Friday, May 06, 2005

Doing It...WRITE

Blogroll Me!

I'm going to try something here. Perhaps I will have no takers, perhaps I will. But I foresee that if I indeed have takers, this could turn into something fun. Chaim, "M" and others who like writing, you've got to pay attention!

I'm going to write a line that appeared in a published book and I want you to continue writing, add a couple lines, or a couple paragraphs to it, and let's see where it takes us.

My line deals with Jews, mothers and food. Nowhere can you go wrong with that!


After fast-forwarding through the rest of the messages, all from my mother, I glanced down at the cake to discover I'd somehow eaten half of it.

8 comments:

Chaim said...

After fast-forwarding through the rest of the messages, all from my mother, I glanced down at the cake to discover I'd somehow eaten half of it.

Since I’m a man, that was fine with me. Of course had this been my wife, a very large mental breakdown would be have quickly ensued.

By the time my wife came home, there were more messages, this time she took a pad and pen and sat by them to listen in.

When I came into the room, I looked down at the table and saw that the second half had been eaten. Looking back up to see my wife’s face, with a smile and crumbs at his chin, she said. Those messages were from my mother

Nu, ? You Likee?

Chaim said...

his=her .. sorry ... (uch)

M said...

After fast-forwarding through the rest of the messages, all from my mother, I glanced down at the cake to discover I'd somehow eaten half of it.

There was that brief moment of indecision, when I was suspended between my duel reflexes to initiate either guilt or hedonistic bliss. After weighing my options and shuddering at the horrified expressions on my friends faces should I crack and confess to them, I reasoned that with the current lack of witnesses (the goldfish could be taken care of) the prosecution's case would never fly before a jury. Thus assuaged, I fished out a fork and began to attack the Mocha Cream Coffee Crumble cake in earnest, mumbling awkward blessings to Duncan Heinz through my full mouth.

But so absorbed was I in the thrilling decadence of my Weight-Watchers cardinal sin that all of my telephone call censorship skills had flown out the window with my dignity. I was blinded to every one of my carefully researched clues- It was 2:43 on Wednesday, and I had just gotten back from the dentist. Not only that, there was a school board meeting tomorrow night which we both were required to attend. By now, alarm bells should have been peeling in my brain don't pick up! don't pick up! But I even allowed myself to slip through the protective fingers of society's secret savior since Alexander Graham Bell first decided that telephones should ring instead of whisper- I ignored my Caller ID. Without a glance at the green rectangle that was glowing with useless beneficence, I reached out and picked up the phone.

"Mhelloe? Thorry," (swallow, gulp) "'Lo?"

"Rachel!" came the horrified tone of my next door neighbor, the mellifluous Debbie Weiner. "What on earth are you eating???"

Air Time said...

After fast-forwarding through the rest of the messages, all from my mother, I glanced down at the cake to discover I'd somehow eaten half of it.

I tried to even the edges of the cake, and shaved a bit from each side, but that didn't look right. I took off another wedge, managed to swallow it, silently cursing my mother for passing on her anal rententive genes to me.

Ten minutes later, after the cake had been whittled down to a perfectly symetrical triangle, I found myself walking to the bathroom. Eating all that cake plus the news that my mother was going to spend the summer with us instead of my sister called for some drastic action.

My therapist's voice echoed in my head for a moment. Slow down, no need to run, the voice told me. But it was too late. I was already huddled over the toilet.

"Time to get in shape for mamas' visit," I thought to myself, as I felt the first wave of cake make its way back up.

torontopearl said...

You people are g....o....o....d!

And everybody thinks that these books I copy edit for a living are based on "formula" writing. Looking at your offerings is proof that there is no formula; there is just GREAT IMAGINATION.

Chaim said...

Does EVERY woman have mother issues that bad? lol. I guess you CAN bake your cake and EAT it.

Shabbat Shalom Bloggers, Shabbat Shalom Pearl!

rabbi neil fleischmann said...

Technical point; I thought it would be fun for each commenter to add on to the last. It seems that everyone elses understanding was to do their own take on continuing the first few lines. So, I'll do that too. But maybe the other idea would be fun for the future. They offer that sometimes at storyteller.net.

---------------------------

After fast-forwarding through the rest of the messages, all from my mother, I glanced down at the cake to discover I'd somehow eaten half of it. I snorted as I caught sight of the forward and stop buttons, which were covered with chocolate - as were my fingertips as well as the corners of my mouth. I went to the kitchen sink, pushed back the stick shift style fawcet, scrubbed my hands clean, and gave my lips a quick splash. Then I carefully reconnected the corners of the Entenman's box and put the cake in the back of the fridge, where I had hypnotically taken it from. Just then Suzy came through the door with the Chinese take out. "Anyone call, Chaim?" she asked, as she put the doubled bags onto the kitchen table. "Just my mother," I said. "Let's eat. I'm starved."

torontopearl said...

Maybe I'll have the last word!

...somehow eaten half of it.
This was no way to stick to a regimented diet, I thought. Okay, a regimented diet of daily doses of designer cakes and cookies, but regimented nonetheless.

How does my mother not understand how answering machines work? She always gets her messages cut off because she waits so long to start speaking, and then she keeps calling back until 1) either she finally gets her whole message out, or 2) she uses up the entire tape on the answering machine.

Yes, I've come home to find that "You have 20 messages." And only one or two come from telemarketers, or sometimes even a friend.

I'm so glad that I have that cell phone and that I haven't let Mom yet know about it. And glad I haven't given her my e-mail address, either. Could you just imagine it: an invasion of "Mom messages" through all mediums possible!?

I'm getting a little distressed here, just thinking about that scenario. Hey, can I just "half" my cake and eat it, too?