Prair Carts 4 Sell
A cake-faced woman named Jeanette with a chain smoker’s snarl didn’t actually walk Allan over to the folder containing prayer card samples, but just waved in the general direction, muttering “thatta way.”
Allan did not, by any stretch, consider himself a writer, or even much of a reader. He had briefly minored in English during college, until Dr. Liebowitz taught one Hemingway story for an entire semester, each week from a different theoretical perspective. After feminizing, deconstructing, psychoanalyzing, structuralizing, post-structuralizing, ecocriticizing, reconstructing, queering, and killing Hemingway, Allan opted for a minor with real theories. Quantum physics. Despite his change of minor and heart, Allan still graduated college caring about grammar. If quantum physics taught him one thing it’s that the little stuff matters.
Such as where the period is placed on a prayer card.
You’ll arrive at the gates and hear angels call to you, “Welcome home”.
This wasn’t the first typo Allan had seen in the folder (“Christs’ heart” made him giggle, and the missing comma in “Good Morning God” flat out annoyed him). But, for no special reason really, this was the typo that sent him marching toward Jeannette, who wasn’t busy, was just resting half her bony ass on the desk, masking that smoker’s stink by loudly chewing bubblegum, like cud in a cow’s mouth.
“There’s a typo here.” Allan pointed at the prayer card. “That period should be inside the quotation mark.”
“Ha, that’s a parentheses mark,” Jeanette’s lips smacked. “Besides, we don’t write ‘em. Go ahead, flip it over.”
On the back of the card, Allan read: “Made in Vietnam.”
Thinking of how meticulously his mother always ironed her uniform, Allan slapped the folder at Jeanette’s chest and promptly but politely exited Memorial Mount Funeral Home for Army Veterans.
**This story is dedicated to Charlie Cartwright, without whom the inspiration for this piece would never have struck this dried-out-of-ideas writer.
Allan did not, by any stretch, consider himself a writer, or even much of a reader. He had briefly minored in English during college, until Dr. Liebowitz taught one Hemingway story for an entire semester, each week from a different theoretical perspective. After feminizing, deconstructing, psychoanalyzing, structuralizing, post-structuralizing, ecocriticizing, reconstructing, queering, and killing Hemingway, Allan opted for a minor with real theories. Quantum physics. Despite his change of minor and heart, Allan still graduated college caring about grammar. If quantum physics taught him one thing it’s that the little stuff matters.
Such as where the period is placed on a prayer card.
You’ll arrive at the gates and hear angels call to you, “Welcome home”.
This wasn’t the first typo Allan had seen in the folder (“Christs’ heart” made him giggle, and the missing comma in “Good Morning God” flat out annoyed him). But, for no special reason really, this was the typo that sent him marching toward Jeannette, who wasn’t busy, was just resting half her bony ass on the desk, masking that smoker’s stink by loudly chewing bubblegum, like cud in a cow’s mouth.
“There’s a typo here.” Allan pointed at the prayer card. “That period should be inside the quotation mark.”
“Ha, that’s a parentheses mark,” Jeanette’s lips smacked. “Besides, we don’t write ‘em. Go ahead, flip it over.”
On the back of the card, Allan read: “Made in Vietnam.”
Thinking of how meticulously his mother always ironed her uniform, Allan slapped the folder at Jeanette’s chest and promptly but politely exited Memorial Mount Funeral Home for Army Veterans.
**This story is dedicated to Charlie Cartwright, without whom the inspiration for this piece would never have struck this dried-out-of-ideas writer.
Comments
Post a Comment
Just Go Ahead and Write Something Groovy, It's Okay