What's in the Barn

Another writing prompt inspired short story to make you giggle a little bit.

What's in the Barn?
 

Jacci rolled over in her bed, arm flopping with her. She noticed immediately Brad wasn't there and she sat up with a start. She slid on her slippers and padded across the room and opened the creaky door hoping not to wake anyone up.

Jacci checked the children's rooms. Tina was sleeping soundly, her thumb in her mouth as usual and her bear tucked under her other arm. Billy was snoring softly, his robot tucked in next to him. She checked the bathroom and the guest room, but could not find her husband.

Wandering down the hallway to the stairs she called softly to see if Brad was in the living room. Hmm, she thought. Where is he? She walked slowly down the stairs using only the glow of the nightlight, holding tightly to the railing. Once on the lower level she checked went into the kitchen. The double swinging door swung back and gently patted her backside making her jump. There was a glass, still half-full of milk and the remains of a piece of pie on the table. She chuckled softly as she placed the dishes in the sink.

Brad, she concluded, was just not in the house. Looking out in the yard, she saw his old farm truck was still parked where he left it. The dog was missing, though, and he usually only left the yard when he was following Brad. She finally scanned the corn and soybean fields and then over to the barn. Lights were shining through the windows.

Jacci pulled on her boots and a jacket over her pajamas. She turned on a flashlight and walked across the dew soaked yard to the barn. She opened the door and nearly dropped the flashlight when she saw what he was doing. She broke up laughing as she watched her husband milking the cow at two in the morning. He didn't actually have a bucket; he was just going through the motions. The cow looked annoyed and mooed when she saw Jacci.

"Brad, what are doing?" she said, still laughing.

Brad looked her direction, without blinking and stood, patted the cows flank, and took the imaginary bucket. He walked right past her and out of the barn, turning the light off, leaving Jacci in total darkness.

"It's okay, Bessie; I think he is sleep walking." She turned the light back on and fed the cow some hay and then followed Brad back to the house. When she went inside, she found him back in bed, sound asleep.

Back-to-School Time: Are We Looking at It All Wrong?

We see it every day lately: It's back-to-school time! Sale on now! Buy the latest ______ (fill in the blank). The commercials inundate us at every turn and they use kids to push the point that they should be buying all the coolest clothes, the latest, most up-to-date gadgets, the neatest binders and notebooks (and not necessarily the paper kind). Some communities go pretty much year round, which is another issue altogether, but they still have all these sales in the fall in an effort to make big bucks off of you and to push the 'I'm cooler than you' attitude.

In the schools, kids are excited to go back, at first, but then the 'I don't want to go to school in the first place' kids start up and disrupt classes for those who do. Kids are texting back and forth, which in most schools is actually against school policy to even have a phone in class. (So why are you buying them the most expensive, does-everything phone?) A good many kids take it for granted that they will go to school, like it or not, and a lot of parents are involved enough to help them with their homework. Those who don't, again, is another issue altogether. The kids who take it for granted go along goofing off, sometimes learning in spite of their antics.

Now, flash to other countries where it is not a right to go to school; it is a privilege, and if one goofs off and doesn't participate and do well, they are out and destined to poverty and menial employment if any. Also consider the Middle Eastern countries, such as Pakistan, where the Taliban shot a young woman in the head because she spoke out against not letting women to go to school. That young woman was Malala Yousafzai. She survived the gunshots after surgery in the United Kingdom and months of rehabilitation. Still she fights on. The United Nations honored her bravery on July 14, 2013, and the speech to the United Nations Youth Assembly she gave was astounding. With great passion and eloquence she made a plea for all children, male and female, to be allowed to get an education. In her country schools are burned and the students are killed just for trying to learn. Those children aren't thinking about which clothing or robes, as the case may be, are the coolest, or who has the newest technology. They just want to go to school and learn.

If we look at going to school as a privilege and an education as one of the greatest assets we can give our children, and teach our children to respect the privilege, then we can make real strides in educating our children; not by teaching them to be ultimate consumers of whatever the 'coolest' trend is in blue jeans and tee shirts and electronics.

Watch Malala Yousafzai's speech on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SClmL43dTo

Why Did You Do It?

Okay, here is another writing prompt inspired short story.  How would you handle it if you kept getting notes asking, 'Why did you do it?' No one wants to take the credit for it and you have no idea what they're talking about; or do you? 

This IS a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, place, company, or event are purely coincidental.

Jessie walked into her office and sat her double latte down on her desk. She dropped her briefcase on the sidebar, straightened her Harvard diploma on her wall, and sat down to start another day of working on the marketing campaign that had earned her the title of vice-president. It was a big account with one of the largest companies in the country, Medicorp, and they had just been bought out. She had to impress its new CEO Cassandra Thompson. The first meeting had gone well and Jessie saw it as a chance to move up in the company. She spotted something under her Starbucks cup and moved the cup to see the note. She knew she had left the desk clear of all notes when she left on Friday.

