My Best Friends

Written for the 30-day creative writing challenge hosted by Nicky and Mike of We Work For Cheese.  Today's prompt is Best Friends.  This is the 8th day of this madness.  Check out the Linky at WWFC for more great stories.

There are many kinds of best friends, girlfriends, buddies, husbands and wives, even our pets.

My best friend for life was not always my best friend.  I was 10 when she was born, and no 10 year old is friends with a baby.  She lived next door, and during my teen years, she wanted to hang out with me, which, as you can guess, annoys a teenager.

When she was about 12, I came to see that she was smarter than most kids, not book smart, but smart in the ways of people.  She had an insight and intelligence beyond her years.  We soon developed a friendship that has lasted over 30 years, through college, marriage (both mine and hers) and many moves.

As I said in the beginning, there are different kinds of best friends.  Ashley is my best girlfriend, and I love her like a sister.  My husband is also my best friend.  We met on a blind date February 5, 1986 and have been best friends ever since.  Both of these are forever relationships.  

On another note, not all best friends are human.  For the last 15 years I have shared my heart, my home, and usually my pillow with my cat, Rosie.  Anyone who reads here regularly knows Rosie from his picture, which I use as my avatar (he's just cuter than me).  

In Excess?

Uggboy*Ugggirl

There was a Canadian Princess

Who for now shall remain nameless

She loved her high-heeled shoes

Bought in varying hues

Some might say to excess

 

 

Written for the 30-day creative writing challenge hosted by Nicky and Mike of We Work For Cheese.  Today's prompt is Excess.  This is the 7th day of this madness.  Check out the Linky at WWFC for more tales of excess.

Feeling the Pressure

Written for the 30-day creative writing challenge hosted by Nicky and Mike of We Work For Cheese.  Today's prompt is Pressure.  It is now day 6; only 24 days left, to check out these great stories.

It all started around the table at dinner one night.  A friend says "Guess what I did last weekend?  My son and I went shooting.  I hadn't been shooting at a range in years.  It was great!"

That was the beginning.  Shortly afterwards a group of guys, including this friend and my husband met for breakfast one Saturday and went to the shooting range afterwards.  Hubby came back sporting a target, and telling who had which guns, etc.  

After several more trips to the range, it was planned that I join them.  I had expressed an interest in the past about learning to shoot, so here was my chance.  Let me just say that I was very disappointed in my first performance.  For some reason I thought I would just go in and whack the crap out of the target.  Other than my inexperience, I was using shooting glasses from the range.

Two weeks later!

I wasn't giving up however, and the next time, with my own glasses, I showed improvement.  This gave me the courage to agree to take a gun course.  Not just any course, but a concealed carry course complete with training not only in gun safety, shooting, but in the laws and how they apply to personal defense.  This is important.  Guns are not the first resort.

We received our training materials, a book and several DVDs.  After reading the book and viewing the videos at least two times, hubby and I went over a practice test.  I had managed to improve my accuracy in shooting so I was ready...at least as ready as possible.

The day came, and with butterflies running rampant in my stomach, we walked into the classroom.  The very first thing was a 20-question written test.  I passed...with a 95.  We had a gun safety lecture, an oral test and target practice.  So far so good.  Then came the shooting qualification.  

We had to fire a certain number of rounds into the target.  I can do that...no problem, right?  Well, let me tell you that practice is practice, but the test is totally different.  The instructor stands there and tells you how many shots to fire in a given number of seconds from different starting positions.  

I was waiting my turn, watching the others and getting more and more nervous.  "I don't belong here" I said to my husband.  The pressure was on!  We were the last two to shoot, and you know what nervous waiting does to one's ability to think?  Yep, I blanked on everything I had learned.  My hands were shaking and my mouth was like paste in spite of two cups of water before entering the range.  I stood wrong, held the gun wrong, rushed my shots.  You name it, I screwed it up.  I didn't know how many shots I had fired, or how many had hit the target.  I was feeling pretty down and afraid I had failed and failure was not acceptable.  Everyone else had passed.  I was afraid I would be the only one not to pass because I was so nervous.  Did I mention that all but a few people in the class were our friends?  More pressure!

You can imagine my relief when he handed me the target and said "here you go, you passed".  It was over and I got my certificate.  The pressure I felt was all pressure I put on myself.  Still, I'm glad I did it for the sense of accomplishment.  We can do whatever we set out to do.

Spiders

Written for the 30-day creative writing challenge hosted by Nicky and Mike of We Work For Cheese.  Today's prompt is Spiders.  It is now day 5; only 25 days left, to check out these great stories.

Ack, this is a really big spider!  Meet our house guest for the weekend.  He (or she) was a really good house guest (for the sake of the story we will assume it's a male).

We were visiting with friends for the weekend, and we had our choice of sleeping quarters, so we chose the accommodations at the top of the road because the A/C was supposed to be COLD, and with me being just short of volcanic, I figured that would be best.

In the main cabin we had dinner, drank wine and talked, as good friends do.  Our hostess's charming aunt and uncle, who lived nearby, joined us as we waited for the last couple to arrive.  The wine flowed, stories were told, and the evening wound down in anticipation of the next day's activities.

We walked back to the trailer, and shortly after getting settled in for the evening, we discovered our house guest.  Wow, that's a big spider (loud exclamation) and then "where's my camera".  Now I'm not afraid of spiders, but I would greatly prefer that they remain outside, and I will use lethal force against a home invasion of the eight-legged critters.  One this size, though, I prefer to just persuade to leave, and by that I mean have my husband remove him.  We grabbed a broom to entice him out the front door.  Alas, our attempts to evict him failed, as he skillfully evaded us under a bookcase or some other piece of furniture where we couldn't get to him.  

This was probably the hottest weekend we could have possibly chose to get together.  Now that doesn't have anything to do with the spider who probably didn't care one way or another that we were there, and the trailer was now cool.

What, you ask, did we do now?  Well, I'll tell you.  Nothing!  We went down the hall and went to bed.  We never saw him again.  The funny thing was that a member of our group had an intense fear dislike of spiders, however, I couldn't resist showing our house guest's portrait the following morning.  Apparently everyone chose the appropriate sleeping quarters.

And now for everyone who hates spiders.  

Quote of the Week

Written for the 30-day creative writing challenge hosted by Nicky and Mike of We Work For Cheese.  Today's prompt is Behind the Wheel.  Today is the 4th day into this 30-day challenge.  Only 26 to go!

Another way to solve the traffic problems of this country is to pass a law that only paid-for cars be allowed to use the highways.  - Will Rogers

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Will Rogers (1879 - 1935) a vaudeville performer, actor, humorist and an American cowboy was probably the best known celebrities during the 1920s and 1930.  He died in a small plane crash in Alaska in 1935.

Back in 1935 life was different, things costs less, and salaries were less too.  Here are some examples: A car cost $580 and gas was 19 cents a gallon.  A loaf of bread and a gallon of milk were 8 cents and 47 cents, respectively.  Your house was around $6,300 and your salary around $1,500.  During the 1930s there were approximately 2.7 million cars sold compared with an estimated 254 million cars on the road today.  With that in mind, it seems odd that there would have been enough people behind the wheel for traffic to have been an issue over 75 years ago.

With more cars being built and sold today, the average price being some 50 times greater than in 1935 and car loans being up to 6 years, the concept of not allowing unpaid for cars on the road is unfathomable.