Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number One Hundred And Eighty-Seven, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.
The topic this week was… was…. um…
It’s Hospitality!
The excellent theme music is by Guy David.
VOTING
Go ahead and listen to them and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):
Anima
Zlinka dreamed of working in the hospitality industry; She learned the finest cooking in France and Austria, diplomacy from various parliamentarians, and how to hold a proper tea from the Queen herself.
But it was not enough – Once Zlinka had her own inn, she discovered that travelers are whiners – the lamb at dinner was too raw, the straw beds too moldy, the lounge too dank and smelly…
What did they really expect from an Ogre? After 4 miserable years, Chez Grendl closed its doors.
Zlinka is much happier as a middle manager overseeing loans at the local bank.
Steven
“There, grandpa,” Mike said, his young hand releasing the wood tile.
“I spelled PIT. How many points is that?”
Grandfather looked at the board. “I think it’s ten.”
“Did you play this game a lot with grandma before she died?”
“Yes. We played most nights.” Grandfather put his tiles down on the
board. “Hospital.”
The boy frowned and hummed, then his face lit up as he put down his
letters. “Hospitality,” he said.
“Congratulations,” Grandfather said. “You win!”
As they left the room, they left behind the game board. There, for a
little while, hospitality was spelled with two e’s.
TJ
I wasn’t born in a barn. My mother raised me just fine, and indeed a coworker’s 50th birthday is a milestone affair, a thing to be celebrated. I agree with all of these things. And it’s true that Phil did push just the tiniest bit too hard on the RSVP, but I honestly couldn’t think of anything else I’d be doing on a Saturday afternoon so I blurted out “Of course!” and yes, prayed that something, anything would come up. It didn’t. So here I am. The only one. At the home of Phil who oh, I didn’t mention? Nudist.
Katharina
“Welcome to my humble abode.” She motioned the young man into her house.
The weather was horrible, a thunderstorm unseen in years. He was soaking wet and dripped on the floor, leaving behind huge puddles of water. Shaking and obviously cold, he was thankful for the pot of soup he soon had between his hands. It was a rich soup, with potatoes, noodles and a lot of vegetables. The clothes she had given him were a bit too big for him – he figured the man in the house must be rather tall.
“What is your name anyway, young lad?”
“Hänsel”
“Oh, how fitting! I needed fresh meat anyway…”
Norval Joe
Making a living as a traveling minister during the great depression was difficult. He went to the south, hoping to find a humble, accepting feild of labor.
He turned his attention to the people he had grown up calling the “Mulato’s”.
“You’ve come in time for dinner,” he was told at the first house he visited.
“I’d heard of southern hospitality, but I didn’t expect this,” he said as a girl washed his hands, trimmed his nails and brushed his hair.
In the kitchen the mother made a gumbo, the grandmother used his hair and nails t0 make a doll.
If I win, how about, donkeys
JRadimus
In some cultures, it is a terrible insult to your host if you eat all the food on your plate at dinner. It says, “You are a stingy and unwelcoming host.” In other cultures, it is great praise. It says, “You are a generous and gracious host.”
As the honored guest at a ceremony of the Korowai of Papua New Guinea, I do not know which custom they follow. Frankly, I could not care less how much of me they leave on their plates. It is hardly the debate to have with oneself in the broth, amongst the root vegetables.
Justin
Johnny made sure his jaw still worked and stood. Doctor Sinusoid stood on the deck, small and red faced.
“Welcome to my airship, Mr. Copperwire. I trust my assistant Palms greeted you nicely?”
“If you call giving me several high-fives to my face nice, then I don’t want to suffer your hospitality.”
“Well, I had to bring you here on my terms, of course.”
“But I’ll be leaving on mine.”
Johnny tossed a sachet at Sinusoid. Palms swatted it into powder.
Sinusoid and Palms sneezed and fell over gasping.
“Now to disassemble the sine wave death ray without any opposition.”
Planet Z
I work in a hospital. I run network systems for the IT Department.
Medical records? Scheduling?
All computers.
Sadly, Hospitality and Hospital IT are mutually exclusive.
We’re well aware that the time it takes a system to reboot may kill someone. Or, if it’s the networked pharmacy database corrupting, an entire floor can get wiped out.
Everything is a crisis. Everything is important. It’s written over all of our monitors.
You do not need to keep reminding us.
It’s rude. It’s repetitive. It’s patronizing. And it wastes valuable time that should be spent fixing the problem.
It’s just downright… inhospitable.