Tag: Stories

Discreet Issues

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 10 Comments

The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning is DELETE. My response will be this little tale of persnickety spelling. (With thanks to Alexas Fotos and Pixabay for this image.)

Adamson had some reservations about the newly hired secretary. He paused a few paces back from her desk to observe her as she typed up his letter to a client. She was pleasant enough to chat with, and definitely attractive. Perhaps that was her biggest appeal to Fotheringill, who’d hired her. Adamson felt their manager tried to cater to certain clients who had an appreciative eye for pretty smiles and youthful curves.

Observing Miss Secretary at her work, he wondered if this girl had the spelling smarts to do a competent job. Red lines popped up frequently on her screen, indicating that SpellCheck wasn’t happy, and she seemed to hit the DELETE key so often. When he saw the words “a discrete inquiry into the matter” appear on the screen, he gritted his teeth.

Stepping close to her desk, he pointed to the error on her screen. “You have the wrong word there. It’s supposed to be D-I-S-C-R-E-E-T.”

She looked up at him. “Does it matter?”

“Definitely. Look the word up in the dictionary.”

Half an hour later she entered his office with a self-satisfied smile and laid the letter on his desk. He looked at it and his eye automatically went to the needed correction. He shook his head as he read, “We’ve made a discreet inquiry into the matter and found that the concreet was delivered at 9am on May 3rd.”

He pointed to the offending word. “Did SpellCheck not tell you this word was wrong?”

“It was underlined, but I figured, if it’s DISCREET, then it will be CONCREET. It’s your report and you know how to spell,” she replied, sounding rather huffy.

Further down in the letter he spotted another error: “This clause in the contract will be deleeted…”

He slapped his hand to his forehead. “One size fits all,” he muttered.

He handed her the letter. “If you wish to keep this job, Miss Secretary, I recommend that you join a remedial spelling class ASAP. I understand there’s one held every Thursday at the community college for those who made it through school without learning how to spell.”

She bristled, grabbed the report and walked out of his office with her head held high.

He’d have a word with Fotheringill about the basic requisites for secretaries but he doubted it would have much effect. Thank God for the faithful Mrs Taylor, employed to scan and correct all correspondence before it left the office.

As he passed through the office area later, he overheard Miss Secretary complaining to one of the other staff about Mr Adamson being so difficult. “Don’t know why he’s so hard to please. He actually told me to join a spelling class! I mean, does it really matter if it’s EET or ETE? As long as the customer gets the idea.” She sniffed. “They probably don’t spell perfectly, either.”

“He’s always been that way,” the other secretary answered. “Mr Fotheringill never fusses about spelling.” She giggled. “He cares a lot more about how we look. Not to worry. Just send it to Mrs Taylor – she deals with the spelling stuff.”

Adamson rolled his eyes. Oh, well. Five more years and he’d take early retirement. Then he’d write his memoirs!

The Law Won’t Bend

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 7 Comments

Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt this time is…

I had a bit of fun with this snatch of dialogue…

Too Saturnine

“Judges are too saturnine,” Phil lamented. “No consideration for circumstances.”

“Right! They should have more heart, go easier on poor folks. I owed big time or I would never rob a bank. My sentence should be lighter than rich guys who steal.”

“You shoulda been my lawyer!”

Image: Mohamed Hassan — Pixabay

SATURNINE
– born under or influenced astrologically by the planet Saturn
– cold and steady in mood : slow to act or change
Synonyms: black, bleak, cold, desolate, dismal, forbidding, etc.

Agatha Christie: Plot Pro

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 5 Comments

The Ragtag Daily Prompt today is QUEST.

I’ve read several of Agatha Christie’s novels in the past few weeks, including One Two, Buckle My Shoe and Five Little Pigs. Even though her tales involve crimes, I enjoy the old-fashioned flavor. Characters are relatively polite; the language is clean; usually immorality is alluded to discreetly. Her two famous detectives are rarely in any danger themselves so suspense is at a level I can tolerate. And the reveal is usually a surprise.

Her two famous sleuths, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, are presented with a mystery and begin their quest for the truth. In my latest read, The Peril at End House, Poirot has declared himself retired; he will no longer use his little gray cells in chasing down evildoers. But lo and behold! A crime lands in his lap in the seaside vacation town where he and Captain Hastings are spending some R&R time.

I have to hand it to Mrs Christie: she has an amazing talent for building her plot into a pyramid, adding clues and suspects here and there as she goes. Then when you think you’ve reached the pinnacle and have a fairly good idea whodunit, her detective flips the whole thing upside down! In this story I had very little idea who the culprit would be – maybe because there were several culprits revealed. If you haven’t read it yet, it’s well worth reading!