"Why did you do it?" she read out loud. "Do what?" She looked around to see if she could figure out who had left the cryptic message on her desk. She buzzed her secretary. "Liz, could you come in here please?"

Liz came in with her steno pad and a freshly sharpened pencil. "Yes, ma'am, what can do for you?"

"First, stop calling me 'ma'am'."

"Yes, ma'am, I mean, yes, Ms. Dyson."

Jessie looked down at her desk annoyed. "Did you leave this message on my desk?" She held up the note.

"No, I hand you any messages I have when you come in."

"Well, did you see anyone else come in here?"

"No, Ms. Dyson." She tapped the pencil on the steno pad. "Is there anything else?"

Jessie got up. "No," she answered. "I'll ask around before I get started."

Liz went back to her desk and began typing while Jessie headed to her boss's office. "Sandy, is Mr. Kramer available?" she asked his secretary. After a short nod, she went into the office.

Mr. Kramer sat behind a mahogany desk the size of Jessie's office. She often dreamed she would have this office someday and sit at that very desk. He had a carafe of coffee ready on one corner if he wanted a refill and he offered her a cup, which she declined. The sun shone in the windowed wall behind him that overlooked the city. Yes, she very much wanted this office.

She placed the note on his blotter. "Is this from you?" she asked him.

He glanced at it a second. "I know nothing about it, but I'll see if I can find out who left it."

"It's no big deal really; I'm just curious who left it and what it means."

"I'm sure that was the desired effect. Don't worry about it. It's probably just a prank."

"I'm sure you're right, sir." She left the note with him and went back to her own office.

By Thursday she had received the same note three more times and she still didn't know what to make of it. It distracted her from her work. Mr. Kramer had questioned the night cleaning crew and the other office staff to no avail. No one had any idea what was going on. She decided to work late and find out for herself. That campaign was nowhere near done anyway and she couldn't concentrate at home.

At midnight she threw her takeout container in the trash. The cleaning crew had long since gone and she was a little spooked by the quiet in the office late at night. She grabbed her briefcase and started to leave when she heard the bell ring on the elevator. Off stepped the new CEO of Medicorp. She was slender and dressed in black slacks and a red sweater. She held her head high as she marched right for Jessie's office. Jessie turned off her desk lamp and sat down in her chair and waited.

Cassandra Thompson only mildly started when she saw Jessie. "I wondered how long it would take you to wait for me," she said.

"Why did I do what?" was all Jessie said.

"You really don't recognize me; do you?" Cassandra asked. "I guess it has been a few years and I have dropped a few pounds. And since the accident, or so they called it, I had a little reconstructive surgery on my face, so it doesn't quite look the same either."

"What are you talking about?" Jessie said.

"I saw your diploma and wondered how on earth you got it. So I did some checking. You see Thompson is my married name. You used to know me as Cassandra Dunlap. I was ahead of you in Harvard Business and you just couldn't handle someone being ahead of you. You sure made no secret of the fact that you had to get better than me at any cost. Then I found my laptop's memory erased with all my work gone. Luckily I had a backup. Then, my car tires were flattened, my books mysteriously disappeared and somehow I got really sick just at exam time. I'd not really been the type to get sick before then."

"I vaguely remember a Cassandra from class. Why should this interest me? If memory serves, you transferred schools, and it doesn't seem to have hurt you any," Jessie said tersely.

Cassandra snorted. "Is that what you recall now? I recall my brakes going out on my car after I had just had my car inspected and it passing with flying colors. I recall waking up in a ravine with glass all in my face and a ruptured spleen. The mechanic told me someone had done a very good job of tampering with my brakes; left no evidence as to who it might have been."

Jessie stared at her with a blank expression. "Go on, this is getting interesting. You see, I still don't know what this has to do with me."

"I wondered how you got that diploma, especially since I kept tabs on you after I changed schools. I had a cousin also attending Harvard so it wasn't hard. She told me you poisoned someone else who got ahead of you and you got caught. You did three years through a plea agreement and got tossed out of school. They weren't likely to let you back in, much less graduate. Did it cost you a lot to forge that diploma? I checked with Mr. Kramer and he assured me you top of your class and he had the transcript to prove it. You even supplied it to them yourself."

Jessie sat back in her chair, her face going from red with anger to pale as a sheet. A tear slid down her face. "I did it because if I wasn't top of the class, my father was going to take away my trust fund."

