Random Word Stories – Sillyfrog's Blog

Wordle # 585- The Sunday Whirl- Lesson on Personal Safety

Posted on 01/02/2023 by Susan St.Pierre

boat* preserve* speak* resist* oil* fire* drive* fly* shoot* matter* close* right*

Nope! We weren’t going on a boat again. The kids got seasick the last time and learned nothing more than how to vomit over the railing without falling in.
We hadn’t saved enough money to fly anywhere so trapsing the Nature’s Wonders Club of 8-year-olds through our own local natural wonders seemed the best decision. One of the parents offered to drive us to the base of the trail leading to our famous woodland peak which was the tallest in our state.
I would carry a concealed handgun which I’d thoroughly oiled and loaded in private. It was likely I wouldn’t need to shoot it but having it was the wisest thing to do. Some of the parents may have objected but speaking to them about the value of guns in the wild was out of the question. Naive and ignorant of many topics concerning Nature and pro-active safety, discussing my decision would have complicated the matter and brought political resistance into play. Bears and ‘bad guys’ aren’t usually political, but they are, on occasion, more dangerous than those who are.

Now we are at a crime scene! Lights, rescue crews, and State Police surround my huddled, yet safe, group of 6. Professionals worked to preserve the drug evidence and are done with the questioning. We’d had a great time telling ghost stories and roasting marshmallows by the overnight fire, but on our way back in the morning, two men surprised us on the trail. They were most certainly drug smugglers who didn’t want any witnesses. My handgun saved us from certain death by wounding one and detaining the other. The kids had gotten more than a Nature training but a real-life lesson about not allowing strangers to get too close and that carrying a gun can be the right choice. Not one parent has complained about me carrying a gun since.

https://sundaywhirl.wordpress.com/2023/01/01/wordle-585/

Wordle 546- The Sunday Whirl

Posted on 03/27/202203/27/2022 by Susan St.Pierre

When someone laughed, I awoke flailing. Dawn had not yet broken, and the room was almost totally dark.
“Not again.”, I whispered.
All was quiet for several minutes, but I knew that I hadn’t imagined jubilant, squealing, voices.
This new apartment was less than an adequate fit. I’d been creeped out each day by increasing levels of whacky happenings and it had only been three weeks.
On day one, mists kept rising inside the bathroom hours after my shower. Even as the exhaust fan whirred loudly attempting to remove them, more appeared. They hung around seemingly with a purpose; floating independent from each other. I was too rattled to use the bathroom for days and asked my neighbor to use his facilities claiming mine was out-of-order.
Suddenly, the wall clock dropped off of the nail I had secured it with the day before and broke into three pieces on the hardwood floor.
My heart jumped directly into my mouth as I stretched for the light switch with shock-numbed fingertips.
I’d shouldered so much stress from the near-death accident on a Ferris Wheel that had forced me to relocate, I was about to lose my mind!
Everything was momentarily a blur as darkness instantly vanished replaced with a brilliance I had not anticipated.
Headlights? No… They’re carnival lights!

The man who was hospitalized three weeks ago, after falling off of a Ferris Wheel, never regained consciousness and died today.

https://sundaywhirl.wordpress.com/2022/03/27/wordle-546/

Random Word Stories, Writing Prompts

Sunday Whirl Wordle #539- Saving Our Babies

Posted on 02/06/202202/07/2022 by Susan St.Pierre

nailing -vibrating -smells -facts -rain -leak -brushed -hesitation -body -miss -shots -cut

Without hesitation she threw her body between the child and the oncoming speeding car. The young officer was brushed aside, as the vehicle screeched to a halt, sustaining a cut to her forehead from the sideview mirror. A possible tragic scene was altered to a ‘near miss‘ because of her quick reflexes. The facts that led her to be at this place at an exact moment to save a life would surely wake her up in the night for weeks.
A call about a possible rabid raccoon -out during the day- in the area had her roaming the quiet neighborhood alone and on foot. She’d raced to the sound of frantically barking dogs and the rest was history.
After sending the child on her way, the officer cautiously approached the driver’s side window of the errant vehicle. Perhaps the recent rain downpour had been a factor for the swerving or was the driver texting?
The window squeaked as it slowly lowered. Immediately smells of marijuana and alcohol assaulted the officer. She knew she’d be nailing this guy for something!
After wiping blood from the still leaking laceration, away from her right eye, she drew her revolver and shouted to the driver, “Get out of the vehicle with your hands where I can see them!”.
Suddenly her body was vibrating! As she dropped toward the pavement, she saw the flashes from the gun but never heard the shots. The officer was dead before she hit the ground.
The car and occupants raced away.
Before the ambulance arrived, a female raccoon rushed from nearby bushes with her rescued lost baby and disappeared down a storm drain.

