Fun With Fiction

So, my mom is taking a creative writing class for seniors down at the YMCA.

Man, am I jealous of whoever is teaching that class! It would be my dream job. I'd give those old people assignments like: "Write about what you were doing on the day those giant space mutants from Jupiter tried to take over New York City."

Then, as soon as some codger inevitably pointed out, "But that didn't happen," I'd scowl at them and say, "Hey, the class is called Creative Writing! Got it? Use your imagination, people."

Yeah, they'd hate me for sure. But it would still be fun. For me at least.

Anyway, the teacher told them to write a story about a car. So my mom wrote out a little story in longhand about how her sister had a car that she thought was jinxed and then asked me to type up for her. It went like this:


My sister and her husband bought a gold Lexus a few years ago. It was a lovely car and very comfortable for taking long trips in, but they had so many bad experiences with it that my brother-in-law was convinced it was jinxed! For instance, they have had several fender bender accidents in the car, gotten several speeding and parking tickets with it, and their dog has gotten sick while riding in it quite a few times, though he normally doesn't have that problem. My brother-in-law wanted to sell the car, but my sister said no. She didn't believe a car could be jinxed.

Well, one morning my sister went to the grocery store while her husband relaxed at home. The Lexus was safely parked in their garage. My brother-in-law was reading the paper when he heard a screech and a terrible crash! A neighbor had been turning around in their driveway and lost control and drove through the garage crashing right into the Lexus.

As soon as my sister got home and saw the damage, she turned to her husband and said, "Warren, go ahead and sell that damn car!"


Cute, huh? The ending has a nice little kick.

I typed it up and printed it out for her, but then I couldn't resist the urge to punch it up just a little bit. After all the class is "fiction writing" and this particular tale was 100% true! Here is the version I came up with.


My sister and her husband bought a gold Lexus a few years ago. It was a lovely car and very comfortable for taking long trips in, but they had so many bad experiences with it that my brother-in-law was convinced it was jinxed! For instance, while driving in the car they have had several fender bender accidents, been attacked by rabid raccoons twice, accidentally ran over a hobo on a unicycle, and were abducted by aliens who subjected them to anal probes on three different occasions (well, they do live in Georgia so that actually might not be related to the car).

Also, their dog was completely normal before the fateful day he jumped in the Lexus to go for a ride. They aren't sure exactly what happened, but by the time they got home, the dog had only three legs, one eye, and a tumor growing on his drool.

My brother-in-law wanted to sell the car, but my sister said no. She didn't believe a car could be jinxed.

Well, one morning my sister went to the grocery store while her husband relaxed at home. The Lexus was safely parked in their garage, where it had been ever since that family of gypsies moved in to the trunk. My brother-in-law was reading the paper and packing his bong when he heard a screech and a terrible crash! A neighbor had been turning around in their driveway and lost control and drove through the garage crashing right into the Lexus. It was a terrible scene. The gypsies were wailing and beating their breasts and chicken feathers were flying everywhere.

As soon as my sister got home and saw the damage, she turned to her husband and said, "Warren, go ahead and sell that damn car!"

"I'll do you one better," my brother-in-law said. Then he turned himself into a giant robot and stomped on the car repeatedly until it was the size of a matchbook, popped it in his giant robot mouth, and ate it.

"Never again shall this unholy car curse the world with it's presence," he declared, and then the gypsies danced and ululated with joy, and the men brought out their fiddles and accordians and they all sang Cher songs well into the night.


I printed out my version too so I could show my mom - I figured she would get a chuckle out of it - but she was taking a shower and by the time she got out I had to leave. So I just put both variations of the story in her bag and told her to have fun.

She was sipping coffee this morning when I asked her how the class went.

"Well, I'll tell you," she said, with an impish look on her face. "I have never been so bored in my whole life. We had to sit in a circle and read our work out loud, which would have been fine except that the stories were so damn dull! These people wrote pages and pages about old cars they used to own and honestly, I nearly fell asleep. At least my little story was quick and to the point. I was going to read my version, but after this one guy went on and on about how great American cars used to be, the whole class was practically in a coma so I decided to read your story to wake them up."

"Oh my God!" I said. "I can't believe you! What did they say?"

Then my mom started laughing her ass off. I had to wait forever for her get the words out.

"Well, they were very quiet after I finished reading it," she said finally. "Everyone was just kind of staring at me. And then the teacher said", here she cracked up again, "well that was very creative, Sarah."


Damn, I wish I'd seen that!

"All right! So, what's next week's assignment?" I asked, rubbing my hands together with gleeful anticipation.

"Oh, I'm not going back," my mom said. "I'm not wasting another two hours of my life sitting through that mess. Besides, now everyone thinks I'm a weirdo."

This is why I love my mom. She IS a weirdo! At least now I know who I got it from.