Friday January 25th, 2013

The exercise:

Write four lines of prose about: longevity.

Went up to Penticton this morning for various errands and took the opportunity to buy a bouncer chair for Max. We're hoping it'll help with this daytime fussiness that has emerged over the last week or so.

Just when you think you have him figured out, he pulls out another new development.

Canucks won big tonight, avenging their opening night lose against Anaheim. Looks like they're starting to roll.

Mine:

"Around here," Scott's boss told him the day after he'd been hired, "today is know as Mr. Carter Day."

"Why's that?" Scott asked, not particularly interested in the answer but feeling like it was too early in his career as a waiter to stop caring.

"Mr. Carter has come to our restaurant on this day every year for the last hundred and five years!"

Scott was suitably impressed by this revelation - right up until the local undertaker wheeled Mr. Carter's coffin into the lobby.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

max is probably growing up! they get frustrated as they want to more than they can.
i am breaking the rule today as i adapt my piece (the old piano) here as two parts for:

Longevity

Legend has it that the old piano had once belonged to a famous singer/songwriter whom I admired.
’More likely his grandmother’, I thought quietly, as I touched the body. Well, that’s what she said when she gave it to me, along with a few other facts and snippets of information. She was a straight shootin’ arrow, so I had no reason to disbelieve her.

When I got it home after much heaving to transport it here, I undid the front. It was old, sure enough. It had that musty smell, full of years of thorough use and neglect. Some of the keys were sticking. I would have to employ YouTube to see how to fix that. Some notes were undoubtedly out of tune, but spending money on a piano tuner wasn’t in my budget. It needed loving, tending. Surely I could do that. 
It came with a stool, too, re-upholstered during the ’80s I dare say, and made then probably too, judging by the melamine interior. No problem, it would serve well still. It was cushiony, comfy, certainly plush enough to be late 20th Century and not much earlier. 

The walnut laminate on the piano’s body was cracked and peeling in some places. Restoring the shine would be another problem.
This ol’ girl was never going to make it back to her former glory but surely a clean, some airing and a coat of varnish would make it look like I’d tried.

Then I would have a tinkle.
oh, I couldn’t play, but I’d always wanted my own piano.
Wishes do get granted, it seems, if they are wanted hard enough, even if it takes a lifetime.

Alas, fate shows there is a time and place for everything, testing the longevity even of things.I decided to sell the old piano, its smell didn't suit the decor of my house. A lady came and put money down on it with the promise of more on delivery. We borrowed a trailer, roped it up and I said my farewell to the old girl.
As the car rounded the corner the rope snapped, the piano leaped out and sommersaulted face down onto the road, casting black and white keys afar. My friend assured me the century old piano did not want to go back to work so it committed suicide.

I rescued the turned legs.
I sanded them and lacquered them in rose tinted gloss. They will be resurrected as candlesticks.

Marc said...

Writebite - yeah, he definitely wants to move around on his own. He's ready to crawl... not so sure we are :P

Rules are meant to be broken! Mine are, at any rate :)

Great little tale, and I love the ending. I suspect those would be beautiful, treasured candlesticks.