Cassandra shook her head. "And you lost it anyway," she said with a laugh and a sigh. "You should know a copy of your true transcript and your arrest record has been mailed to Mr. Kramer. You are washed up. Clean out your desk. I don't think there is a statute of limitations on attempted murder. I'll have to check on that." With that, Cassandra turned and walked out, leaving Jessie with her head down on her desk.

The Shoebox

"Honey, will you please clean the garage this weekend? You've been promising me for months," Patty reminded her husband Cecil.

Cecil hung his head. He wanted to watch that ballgame today, but he had to admit that he had been promising and had not yet done it.  He looked up at her and replied, "Yes, honey, I'll do it today." He smiled as he thought about the fastest way to do it. Do I really go through things, or just toss it all and play dumb? "Well, you wanted it cleaned out," he'd tell her.

Box of heavy duty garbage bags in hand he began stuffing in small boxes randomly. He jumped a foot when Patty tapped him on the shoulder. 

"What are you doing?" she asked him.

 "You wanted it cleaned out; I'm cleaning it out."

"Those are the few things left of my mother's after the sale when she went into the nursing home. There are supposed to be family pictures in there somewhere."

"So, you're saying don't just toss it; look at it first." She nodded vigorously. He groaned. His recliner and the ballgame were getting further away by the minute. He looked up at her and saw her arms crossed over her chest as she stared at him. "All right!"

Cecil spent an hour giving cursory glances inside the boxes before he tossed them searching for important papers and photographs. He couldn't imagine what else she might want to keep. He finally came across one with a lock of hair tied up in a tiny pink ribbon and a tag that read Patty's first hair cut. "I can't believe she kept that in a shoebox," he muttered. There were other treasures from his wife's childhood in the box so he set it aside, thinking he'd surprise her and get her a proper container for the keepsakes. Then he found the photographs she wanted to keep and another box of papers he thought should have been in a safe deposit box. He shook his head at the thought that they had been sitting in his garage for two years. Finally he found several that actually contained shoes and tossed them. Hopeful that he had at last run out of 'keepers', he quickened his pace.

He was happily tossing the boxes into the large black bags when one fell and hit him on the foot. He swore as he hopped around on one foot. "I didn't know I'd need steel-toed shoes for this job." He picked the box up and realized it had been heavily taped shut. "Well, I guess the old girl didn't want that pair getting away," he commented, but then realized it weighed more than the other ones. He peeled off the tape and carefully opened it and then whistled loudly when he saw what was in it. 'Patty!" he called, "You have got to see this."

Cecil and Patty sat at the kitchen table and stared at the neatly banded stacks of one-hundred-dollar bills. First Patty started giggling and then Cecil smiled and then they started laughing.

"Where in the world did my mom get forty grand?" Patty asked.

"You'd have to ask her," he replied between chuckles.

"I doubt she remembers; she's got dementia," she pointed out. She picked up a stack and studied it. "Look at the date on here," she said fanning the bills, studying each one, a stack at a time. "1960. They were brand new. These are original bands."

"What were you? Five? Do you remember anything happening back then?" Cecil asked her.

"I was staying with my grandparents for a few years. They said she kept poor company and she let me stay with them rather than drag me around. She straightened up when I was probably nine and I went back to live with her and my step-dad. So, I don't know what happened with her in 1960."

"Sounds like we need to pay mom a visit," Cecil said.

"It's too late today. We'll go tomorrow. First, get back to cleaning out the garage, and check those boxes you were just randomly tossing!" Patty told him, getting up to start dinner.

"No kidding," Cecil said gleefully, as he stood and headed back to the garage, his ballgame forgotten.

"Hi mom!" Patty said, placing a vase of flowers next to her mother's bed. "How are you today?"

Her mother looked at her and nodded. "I'm good," she said. "Who are you again?"

"It's Patty, your daughter," she replied, closing her eyes.

"My daughter is little. She lives with her grandparents in Memphis," her mom said.

Patty squeezed back a tear. "Okay, so how old is she?"

"Six," was the reply. "I got a picture of her the other day. She is as cute as she can be, and into everything."

"Yes ma'am, six-year-olds usually are." Patty did a mental count in her head, 1962. I wonder if she can tell me about the money, she thought.

"What brings you here today?" her mother asked.

Patty thought fast. "Oh, my husband and I were going through some boxes and found one of yours. It has a lot of money in it."

Her mother closed her eyes a minute and when she opened them again she looked at her daughter. "Patty?"

"Yes, mom, it's me. I was asking about the box of money. Where did it come from?"

"You found my shoe box?" her mother asked.

"Yes, where did all that money come from? I can put it in an account for your care."

"Oh, no. You can't do that. As it is I have no assets so my care is low. If you come up with money for me, it will go up. That money is yours."

