I tried a fun writing exercise today. I was supposed to use a bunch of words in each line. The words were Fork, socks, forward, airplane, devil, eloquent, gel, harvest, irate, junk. The result was this super short story….

The Green Fork

The toddler sulked and the pancake lay uneaten. I had looked everywhere for the green fork. In the kitchen cabinet, the laundry basket, the garage, the coat closet, and socks drawer. It was nowhere. I tried to distract him. I pushed his favorite books forward. The bunny one, the monkey one, the tree one. I whooshed his favorite orange airplane over his head making silly sounds. But he was inconsolable. When in the throes of a tantrum, he was the ‘devil’ incarnate. My pleas to ignore the fork and to be eloquent about what he would like instead were largely ignored. Suddenly I remembered something. The bottle of vaseline gel! Last week we were playing ‘Farm’ ‘Farm’ and pulling the harvest of grains from the vaseline tub. I ran to the bathroom drawer and pulled out the sticky green fork. I yelled and ran to my irate son, eager to pacify him. He pulled his head up from the box of recycling junk that he had buried himself in and ran into my arms. Breakfast finally done, I shuddered thinking of lunch.