https://sundaywhirl.wordpress.com/2022/02/06/wordle-539/

Random Word Stories

Random Word Story # 39~ Choose Wisely

Posted on 04/25/202104/25/2021 by Susan St.Pierre

I have a category called Random Word Stories. From an online random word generator, I grab a list and write a story. It’s my own way to find a prompt. Feel free to check out the others I’ve done over the years. Thanks!

nightmare
major
forge
mess
fold
obscure

It had just come to Marie’s attention in a news article, that Americans weren’t reproducing in sufficient numbers to maintain their own cultural future. Oh well, she thought, progress and changes happen. Women are more than ‘baby machines’.
“Ugh.”
Her life as a professional unmarried 28 year old was awesome! And, no stretch marks, baby.

In college, the consensus about career vs family for young women wasn’t at all obscure. Life could only be fullfilling if women pursued their careers first with becoming a mother a ‘maybe’. In fact, the few who dropped out, opting for families, were banished from elite circles and were openly called ‘troglodytes’. She never hesistated to dismiss those women and pitied them for not belonging to the enlightened fold of feminism. Her once, best friend, Lynn was one of those misguided types.
Marie was completely convinced having children was messy, expensive, and intrusive for women who wished to forge a bright future so running into Lynn, at her hometown bank (after not seeing her for a decade), was a good chance to flaunt her wiser choices.
Lynn looked horrible. Her hair and wardrobe were a mess.
“Sneakers. Really?” Marie mumbled.
Marie almost considered avoiding her to save Lynn the inevitable embarrassment but, heck, she’d created her own nightmare. It wasn’t Marie’s fault. She’d even pleaded with her not to throw in the towel 10 years ago.
“Lynn?”
“Marie! How are you?”
” I’m great! I just got back from Europe on assignment and the vice president position isn’t too far off. The marketing firm may be setting up an office in Belguim! My expense account is unlimited and I get dibs on all the first fashion trends. See?” Marie twirled for emphasis.
“Nice! You were always so talented. How’s your Mom?”
“She’s okay. How’s your family?”
With a twinkle in her eye, Lynn grabbed her phone and showed photos of her three daughters, two dogs, and a variety of camping excursions, softball games, and, what she called, ‘giggle fests’. Her husband still drove trucks, but now had his own company, and she was homeschooling her kids since Covid-19 shutdowns. Her home had a lovely yard with, of all things, a white picket fence!
Lynn certainly didn’t look miserable. Marie thought she even beamed.
The major letdown of their encounter was Lynn’s total lack of envy of Marie’s choices. She seemed content and chatted about her children with an energy and pride that Lynn didn’t even have for her own ‘projects’.
As Marie unlocked her apartment that evening, she had an epiphany.
That college feminist ‘concesus’ may not have been organic, or as altruistic, as it seemed.

Random Word Stories

Random Word Story #38: Taproots In One Place

Posted on 02/23/202003/14/2021 by Susan St.Pierre

broad
sneaky
old
shocking
observe
tree
spell
{ Wicahpi is pronounced Wick-ah-pie}

Wicahpi needed to rest. She sat down harder than she’d intended on a newly toppled tree almost spilling her basket of apples. This last uphill patch to her cottage was always the toughest.
“Oh, that wouldn’t have made me happy, now.” She whispered through he teeth.
She directly addressed the apples next. “You’d make me chase you all back to the bottom. Wouldn’t you, now?”.
Her waist length gray braid swept the ground as she bent forward to steady her precious bounty. She fingered the pencil thin tip of it as her eyes followed the last section of path leading home. Once upon a time, many young men made repeated climbs up that trail to try to sweep her away from the mountain. None were successful. Wicahpi had lived alone for forty-five years and liked it.

