Wednesday's Words on a Friday

The original Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and eventually taken over by a moveable feast of participants when Delores had computer troubles. Sadly, Delores has now closed her blog forever due to other problems.

The aim of the words is to encourage us to write. A story, a poem, whatever comes to mind.

If you are posting an entry on your own blog, please let us know so we can come along and read it.

This month the prompts are supplied by messymimi and can be found here.

This week's words/prompts are:
1. union 
2. holiday 
3. rational 
4. recover 
5. collect 
6. headline 

and/or: 
1. global 
2. perception 
3. sin 
4. wrong 
5. finance 
6. gaffe 

Here is my story: 

Pauline phoned Jenny to ask about the class reunion, was she going? what would she wear? and when she eventually got off the phone, about three hours later, Brad said to her, "What on earth did you talk about for so long? You saw her yesterday at the shopping center, you couldn't ask her all those things then?" 
Pauline gave him 'that' look, as if to say, "what? It's a sin now to talk to my best friend two days in a row?" 
Brad backpedalled immediately, knowing he'd committed yet another gaffe. "Sorry honey, I used the wrong tone of voice didn't I? it's just that I collected the mail on my way in earlier and we have the phone bill for this month. It's pretty high." 

"I was expecting that," said Pauline. "Becky has been phoning around to find out which universities her friends have applied to, getting information from their point of view as well as what's written in the information booklets sent out."
 "Maybe we should ask her to help finance this bill then," Brad joked. "That's not a bad idea," said Pauline, "although I don't think she has much left after buying holiday clothes for her trip to the snowfields. Ski clothes aren't exactly cheap." 

"True," said Brad, "and she did pay for those all on her own. That job at Macca's has been good for her, she's learned a lot: responsibility for her own actions, punctuality, and how to manage her earnings. I guess we'll just pay this phone bill, the budget will recover in time for our own holiday later in the year."

 "I will ask her to ease off on the phoning around though," said Pauline. "She's much more rational now that she has kept a job for almost a year, her perception of house rules has changed a lot. She no longer thinks we're restrictive ogres who never want her to have any fun." 
"I'll leave you to it then," said Brad as he settled in his TV chair with the newspaper. "Have you seen the headlines honey? This pandemic is global now. Should we talk to Becky about postponing her trip until it's safer?" 

"Show me the paper," said Pauline. "I saw a bit about that on the news last night, but wasn't paying attention." She read for a while, then looked steadily at Brad. 

"I think you're right. We need to show her this and make sure she watches the news with us tonight too. I think she'll see reason. I hope she can get a refund on the ski clothes though."
"Our own holiday is going to have to be postponed too," said Brad. 

Comments

  1. Well said. We went through this scenario with each of our 3 kids. Now at ages close to 40 and with children, they understand completely. Great use of words.

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    1. Susan Kane; almost exactly the same with my kids. As soon as they learned that jobs equals money of their own, they were good about spending and saving.

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  2. I suspect that their next month's phone bill will be even higher than this one too.
    Great use of the prompts (as always).

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    Replies
    1. Elephant's Child. maybe not, Becky might decide to use Zoom to connect with all her friends now that isolation is the order of the day.

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  3. They do tend to figure out better as they end up responsible for more. Excellent story!

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    Replies
    1. messymimi; I found that around 17 was the magic age for my kids, as soon as they'd held jobs long enough to get over the novelty of having their own money.

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  4. Having a job does teach you so many thing

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    Replies
    1. Dora; yes it does. It also helps them realise money doesn't just appear magically out of parents wallets. And once they learn to save, they're on their way to being responsible adults.

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  5. And, once more you nailed it, River! And I'm not in the least bit surprised! :)

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    Replies
    1. Lee; thank you. I was surprised, but it all came together nicely in the end.

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  6. Becky has learned responsibility, but now she is going to learn patience!

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    1. Val; yes she will, she really has no choice.

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  7. Hubby always says, "how can you talk so long to your Brother/Nieces?!"
    Luckily phone calls are "for free" now.
    Yes.
    Perth is not booked. Darn "Corinna".

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    1. Iris Flavia; I have no trouble staying away from the phone, I hate talking on it. I prefer texting and email where I get time to think about my answers. My brother phones me a couple of times a year and he can talk for quite a while, usually my ear is burning by the time he hangs up.
      Be safe and postpone your holiday until the virus is over, it may take a while but that's better than travelling and catching it from someone else who is travelling and careless.

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  8. Great use of the propmts and a well written story, thought a tad too realistic for my taste ;) And yes their phone bill will probably grow during isolation.

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    1. Charlotte; thank you. I like my stories to be realistic, sometimes I'll write fantasy, but it all depends on where the words take me.

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  9. Nice one River. Your words fitted beautiful and as for the young lady, she worked hard for her clothes for her holiday, like so many others she will be every so disappointed..

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    1. Margaret D; disappointment is part of life and Becky will learn to handle this and grow from it.

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  10. Liked this as it showed how children slowly become adults thanks to a paying job as they learn that money is not a bottomless pit from their parents purse. Seems like Becky is getting the drift.

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    1. Arkansas Patti; Becky definitely has "got it", now she needs the next lesson. Handling disappointment and postponement of plans. She'll be fine.

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  11. Then there is this:

    Oh, how Ben hated holidays. It was not rational , he knew, but everyone who fit the headline of "People I can't stand" would be there. It was as if there had been an ad in a global newspaper asking for disgusting people to join a union. It wouldn't be hard to collect them in one place for any holiday. Was it wrong to see them as disgusting? Was it a sin to spit in the rum punch? Isn't it all one's perception, isn't it? As long as he made no gaffes and did not vomit all over someone, all would go well.

    Oh, well. He knew that 3 hours with slime of the earth would garner him some gifts and money. Ben needed to up his finances He would recover after he took a shower, burned his clothes, and brushed his teeth vigorously. He could binge watch Mysteries in the Museum, drink some good wine, and doze off.

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    1. Susan Kane; this is great! I love it, but I hope he didn't really spit in the rum punch.

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