By Henry Dumas March 14,2022
EXCITED HAPPY POETRY BELL LOGIC FASCINATIN DANCING
HEART TREE LUDICROUS THUNDER DEPRESSING NATURE TAXES
The assignment: Write a story using the above list of the words.
Steven was a good-looking, hard-working, taxpaying conservative meat-eater. His friends were worried about him hanging out alone, so they set him up on a blind date. He thought it was ludicrous going on a date with a stranger. If that wasn’t bad enough, to add insult to injury, they sent him on a date with a nature loving, tree hugging vegetarian.
He arrived at her house a few minutes early, rang the doorbell, and when she opened the door, he smiled at her. It made him happy and excited to see a young, fascinating woman in a pink sweater standing in the doorway. She invited him into her house as mother nature put on a display of lightning, thunder and pouring rain in the background.
“It looks depressing outside with all the rain,” she said.
“The rain seems to follow me around everywhere,” he laughed.
As she strutted in front of him, toward the kitchen, he noticed her swaying hips moving back and forth like poetry in motion. He liked what he saw, and it made his heart flutter and dance in his chest.
“This blind date may turn out better than I thought,” he whispered to himself. “She doesn’t look or sound like a vegetarian,”
“I’m getting a bottle of water out of the fridge, she said. “Would you like one?”
“No thanks,” he replied. Thinking, “who drinks bottled water when you can have a diet coke?”
You could see the shock in his eyes when she opened the refrigerator door and reached for a bottle of water. Not a single can of diet coke sat on the shelves. All he could see were fruits and vegetables on every shelf. Not a stick of cheese or piece of meat.
There was no logic in his mind about not having any meat in the refrigerator.
“Vegetables and nuts are bad for your brain,” he mumbled. “Meat should be your number one priority for good brain health.
He continued to mumble. “If our ancestors, thousands of years ago, only ate vegetables and nuts. We would still live in trees, buck naked, eating leaves and being eaten by the same animals that we eat today. We are who we are because we climbed down from the trees, grabbed a rock, and smacked a cow on the head. Our ancestors loved a good T-Bone steak, medium rare.”
“What are you mumbling?” she asked.
“Just talking to myself, he replied.
He didn’t dare tell her what he was thinking, because she looked mean, tough as nails, and he thought she could beat him in a fair fight.
They walked outside, and she stood in front of the passenger side door on his new Ford Mustang GT. He opened the door and watched her slide her cute little hips into the seat.
“You’re quite the gentlemen,” she said, smiling at him.
When They arrived at the destination, it thrilled him to find out she chose a non-vegetarian restaurant.
“This will not turn out so bad after all,” he whispered to himself.
They sat at a table and talked about the weather, movies, and other interesting topics. They stayed away from hot topics like religion, politics, and vegetarians.
He thought he saw a slight smile on her face but was not sure.
“It’s just indigestion from all the vegetables and nuts she eats,” he thought.
The server arrived with the menus and Steven blurted out. “I hear you’re a vegetarian.”
She smiled at him and ordered a salad with ranch dressing on the side.
He ordered the fried chicken. When he said chicken, her eyes narrowed and what must have been a smile disappeared. Her skin turned pale as the blood drained from her face. With an awful scowl and a disgusted, screeching voice, she yelled. “It’s not nice to eat chickens!”
All the conversations at the tables surrounding them came to a screeching halt. It was as quiet as a church.
What she said stunned him for a few seconds. He slowly gathered his thoughts and answered.
“At least they gave my chicken a chance to run away. That’s more than I can say about the carrot you are going to eat. They yanked your carrot out of the ground, took it away from its friends and now you are going to eat it alive. At least they killed the chicken,” he blurted out.
Those were the last words spoken that day. He didn’t get his chicken dinner. In fact, he had no dinner at all. Unless you count her salad that she threw at him.
On the ride home, you could hear a pin drop and she didn’t wait for him to open the car door as she dashed out on a dead run towards her front door, and never looked back.
He laughed out loud. “I guess she won’t be calling me again, ever.”
He picked up a T-Bone steak on the way home. He put it on the bar-b-cue, sat down and enjoyed his medium rare steak. Just like his ancestors did thousands of years ago.