wicahpi11cad861547020ec2fb2056185615605

Her deep brown eyes had dimmed a bit, yet, she had those same fine features of the once beautiful woman who’d broken so many hearts. They’ve just been a bit harder to make out, these days, beneath a weathered ninety years of exposure to the outdoors.
Wicahpi squinted as she scanned the canopy of the hardwood forest. It was getting late. A sudden breeze rattled the dying leaves of early autumn trying to shake them loose.
Her thoughts sharply turned to the vixen she hoped to observe again at dusk. Her new friend had come out along the broad stone wall for the last three evenings. They had created an almost enchanted attachment simply through studying each other from afar.
“A little farther, now. I won’t be late, my lady. I’ve slowed a bit, now. I won’t be givin’ up yet.”
As she hoisted her basket, she suddenly became overwhelmingly thirsty. Wicahpi felt her knees buckling, and one shocking moment later, she opened her eyes finding herself lying on the ground beside the frog pond behind her comfortable lifetime home.
“How’d I get so old that I’ve lost my strength AND my mind?” she grumbled.
Wicahpi glanced toward the cottage that her father had built. There was no place on earth she felt safer. Not that she’d traveled at all but one knows when they have “taproots in one place” as her Daddy put it. Her words came out feebly, ” I…I’m fine. I’ll be fine, now.”.
She hesitantly rolled to her knees and sat on her heels. “I’m still flexible, now, aren’t I?”. Wicahpi was talking directly at her own reflection in the twilight darkness of the pond. She was accustomed to doing that. In the next moment, she watched her own eyes widen with terror as she felt a whisper on her neck. “Come, Wicahpi. I’m waiting.”
The old woman buried her face in her hands and shouted, “Oh Lord, what kind of spell has been put on me?!”
Almost paralyzed with fear, she slowly dropped her hands and turned her head at tiny increments for a glimpse of who, or what, had spoken in her ear. There, a few feet away, sat the vixen licking her paw.
“What a sneaky thing to do, now! You gave ME the start of my life!”
The vixen whispered once again. “Come, Wicahpi. We’re waiting.”
The creature then padded straight up to her and licked her on the cheek. She looked over her shoulder, just once, as she trotted away into the dark forest. Along the far side of the pond, several pairs of golden eyes blinked alive in the day’s last light. A warm breeze stirred up the leaves then all went silent.

They never found the old lady who was the last of the family who once lived there. Her disappearance would become a chilling local legend. A demolition crew was brought in from the State because local crews were too superstitious to take the job. Eight months went by before bulldozers roared flattening the abandoned cottage and widening the old path into an access road…
all the while, a gray fox, with deep brown eyes and fine features, sat silently within the tree line watching. Urocyon_cinereoargenteus_grey_fox_Aurora_zoo_image_9810

Random Word Stories

Random Word Story #37- What’s Eating Bitsie?

Posted on 02/17/202002/17/2020 by Susan St.Pierre

Word generator words: sack, sashay, mature, weave, value, bat, organize

There’s a big difference between getting angry and going berserk. Some call the latter being “triggered”. I’m not allowed to use that term. Mom says, “There’s no excuse for losing one’s cool, ever. People who say they’re ‘triggered’ are simply not mature enough to control themselves.”

I think Bitsie Banks was born triggered. She doesn’t ever say it… or use it as an excuse, though. Her world is just a whole sack of triggers. Maybe she hates what her grandma calls her “condition” or maybe she misses her mom and dad or maybe God just gave her an extra helping of the “angries”? Whatever it is, she doesn’t seem inclined to tell me and I ain’t askin’.

My Dad says, “Everyone has value. Some folks just hide it better than the rest.” I’m afraid Bitsie has hers buried where SHE can’t even find it. When she isn’t screeching her business to the moon, she’s as quiet as an owl swooping in on a mouse under that moon. There isn’t any in between.

Bitsie lives with her grandma two streets away from our school. When my bus pulled in on Friday, I could see her cutting through the ball field. She usually ducks behind the bleachers and pops out of the dugout closest to the courtyard. It isn’t easy to keep her in sight. She’s three feet two inches tall with her shoes on and there’s a hedge along the infield fence.

By the time I organize my locker and head for homeroom, Bitsie’s always there in the front row. Today, her little chair is empty.

