This week’s prompts are at the bottom.
Practice makes perfect. Let me know what you think.
Here’s how to play along, if you are unsure.
It was another cookie-cutter day and Mary found herself sitting at a small bistro table with her friend Cindy on the pavement in front of Starfish Coffee on the High Street. Cindy was rambling on about her latest attempt to stave off boredom and telling Mary about the email she had recently received from Lineage.com. She was reciting facts about her great, great, great Grandmother who had disguised herself as a man and enlisted in the Union Army; where she had fought in the Civil War. Mary listened with only half an ear and kept her eye on the time as she had to pick up Billy from hockey and collect Buffy from dance by four o’clock and then get them over to the tutors before four thirty. Then Cindy said something that got Mary’s attention.
“You should do it too, Mary. It’s really easy. All you do is spit into a test tube and mail it to them. In a couple of weeks you’ll know everything you could ever want to know about your ancestors. You can even find out about Bill’s family tree without him even knowing… just sign up Billy or Buffy. You’ll learn about their lineage as well: viola you’ll know all about Bill too.”
“Not Billy,” Mary said, “I don’t want to open that can of worms, but Buffy? Well, Buffy could work.”
Cindy just nodded her head sagely and sipped her double, skinny, no caff lattè.
“How does this work, Cin? I might be interested. How would I do this?”
“OMG, Mary there are a ton of places you can work through. I used Lineage.com but there’s also 23Skidoo, or Arborvitae. I gather that those three are pretty much the leaders and basically the same, so any of them would probably do.” Cindy stopped and watched Mary, waiting for her to chime in.
“Thanks, Cin. Text me if you want to walk out to the jetty tomorrow morning? I gotta run. Collect the kids.”
That night, while Bill slept, Mary went online to 23Skidoo and arranged for them to send a test kit. Mary had been raised by a single mom, Irene Dubois, who worked as a bookkeeper in the city. Her mom had been born and raised in Hartford, Connecticut.
Mary had never known her father, but her mom had told her he’d been a decorated war veteran and had passed away before Mary’d been born. The name on her birth certificate identified her father as ‘Unknown’.
When the test kit came in the mail Mary followed the instructions and mailed it back to the company. She promptly forgot about it; just a lark, a spur of the moment decision that was truly meaningless and would have no real bearing or impact on her life. Five weeks later she opened an email from 23Skidoo.com. She read:
Greetings Ms Vanella, Thank you for submitting a DNA sample to 23Skidoo for analysis. Comparisons of the sample you sent with the information in our current database shows that your parents are Eileen Dubois, of Hartford, Connecticut and Robert Noble, also of Hartford. Further our records indicate that Eileen Dubois passed on July of 2017 while Robert Noble lives in the greater Hartford area. With best regards,
There was a lot of other blather about her mother’s parents, grandparents, and so on, that Mary already knew and there was a detailed description of Robert Noble’s lineage that she read and tried to commit to memory. The next morning, after Bill left for work and the kids were in school, Mary Googled Robert Noble.
Online, she learned that her reputed father is still alive, although now in poor health. He was, and still is, an underworld character, who ran a restaurant with his brother and was nicknamed ‘The Waiter’. He is described by the FBI as a member of the Philadelphia Mafia for more than six decades with a criminal record that includes counterfeiting, and assault. He has also been found guilty of trafficking in drugs, firearms, and stolen goods. The most interesting information that Mary uncovered that morning was that her “Father” is a primary suspect in the 1990 heist of The Governors Museum in Portland ME, where on March 18, 1990, thirteen works of art valued at a combined total of more than $500 million had been stolen in the wee hours of the morning.
Damn, Mary thought to herself. If mom wasn’t dead she’d have a lot explaining to do. Mary set about finding ‘Daddy’s’ contact information. She paid the fifteen dollar fee for an online records search but only found out that he lives with his ailing wife in a rundown ranch-style house in the suburbs of Hartford and drives a 1989 Buick.
This week’s prompts are:
- he’s a real horse’s ass, but a helluva painter
- undeserved ego
- you’re missing the point
Go ahead and dive in, set your imagination free!
Write something
Ready, Set, Go – you have 25 minutes, but if that is not possible, take as long as you need and, have fun!