Patty's shoulder's sagged. "Mom, thank you, but I still need to know where it came from."

"I believe it was from a bank robbery," she said matter-of-factly.

"What?"

"I had a boyfriend. Statute of limitations is up; no one was hurt. It should be free and clear." She yawned and went to sleep as though sedated.

"Mom?" Patty sighed. Her mother would be 'gone' again when she woke up, so Patty went home.

A telephone call started Patty and Cecil out of their sleep. The nursing home called to tell her mother had passed away.

"We'll never know who they robbed. Now what?" Cecil asked.

Patty gave him and exasperated look through her tears. "Ask the bank," she said at last. "I have to bury my mother. It's not hers. She gave it all to us two years ago."

"I don't know what to tell you," the bank manager told Cecil. "It's been fifty-three years. I'll contact the FBI and see if they have anything on it. They probably have the serial numbers somewhere. Meanwhile, I wouldn't spend it."

Cecil pulled out his safety deposit box key. "Just get my box and it will sit there until this is straightened out."

A week later, an FBI agent knocked on their door. He introduced himself.

"How are you? Won't you sit down?" Patty offered.

"First, let me express my condolences," the agent said.

"Thank you. What can you tell us about this robbery my mother mentioned?"

Patty and Cecil stared at him expectantly as he sat.

"Well, your mother was correct; the statute of limitations is up. It was from a bank in Nashville, Tennessee that got robbed in June 1960. There insurance paid them for the loss."

"Are they going to want paid back?" Cecil asked which earned him a swat from Patty.

"No," the agent told them. "The company went out of business. As soon as they paid the bank there wasn't anything to recoup for them so they were out of it other than wanting to see the guilty parties go to jail."

"There was more than one person involved?" Patty asked.

"Yes, he had a female driver. They never identified either of them. It might have been your mother."

Patty sat back on the sofa and turned pale. "Oh heavens!"

"Do you know who she might have been with back then?" he asked.

"No, I have no idea," Patty answered. "I lived with my grandparents and I never knew any of her friends. If they did know; they're gone and won't be any help now."

"That's too bad. We would like to know what happened to the other forty thousand," he told her. He stood up and shook their hands. "It was a pleasure meeting you. The money is yours," he added.

Cecil and Patty looked at each other and back to the agent. "Thanks?" Cecil said, and walked him to the door.

"I'll bet those pictures of your mom's has the guy," Cecil told Patty over dinner. He retrieved the box and scattered the black and white photographs on the table, flipping them over to check for a date.

Patty spotted one and turned it over. "It was my father." She said, sighing. "Some family tree I have."

Old Habits Die Hard

I am from the southern part of the United States. Growing up in the sixties and seventies I know people used what are now considered deplorable words for people's ethnic origins. The "N" word to be one of them. I heard it growing up and believe me; older people are not going to give up that word no matter how many times you tell them it's wrong to use it- I've tried too many times myself to stop them. Now I won't say 'I never used that word.' There probably isn't anyone who grew up then in that atmosphere who didn't. Some of us just learned not to use it. I didn't like that word anymore than I liked the derogatory phrase for poor white people (questionable morals or not)- 'white trash'. I heard that a lot and not just from the African American community- by the way they called us 'crackers'*. I haven't heard that lately though. I remember knowing even before I started school (for some reason I can't explain) that if I dropped the 'N' word, I probably would have the ever living crap beat out of me and not by my parents. Someone once yelled it across the playground at school, and because it was in my general vicinity, even though it wasn't me, I got accused of it, and back then corporal punishment was the way they handled things, and I got clobbered. It reinforced my innate intuition that its use was not acceptable.  

Now, fast forward to the issue with Paula Deen, renowned cook, cookbook writer, restaurateur, and host of three television cooking shows on the Food Network.  Because she has used it in the past, she is now out of her hosting position. She'll probably lose her cookware line and possibly any publishing deals. Her restaurant may suffer as well. Whether the person who accused her of using that word while planning a wedding reception was telling the truth or not, those of us who were not there have no idea of the veracity of the allegations. It is he said/ she said. As she said, it is just something everyone from the south back then used as everyday language. We can understand that part. Does that make it okay to use it? No, of course not. It wasn't okay then either, but the wheels of civility, they do turn slow. The best we can hope for is that the younger generations teach that it is not alright to use racial slurs (any of them) so that it is not part of the culture any longer. Will you answer that challenge?

*I once looked up the term 'cracker' when I was a kid. I turns out it refers to the Spanish and/or Seminole cattle drovers who used whips and cracked them to get the cattle to go where they wanted them. It probably also spread to the plantation owners and managers who used whips on the slaves, but they left that part out of the definition. Imagine that.