Wednesday's Words on a Friday

On Wednesdays, assorted people have been taking monthly turns at putting up a selection of six (or twelve) words which is called “Words for Wednesday”.

We have taken over this meme from Delores, who had been having computer problems.

This month the meme continues here, at Elephant’s Child’s site, with words and images supplied by Margaret and Sue.

Essentially the aim is to encourage us to write.   

Each week we are given a choice of prompts: which can be words, phrases, music or an image.   What we do with those prompts is up to us:  a short story, prose, a song, a poem, or treating them with ignore...

Some of us put our creation in comments on the post, and others post on their own blog.  We would really like it if as many people as possible joined in with this fun meme.

If you are posting on your own blog - let us know so that we can come along and read your masterpiece.

I’m hopeless at poetry so I always do a story.

It’s a fun challenge…why not join in?

This week's words are:

1. insidious

2. pluck

3. forbidden

4. smug

5. feast

6. weed

and/or:

1. off-limits

2. gullible

3. lawsuit

4. bread

5. money

6. tug

Here is my story:

My mother had always been fond of saying, "there's a lid for every pot!"

She'd told me many times I would eventually find someone, I wouldn't have to spend my life alone. 

Well, at forty-five, I had resigned myself to doing just that, when Mother happened upon a notice in the newspaper. 

A "Desperate and Dateless" Ball: to be held in the church hall, for singles aged from thirty-five to fifty. Usually these things were for a younger set, eighteen to thirty, or thereabouts. I didn't want to go, but Mother simply would not be quiet on the subject, so I bought a ticket. 

Proceeds from the Ball would go towards refurbishing the homeless shelter, so at least it was for a good cause.

I'd been standing by the refreshments table, eyeing the feast of sweet, delicious pastries; forbidden fruit to me, since I'd recently been diagnosed with diabetes. I wandered to the other end of the table in search of plain bread, and someone tugged my elbow. I glanced down and saw huge blue eyes, shiny curls and a model's practised smile. "I'm Paula," she said, "and you are?"

"Hugo," I replied. 

"I've been watching you," she said. "I think you're the handsomest man here and I'd like to get to know you better."

I agreed to sit and chat for a while and we made our way to a small table in the corner, with Paula carrying a plate of pastries. She offered them to me and I explained they were off- limits, with my diabetes. "Oh, that's a shame," she said and proceeded to eat most of them herself as she smiled around smugly at the few girls who were still standing alone.

We became friends and went on several dates (Mother was deliriously happy) and being largely inexperienced in the ways of girls and women, I didn't notice her insidious nature until almost too late. She wormed her way into my life, charmed Mother and alienated most of my friends. I was smitten and gullible and just plain didn't notice that my mates no longer called to go fishing or spend a day at the races.

Paula used those big blue eyes and my gullibility for almost a year, convincing me (and Mother) that my buying her a car, then a small house, was a really great idea. 

The trouble began when my best mate Frank plucked up the courage to tell me what he'd heard about Paula from other sources. She had done this same thing several times in the past, choosing her prey from a crowd of similarly nondescript, lonely men at dances or parties, using their money to fund her lifestyle until she tired of them, then she would sell the house/car/anything else the unlucky sap had bought her, and simply vanish. 

Her plan came unstuck this time, because I'd kept the deeds to the house and car in my name. I'd planned on gifting them to Paula as a wedding present, but when she found out they weren't hers to sell, I was threatened with a lawsuit. I was shattered, heart-broken and asked her why.

"Breach of promise!" she screeched. At that point I hadn't yet promised anything, hadn't yet asked her to marry me. I was sure any lawsuit would fail and said so. I immediately saw what she had been all along and wondered how I could have been such a fool.

Paula was furious. Her screeching rose to new heights. "I should have picked that weedy looking Simon, you can just go to hell!" 

Her bags were packed and Mother, having heard everything, gladly held the door open for Paula to storm out.

"I'm so sorry Hugo, " Mother said. "I guess Paula wasn't the correct lid for your pot after all."