popped an olive in her mouth, fantastic, before returning to her menu. The second course also had, what she considered to be some oddities, as did the third. Things were progressing from dubious to downright surreal by the time she got to the fourth:

le quatrieme cours
creme brulee
masturbation
apple cranberry galette
anal fingering
tarte figure
oral sex
fromage blanc

This #writethirtyminutes session was prompted very loosely from “A Year of Writing Prompts” by Writer’s Digest, available here