Daily Writing Exercise, 750words.com
“Fiction” (?) by Jason Edwards
I as much as I am sitting here trying to write my daily words, I’m afraid that by saying exactly that I am sending myself down a rabbit hole where that’s all I can talk about, and there will be nothing inventive or creative. This self-analysis stuff is boring, Boring for me, boring for the reader. Look at her, poor girl, sitting there, reading this. She’s just come from the car wash. Her little Prius. Nice day outside for a change, so she grabbed a stack of quarters that had been gathering dust since the days she bought the washer/dryer combo and no longer needed to go to the laundromat. Old creepers there anyway. What had she been thinking? She’d been thinking about college, Duds n Suds, and all the cute guys. She’s better than that, she doesn’t need men to define her, but what’s wrong with a little eye candy? The only candy at the laundromat had been the kind leftover in a bowl at your aunt’s house, all stuck together and is that an actual mouse turd there on the side?
But it had been colder outside than what shined through the window promised, so instead of going to the wash-it-yourself she went to the automatic one, where you pull up and ask for the basic and the kid tries to hard-sell you the Premium. How many takers does he get? Does he get some kind of commission? Does he get up in the morning and log onto the internet and go to Amazon and gaze lovingly at some piece of just-out-of-reach desiderata, and think to himself “just five more premiums and I can finally get Call of Duty 16” or whatever one they’re on now.
Like she has any room to talk, the way she pined for that Prius. “Tell me about yourself” a guy she met through J-Date said to her. “I’m going to get me a purple Prius,” she’d replied, and before “I’m” was even out of her mouth his eyes were glazed. Not that she was ugly or anything. Maybe not stunning, but stunning’s never permanent, is it. Still, he’d obviously picked up from somewhere to ask girls questions, he just hadn’t bothered thinking beyond that part of it.
At the end of the date, which had been, well, a way to spend an hour, she insisted on splitting the check, which he took as a sign, which she didn’t intend but was glad it happened that way, and as they left, he’d said “Good luck with that Prius.” The way he said Prius.
Yes, most Prius drivers are assholes, it’s true. Either because they think, because they’re driving a Prius, they’ve contributed somehow and are now entitled. Or, because there’s, like, almost no visibility out the back, or on the sides, and they figure, if I can’t see them, they’d better do the seeing. She, on the other hand, is a very conscientious Prius driver. She’d taken a class. Read a book. Her brother wrote a paper on “Geo-Spatial Awareness in Top Athletes” which she had helped him research. He’d gotten a B but that wasn’t the point.
The point was that she knew that there’s an ability to see where everything is, see how it’s moving, and be able to keep track of all of it for a few seconds or even longer. She paid attention when she drived, damn it, and for hell’s sake she’s driving one of the few purple cars on the road, so how is it you didn’t notice me and then decided to honk your horn you BMW driving jerk?
Which is what had happened, coming back from the car wash. Like, the car is clean and shiny any bright, and it’s a nice day, no matter what the temperature is, she’s not going to take the long way home, on the highway? That new Carly Rae Jepsen on the radio, singing along, you don’t have to know the words, and then HONK!
Out of nowhere. He must have come on from the last entrance ramp and swerved over, like, five lanes, sat in her blind spot. Who cares if it’s the biggest blind spot on the highway, it’s still a blind spot, and he should know that. But BMW drivers are all jerks.
Which is what’s she’s searching for, now, to make herself feel better about what happened. She’s used Google and found my blog for some reason and wants to know why BMW drivers are such assholes. Instead she gets me just talking about how I need to write something. Sorry, Lacey.