I know, for certain, that I’d seen her. She had her navy blue cardigan on and her usual ponytails were waving wildly from side to side. Bitsie could never be confused with anyone ‘cept maybe a peg legged pirate.
I lept to look out the tall classroom windows that face the ball field. It was empty! Just as the late bell rang, Bitsie came in with a bat over her shoulder. Her hair was full of leaves and twigs. Her sweater was torn almost clean off! That usual stomping gorilla-style gate had been replaced by an alarmingly uncharacteristic “sashay“. Bitsie’s chin lifted toward the ceiling and she winked at me as she passed. Whatever had happened, and whoever it happened to, Bitsie Banks had been the perpetrator NOT the victim.

At lunchtime, she’ll weave a tale Indiana Jones wouldn’t even believe and I’m the only person on the WHOLE PLANET she’ll tell! It’s gonna be hard to wait for this one.

Random Word Stories

Random Word Story # 36 … No Thanks, Bitsie Banks.

Posted on 02/16/202003/14/2021 by Susan St.Pierre

girl_silhouette2

Word generator words: multiply- absorbing- art -stew- possess- halting- plot -sun- perpetual
________

I could go on and on about all the rotten luck leading me to a summer camp where I’d meet my best friend but the “before stuff” doesn’t matter.

It was my first day at summer camp. Mom and Dad wanted me to get to know the kids from our new town. My name is Daisy. My mom’s a florist, enough said. Our house has a perpetual odor of a funeral parlor so I have to put cinnamon sticks in my dresser drawers to counteract it. Sometimes, I dab lemon juice behind my ears, too.

There were about 200 kids gathered in the parking lot of Camp Summer Breeze when, suddenly, the crowd parted like the Red Sea. A tiny, nib of a girl was marching through with arms waving above her head. A great squawking sound filled the air as the crowd fell silent. I thought it was a loudspeaker coming to life but that enormous noise was emanating from that three foot tall child! Her name is Bitsie Banks.

I would come to know that Bitsie’s given name was Bertha after her grandmother. Bertha was a large person’s name, and although her personality was certainly large, she went by the nickname given her by a student body who felt inclined to pick on her.

As I was absorbing the odd scene, Bitsie marched up, halting right in front of me. She lowered her arms, and shouted, “What are YOU lookin’ at?!”. The volume of her question just about knocked me over!

” You. I’m watching you. ” I said. The crowd gasped in unison. She was such a petite, cute, little girl it was hard to imagine she could possess such an intimidating presence.

She seemed momentarily disarmed by my honesty and walked a circle around me like a drill sergeant.

“You smell like my Grandma’s house!”

” Yeah, I hear that a lot. Why are you shouting?” This time, the crowd didn’t react. Everyone had escaped to the main lodge while we were engaged in being somewhere else. This was the plot twist that would change us both forever. With no audience, we were free to be ourselves.

No one had ever talked to Bitsie the way I did. Like a real person, I mean. Her big brown eyes beneath uneven dark brown bangs, softened. She looked like a sweet, baby mouse. I wanted to pick her up and pet her but I knew better. If you multiply the number of kids, in the earlier crowd, times the ones left, a person knows the odds of getting away with crossing her.

“What’s your name, Smelly?” This time her tone was almost normal.

” Well, close. My name’s Daisy. They aren’t the sweetest smellers. I’ll bet yours is Godzilla.”.
This was the make or break moment. The sarcasm stew that would make me, by day’s end, happy I took a chance.
Bitsie threw back her head and howled with laughter.
“Ain’t you skeert? I can chomp your head off!”
“I’d taste just like your Grandma’s house. You’d get sick.”
From that moment on, the shouting stopped.

As the sun set, there was pink, and orange, on the horizon. Bitsie and I were sharing a bench painting a watercolor for an Art badge. We would be entering the same fifth grade class in the Fall. Our talk went from how we had gotten our names, to our hilarious first introduction, then finished, with our plans for after this camping stint.

I told Bitsie that I liked the mean spirited name she’d claimed and how cool it was that she didn’t let it bother her. She admitted how much she loved her Grandma’s house AND my aroma. Somewhere along the way we became fast friends.

” Daisy? You probably ought to make other friends tomorrow. Don’t you worry about me.”

“No thanks, Bitsie Banks. You’re all a person can handle… and more than I could have hoped for.”

Crickets seemed mighty loud that night.