November's assignment: write anything (150 words or less), but the last words must be "...and a good time was had by all."
Winner: Wanda Sterling:
The Fall Cookout
It was the day of the Johnson’s family fall cookout. At 9 a.m., Uncle Junior was already drunk enough to stagger and have bloodshot eyes.
Aunt Louise was arguing with herself whether or not to eat the chicken and catch the "bird flu," or eat steak or burgers and go mad from a crazy cow. And when it comes to Aunt Louise going crazy, she didn’t have far to go.
John and Tammy, the family newly weds, decided to come to the cookout late because they knew that by then, Uncle Junior would be too drunk to remember that they owed him money.
They all came to the cookout. They all ate too much and got lazy, and they argued, talked loud and cussed a lot. And a good time was had by all.
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October 2005 Roll Call Assignment: Write anything in 150 words or less beginning with the words "On a dark and stormy night."
Winner: Dr. F. Clark Sauls
On a dark and stormy night, simultaneous codes mere ongoing in adjacent ICU cubicles. Night nurses, stretched to their limit, could not perceive two spirits floating in a corner of the ceiling.
"That doctor has had it." One observed.
"So stressed out! Have you noticed him rubbing his chest?"
"Well, he missed my adrenal bleed and still doesn’t realize that you’re hypothermic," critiqued the first spirit.
Without warning, the doctor collapsed and a third spirit rose from his body to join the other two.
"Good evening," they greeted the doctor’s ghost floating nearby.
The astonished newcomer watched in fascination as nurses immediately transferred their resuscitative efforts to his body, administering a high-voltage shock. Then, as his spirit began to sink back toward himself, he looked at the others and barked, "Get back in your bodies and settle down. You’re killing me. And don’t make me come back up here again!"