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 to read it and add a few encouraging words.

This month the words/prompts are supplied by Hilary Melton-Butcher and can be found here

This week's words/prompts are: 

1. wafer 

2. haggard 

3. procession 

4. juniper 

5. drips 

and/or: 

1. disdainful 

2. stream 

3. weed 

4. chalk 

5. treasure

Here is my story: ( a bit rushed, not well thought out, it's been a busy day, Lola to the vet and other stuffs)

In our small country town, home of an ice cream factory and a soft drink bottling plant, Julie had always been wafer thin, compared to the rest of us fizzy drink and ice cream guzzlers. She often looked down her disdainful nose at us "country bumpkins", she was from "the city" you see and didn't quite fit in. "It's the difference between chalk and cheese," she'd say, and was inordinately pleased when she won the title Juniper Queen and got to ride in the yearly procession through the town to the showgrounds when the fair was about to begin. "The rest of you drips could never measure up," she'd say scornfully. But we were never ashamed, none of us were fat, or even plump, in spite of all the ice cream and milkshakes. 

We were farm people you see, and burned off every calorie with exercises such as feeding the chickens, getting the goats in from the fields, digging our parents vegetable patches and picking the fruit from our orchards before spending many sweaty hours in our mother's kitchens, cooking and bottling, fruits, jams and pickles. Julie, on the other hand, rarely even put away her own cleaned and folded clothes. They had a maid who did all those things. 'Donna is such a treasure," said Julie, "I don't know how we'd manage without her."

But then something happened. Donna had entered a competition and won a trip to Italy. She was ecstatic! At long last, she could go back and see her family, her grandparents, her Nonno and Nonna were getting old, this would be her last chance. Off she went, without a care for Julie who now had to get her own clothes cleaned and folded and so much more besides. She had no idea how and neither did her mother. 

Our local comedian, Alan, told her she should fill all the pockets with soap powder, then slap the clothes around in the stream, but at the rocky end not the weedy end where the watercress grew. Julie began to cry at the very thought, so we all quickly shushed Alan and told Julie we would show her and her mother how to run the washing machine, then how to peg things out in the sunshine to dry. 

Julie learned quickly enough, sort of, but her mother refused to, saying surely Donna would soon return and take over those duties again. With neither of them knowing much about cooking, wafer-thin Julie and her equally slim  mother soon began looking rather haggard, things were not going well in the Clapton household. 

I wondered if we should help more, but my mother said they would take advantage and we would be doing all the work the Claptons should be doing, on top of our own duties, and called around to all her friends to announce a meeting. Mrs Clapton would be invited and lessons in housekeeping would commence. We hoped that Mrs Clapton would be amenable to learning, because we quite liked Julie in spite of her snootiness.


Comments

  1. I´m not much into sweets and ice cream but: YES (in my mind I simply replace that with pizza and lasagna, LOL).

    Oh, my goodness.I had a class mate like Julie. She "stole" my boyfriend.
    His loss.

    You know, "funny". I have an apartment inherited for rent. And.. I can scan the letter from today´s date! - a woman rented the place years ago. She wanted to save water on the toilet. Not my job, actually, but I asked Hubby to go to the hardware store, buy a weight and gear, make an appointment with her, drive the 50km to her, install and explain it to her.
    That´s time and money!!! 70 km back home, too!

    Not even a 5er. No chocolate OR "thank you". Today I received a letter she misses something from 2018/19 and has her lawyer at me.
    She once sent me a bill of some repair, it was under €50, so she has to pay herself, I called the company. Guess.
    They said, what a woman, no thanks, no fiver, nothing.

    Her name was not Julie but you have me on pulse 200!

    Good story, some people never get enough... (not sure what I´m doing here now with her)...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Iris Flavia; I'm very much a chocolate and ice cream girl, love pizza too. I really need to eat less of all three. The Julie in my story turns out alright, once she relaxes enough to learn from her friends.

      Delete
    2. That woman I have here will never learn, sadly.
      Ah, what´s life without yum?! OK, I do a lot of training to make up for that, LOL. And I hate training, but I love to eat.

      Delete
  2. I hope that they both learn (and that Julie manages to do more than 'sort of' learn) but somehow doubt it. It does make you wonder how any of the 'Claptons' of this world can consider themselves superior to the rest of us...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Elephant's Child; my Julie was raised in the city with many servants, as was her mother, they've "come down in the world" and now must learn to do things they'd never done. Julie turns out fine, her mother takes a while longer.

      Delete
  3. I was a counselor in a summer camp years ago and we had a similar "Julie". She came from a famous hotel family and actually did not know how to dress herself. Hope your Julie eventually learned as our pampered child did.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Arkansas Patti; I'm astonished that a child old enough to go camping could not dress herself. I'm reminded of a woman I know who cannot even take a bath without her daughters knocking on the door asking her to find something or make them a snack. The girls are teenagers! My own children were serving themselves breakfast by school age, which is 5 here.

      Delete
  4. It does sound like Julie will learn, she has to in order to survive.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. messymimi; Julie does learn, she learns to accept and ask for help too.

      Delete
  5. I wonder where the term "country bunkin comes from"
    Coffee is on and stay safe

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dora; I heard Country Bumpkin in country music songs and in some movies and books too. Maybe in your area they are called Yokels.

      Delete
  6. Is it wrong of me to wish Julie had actually slapped the soap-pocketed clothes on the rocks? Maybe the other kids could have tagged along, then told her they were playing a joke before she got all tired out, and that could have been an ice-breaker for her to join the gang. Of course they would have helped her finish that chore to show they were treating her as one of their own, and not being mean.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Val; I kind of wish she had too, but I'm glad they told her he was joking before she actually tried it, most of her clothes wouldn't stand the strain. And she already knows about washing machines, since Donna used one daily. The ice breaker comes when they convince her to eat the ice cream sundae, not just the wafer that always gets stuck in there.

      Delete

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