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I’m combining posts tonight, so I begin with ~100 words of fiction. This week over at Write On Edge we were assigned the task of changing “passive” to “active.” One of their examples: “My toaster is possessed by a demon,” made me laugh out loud, so I just went with it. Ergo:
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I swear a demon snuck in and possessed my toaster oven in the night. When I plugged it in this morning, it buzzed suspiciously. I paused in the act of removing the twisty tie from a loaf of bread, but everything looked fine. Not until I turned the dial (medium-dark, 375 degrees) did the sparks fly–literally, arcing blue-green from the cord to the serving fork, tines up in the caddy on the stove. pop-pop-pop, sparkles whirled inward and up–six inches precisely–and only spent gunpowder remained, tickling my nose until I sneezed violently.
Now you know how a pyrotechnic engineer celebrates April Fools.
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I wrote that little vignette at the side of a gym while two of my kids walked across balance beams and jumped on mats and rolled across the floor. Julianna qualifies for adaptive gymnastics, and since Christian and Alex had baseball, the powers that be allowed Nicholas to join the others.
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Meanwhile, I gave Michael pens to chew on, because we had no toys. Now, you may smack your head and wonder why I don’t just bring toys. But in my experience, they ignore the toys anyway, in favor of mats and shoes and, well, pens. So why should I haul more clutter around with me? But it backfired anyway, because you know what he went after all night? My NEO. While I was typing.
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It’s been an interesting week since I decided to drop back to 3-days’ blogging instead of 5. My hits haven’t suffered as much as I feared, and I was startled to discover that my kids and I get along much better in the morning when I’m not trying to put up a post. I am so much better a mother when I’m not trying to blog with them around. Hmm. Looks like I need to be writing in the afternoons and scheduling ahead.
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This week, Nicholas has been holding tight to his Drama King crown. Burning his finger (what on Earth possessed him to touch the refrigerator light bulb, and who would guess he could get so bad a burn off it?) to a runny nose and fever to round-the-clock nosebleeds for almost ten days to–you guessed it–yet another ear infection, which came up in the night. I thought I was growing in grace and patience because I hadn’t lost my temper once through the whole ordeal, even though my back and neck hurt and I’ve been growing progressively less rested all week. But overnight I discovered the end of my patience. I lay awake for a long time praying for the grace to cool down and not be angry and resentful so I could actually get back to sleep. And then Michael woke up to nurse. Of course.
Today’s agenda: chiropractor for me, PT for Julianna, teacher visit for Julianna, and then, somehow, we have to get Nicholas to the doctor. And next week, he goes to the ENT. Enough is enough. The nosebleeds have to stop. There goes another $75 in copays and prescriptions.
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I have my class reunion tomorrow. Which I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. Hope the antibiotics kick in, because my parents are keeping kids for us.
Well, Julianna and Michael are giggling at each other upstairs, so I guess that means I’m out of blogging time.
Kathleen M. Basi 
loved your toaster bit – full of excellent active verbs and a funny at the end.. Yay.
I love your description of the toaster! It made me smile. And you are right, the little ones ignore the toys anyway. May as well give them what they really want!
Goodness we sound a lot alike, though my kids are actually in school full time now. But I do find myself squeezing in the posting anyway, which leads to competitions with my boys, “How come Mommy gets to play in the computer any time she wants and we don’t?” I blog about 3 times a week. I keep one day, my Tale Tues, so my readers know when and where to find me; I think that regularity is enough to keep some followers. OTher than that, I seem to write to some of these short writing prompts. I actually think blogging less is better, especially if people subscribe. OTherwise, it may get to be too much. Any hoot, was following you here from the writing on edge prompt — your toaster image sends chills up my spine. I was up all night listening to our attic fan making screeching noises imagining similar sparks so am waiting for the electrician. As to prompts, I run a writing workshop hop as a former writing professor which you might like: http://www.awriterweavesatale.com/2012/06/15/sandras-writing-workshop-hop-2/
Don’t get too chilled–I totally made the whole thing up, without the benefit of research. I have cranky sick kids, so I just had to pretend I knew what I was talking about. 🙂
Crazy funny and unexpected…your toaster story. Everyone has their own version of tricks and pranks, don’t they? Nicely told!
Loved your story, especially the last line — Now you know how a pyrotechnic engineer celebrates April Fools.
The toaster scene is hilarious and well written. Good luck with the rest of your day – sounds crazy!
Haha, love your toaster bit! I actually did laugh at the end 🙂 Now I’m going to go google “Neo”
I laughed. I had a toaster that did that once. I disassembled it before throwing it out. Just in case it was possessed. I loved what you did with the prompt!
I absolutely love your snippets of fiction and this one was no exception. How you came up with that on the fly while watching your children is amazing!
You ran with my toaster example! Love it.
How could I not? It was awesome! 🙂
True story: My toaster oven is on the fritz, and only the toaster function works, which sucks because I used the damn thing for everything. So the example was drawn from my own overdramatized existence.
Ha! Hilarious to talk about–not so much to experience. In this weather the toaster oven is a great sub for the oven.