I’ve also read two stories involving her Scotland Yard Superintendent Battle: The Secret of Chimneys and The Seven Dials Mystery. These involve espionage & subversion type crimes. In both books the flip is barely believable. In both, when I got to the final reveal I was saying , “Wait a minute! If this is true then why did that person do such and such? If he’s who he claims to be, why didn’t he recognize her, when they surely would have known each other?”

I’m quite a stickler for all these things adding up and behavior making sense. However, I found these books just as interesting as her other tales, even if I did have to suspend my disbelief to accept some of the facts as revealed.

A Motley Tale

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 5 Comments

The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning is MOTLEY

Definitions being:
– variegated
– made up of many different people or things
– a woolen fabric of mixed colours, made centuries ago in England
– a jester or fool
– a mixture especially of incongruous elements

I thought of how Lewis Carroll pulled so many bits and pieces from various tales and rhymes and wove them together for his Alice in Wonderland. Definitely a motley crew of characters.

And my muse said, “Well, why not?” So…

A Motley Verse

The cobbler and the carpenter went walking one fine day.
They wandered through a woods ablaze with leaves of scarlet gray.
There in the trees they came upon a runaway London bus
and said, “This thing should be returned. I guess it’s up to us.”

They drove it to the Firth of Forth and crossed to Isle of Skye
but never did reach London town. (They can’t imagine why!)
So they loaded it on a Viking ship and joined the hearty crew
whose destination was the Thames, much to London’s rue.

The bus was set there on the dock; the drivers held for ransom.
The price was gained, the sacking done by these invaders handsome.
Fatigued, the cobbler and carpenter then caught their train for home:
the 4:50 from Paddington — as mentioned in the tome.

They spotted the crime that set Miss Marple on her sleuthing plan,
and testified at the trial that the doctor was truly the man.
At last they reached their homes and settled back to normal life,
each of them soundly scolded for his wanderings by his wife.

Hopscotch Singing

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 2 Comments

The Ragtag Daily Prompt today is GLARE, and this response is just like these girls who grab a word and fly away with it.

Open ClipArt Vectors — Pixabay

THE EARWORM

“Way down in London airport in hanger number five–”

My sister Jane glared at me. “Will you quit!”

“What’s wrong with singing a little tune?”

“Bits and pieces of that song have been popping our of your mouth all afternoon.”

“I guess I have an ear worm.”

“Well flush it out once! What brought this on anyway?”

“I got it at the mall this morning. This old lady was standing beside me when a girl with purple hair walked by. The old lady shook her head and said, ‘Forever more!’ The song Biplane Evermore popped into my head and has been stirring around ever since.”

“You’re sounding like a broken record. Replace it with another song – something current. That’s so old!”

“I resolved to change my tune but before long I was heartily singing, “And as he rose into the storm the big jets hung their wings, and wished—”

“That you’d sing something else,” Jane yelled, giving me another glare. “Somewhere over the rainbow bluebirds fly…”

“Speaking of being so old, I read once that song is from the Thirties,” I told her. “It expressed a melancholic longing for things to get back to where they were before the economic crash and the drought. But I guess it was followed shortly by ‘Brother can you spare me a dime?’ since things were out of kilter for ten years. ”

“The Big Rock Candy Mountain came in there somewhere, too.”

Which started us both off. “Rocky Mountain High in Colorado…”

Hopscotching from tune to tune, Jane and I can sing in bits and snatches for hours.

A Headlong Rush

~ Christine Goodnough ~ Leave a comment

The Ragtag Daily Prompt today is PRECIPITATE

Precipitate can be a verb meaning:
to throw violently, hurl
to bring about especially abruptly
to cause to condense and fall or deposit
to fall headlong, fall or come suddenly into some condition
to move or act with violent or unwise speed

Though this word is usually replaced by something simpler. Rain and snow fall. You throw, toss, or hurl something.

He threw the baseball to his brother, who caught it and chucked it back. However, his second throw was high and wide. The boys watched in dismay as the ball hurtled over the fence into their neighbour’s yard. The sound of breaking glass told them they’d better precipitate their exit from the backyard.

Sir Knightly discovered that his rare and precious volume of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales had disappeared after a dinner party at his stately manor last week. An investigation was made by a private inquiry agent, who found the stolen volume in Lord Thornbury’s possession. In spite of efforts to keep this matter out of the news, the Press got wind of the affair. The news report created a scandal that precipitated his Lordship’s departure for an unnamed colonial shore.

It can be a noun:
a product, result, or outcome of some process or action
or an adjective:
falling, flowing, or rushing with steep descent
exhibiting violent or unwise speed

The precipitate river, swelled with spring runoff, rushed toward the cliffs where its waters squeezed between narrow rock walls and flung themselves onto the rocks below.

When his aunt scolded him for driving too fast, he boasted that he lived his whole life in the fast lane. She replied that this precipitate approach to living may well lead to a premature death.