Fiction of the outside world. A meme that has stuck in my head. Are you just trying to order a milkshake from a Home Depot? “I feel like some people need to relearn Genre Expectations… “Man, this tragedy sucks!!! Why didn’t they just do XYZ, then everything could have ended happily!!” well, then it wouldn’t be a tragedy, would it. “Man, this lighthearted teen romcom is terrible, it’s so sappy and unrealistic!!” Well, yeah. If it had been gritty and dark, it wouldn’t have been a lighthearted romcom, would it. Is the writing actually bad or are you just trying to order a milkshake from a Home Depot” tumblr: bumblebeebats, Sep 29, 2023.
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Alice watched the couple drive away with pvc pipes lashed to the side of the truck and the ditch digger tagging along behind on its dedicated trailer. She wondered, as she always did, how the job was going to go. The couple seemed pleasant enough. Would they continue to be nice to each other as the day worn on and the job took longer than they had expected? House repair always took longer than people thought it was going to. Or would that pleasant couple be shouting and kicking dirt at each other by lunchtime?
Bob wandered the rental section of the hardware, amazed at what was available to a person who could produce a driver’s license and credit card. The amount of whirring, spinning, heavy cutting blades on the various equipment could do fearsome damage to a person. Either to one’s self or to another. Either unintentionally or deliberately. Okay, maybe his friends were right. Maybe he had been watching too many horror movies lately.
Chris knew she stood out in her pink coveralls while waiting for service at the pro counter of the hardware store. It annoyed her to be confirming gender stereotypes, but the pink was useful marketing. She had always been good with her hands. While growing up, she moved from rebricking the garden wall to fixing the washing machine to refinishing a new bathroom. During her teen years, neighbors began to pay her for small jobs. As an adult, she turned this ability into a profitable home repair business. When she started, she knew she would be getting grief for being a woman in a man’s world. Might as well lean into it. She dressed butch enough to be trusted with manly tasks, but femme enough to be relatable to the women who hired her. Turns out a lot of female householders were tired of being condescended to by repair personnel.
Daddyda pushed the cart carrying his shopping and his granddaughter. There was plenty of room for the two cans of paint and a toddler. In a few years, she would be too big for the cart. T-ball and soccer will replace cart rides. Or maybe tiaras and tap dance. Or maybe both. Whatever. He was up for it. When she was grown would she remember going on errands with her grandfather?
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Afterword
Imagination exercise courtesy of The Errant Moon, [Faces In The Crowd, Procedure]
Some of these are IRL people with made-up stories. Some are fabrications from up soup to nuts. I do remember riding in grocery store carts pushed by my grandmother.
Archives [Fiction, Faces In The Crowd]
Onwards!
Katherine
Virtual Brush Box 