Wednesday October 9th, 2013

The exercise:

Write about: The Make Believe Machine Repair Shop.

It's a long story, and I'm not sure if it's worth telling. I'll just say that my take on the prompt was inspired by something I read online earlier today. Or last night. Whenever it was.

Harvested for restaurant and bakery orders today, as both places are gearing up for Thanksgiving this weekend. Speaking of which, it will be a family affair here on the farm as Kat's aunt and uncle from Calgary are coming on Friday and my sister and her husband are arriving on Saturday (also from Calgary, as it happens).

In other news: all of my bowling muscles are sore. Also? The last time I was in a bowling league was 97/98, not 98/99. I somehow managed to screw up the math in my head yesterday going strictly off the fact that I knew I was in second year university.

Either way, it has been a long time.

Mine:

"And what can I do for you today?"

The words greeted me before I had even fully entered the shop, afternoon sunlight still trying to piggyback its way indoors as though I was on its side. Couldn't it see that my skin was too pale to be its ally?

I closed the door behind me with enough force to rattle and jingle the contents of nearby shelves, leaving that blasted light outside where it belonged.

"It still doesn't work," I said, dumping the contraption on the counter between me and Angus. I hated dealing with Angus. He always had this almost laugh infused into his words, as though he didn't fully believe what he was saying or the work that he did. "I need it fixed before the end of the week."

"And remind me again," he said as he tilted his head to the right, "what exactly it's supposed to do when it's working?"

That damned almost laugh again, lurking around the edges of every syllable. Infuriating.

"I was here two days ago." I took a deep breath, focused on my need to have the machine working again. "You know damned well what it's meant to do."

"Remind me, dear boy... won't you?" It was like he was mocking me.

"This," I replied through gritted teeth, "is my Sarcasm Converter. When fully operational it allows stupid people," a brief pause while I silently thought like yourself, "to understand when sarcasm is being used on them and translates the message into more obvious language."