Welcome to the seventy-fourth Weekly Challenge, 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 selected by Elisson of blog d’Elisson and he chose: Prunes.
The excellent theme music is by Guy David
SOMETHING NEW
Due to popular demand, I am going to include stories that were sent to me, but without a recording. However, since the midget has left for sunny Coral Gables, Florida, those stories will just be posted in the show notes. You’re more than welcome to vote for them, but they will be ineligible for prizes or topic selection.
I feel that this is a fair balance between the podcast and blog natures of this content.
Feel free to share your thoughts on this decision in the comments, and we might possibly come up with an even better and more fair policy for handling these kinds of situations.
VOTING
Go ahead and listen to them by clicking on the grammophone thingy there in the left column and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):
WE GOTS PRIZES:
I will be sending the winner a prize… it’s refrigerator magnets for the podcast. Massive amounts of fridge magnets were mailed out in the past week… watch your mail, and let me know if I’ve missed you.
It is your voting that determines who wins. So listen, vote, and tune in next week to find out who won!
CALEB
Floating along upon balloons
You’ll see them sometimes at the dunes
Nestled in among the loons
Vikings carving runes on prunes
To chase away those raisin goons
The ancient magic of dried fruits
Noblest of all pursuits
Were singing raisins really cute
Or maybe created by suits
No! They were terrifying brutes
Nearly destroying all mankind
Insinuating in the mind
Of those to sights like magic blind
Helpless as an old melon rind
On which those raisins cruelly dined
But Viking prunes all carved with runes
Protect us all from home to mall
Safe in the street
Thanks to Sunsweet
CHRIS
When it came to food council adverts, Brad Thompson was a genius. Beef, it’s what’s for dinner. The incredible, edible egg. Got milk? All his, all brilliant.
So when the National Prune Council decided they wanted to improve their advertising presence, who did they call on? That’s right, Brad Thompson.
Just one problem. Brad had a stroke last year. He’s pretty much fully recovered, except for the uncontrollable, involuntary swearing.
We told the Prune Council about Brad’s condition but they insisted on him anyways. Oh well, I hope they like Brad’s campaign idea:
Prunes: you’ll shit like a fucking horse.
GUY
The king loved his apricots. Everyone knew that, that is, everyone except the new servant who brought him prunes by mistake. The king was furious and the sentence was immediate, “of with his head”!
Jasmineyna, the servants’ wife, was furious. Now, you don’t want to anger a sorceress, especially not one of Jasmineynas’ skill level. In the morning, they found the king with an apricot tree growing out of his gut, and… very much alive. In the end they just left him there.
They say the king is still there, living off his apricot tree. He really loves his apricots.
TOM
When they remove your wisdom teeth
they give ya codeine for the pain.
It dulls the hurt quite nicely.
The trouble is it works a bit too well.
It stops everything.
The prevailing wisdom to keep things flowing is
to use the magic bullet of constipation: The Prune.
On day three after extraction I was on a express bus
half way between San Jose and Santa Cruz.
The lower intestines gurgled twisted and pulsed.
I held tight tears filling my eyes.
When the bus reached the station
I leaped off and dash for the john.
The experience was nearly religious.
JD
Prunes?
Laurence, what has gotten into you.
In trying to jump start my internal processes I have read a bunch of the 3,421,276 net entries concerning prunes.
So far, no luck.
I have been setting here, in my little thinking room off the hall, for the last 6 days attempting to flush out 100 words with Prunes.
This week prunes have done nothing for me.
You would think at my age prunes would do something.
Come on Laurence, do you really think that Prunes are something that can help keep podcasting.isfullofcrap.com on a regular schedule?
OOPS, Got to run now.
TERRENCE
Raoul looked up as his brother entered the room. He carried a glass
filled with a dark liquid. “What is that?” Since the whole pink is
the new black thing he had seen his brother trying on wigs, getting a
manicure and even going on a diet.
‘Prune juice’
“Why?”
‘I just realised that I’m not regular. I cannot even remember going
to the bathroom.’ He tipped the glass and drained it. The prune
juice splashed against the floor between his feet.
“You do realise that you do not have a stomach.”
‘What does that have to do with it?’
LAIEANNA
Growing up changed Charlie in a lot of ways. His health especially impacted how he saw his factory. This resulted in his products not holding the same quality as his mentors and it showed in sales.
Rather than revert back, he decided to, once again, open the factory to five lucky children. Tickets were randomly put into his merchandise and sent across the world. He then waited and watched.
Months later, the five were gathered, all senior citizens. Apparently his ChocoBrocco Bars, Caramel Covered Prunes, and Celery-Marshmallow Whips had a market.
The tour was just waiting for a few wheelchairs.
DAPHNE
When Little Tamara took her bath, Mrs. Kirshner would sing to her. She sang a song that made Tamara worry. She worried that just like a prune she would be covered in wrinkles all the time. When Little Tamara saw her fingers and toes start to wrinkle she begged her mommy to let her out of the tub. One night Little Tamara saw her mommy drawing the bath and there was steam coming off the water. Tamara began to cry. She was afraid that was turning into a prune.
YXES
Every year it was the same scary mansion, the same tattered ghosts, and the same creepy and disgusting gags to make the little kids squeal. This year, however, there was one small addition, a “tar pit”.
While the parents waited anxiously for their little sweethearts to emerge from the fog unscathed, one dad yelled, “There’s the tar pit. I hope they get across it okay.” Everyone giggled knowingly.
They slipped, they slided and soon were covered in the sweet, sticky ‘tar’, laughing and giggling the whole time. Suddenly a mom shouted, “Oh, good grief, these children are covered in prunes!”
Z
The lesson for the day in the Robotics Lab was transformations.
I started simple: “Grapes become raisins.”
“How is this?” said the robot. “Do they not also become wine?”
“Yes, but this is through a process of drying. Like plums becoming prunes.”
The robot pondered: “I do not know what a prune is.”
“They’re dried plums.”
“What are they used for?”
“Making you shit easier,” I mumbled.
The next day, I walked into the lab and discovered that the robot had filled his carapace with prunes.
“I still cannot shit,” it said weakly, circuits ruined by the acidic plum juice.
OTHER CRAP:
If Garf isn’t too annoyed with my constantly screwing up the call to the show last week, well, I’ll be trying to drop by his High Tech Texan Show on Saturday to give a report on stuff, things, and this-and-that.
There a way to write reviews for this podcast in iTunes and other directories. I’d appreciate any and all reviews of this podcast.
Your Mostly Fearless Leader doesn’t command you to do so, but he is somewhat whinily cajoling and imploring you to do so.
Let a tiny slice of the world know how much you like or don’t like or could care less about this not-quite-so-bold endeavor.
Thank you.