The Two Takes

It turns out, much to our chagrin, that we are  "Kids these days"-years-old.  Yes, we have a lot of thoughts on what's wrong with the world, but instead of just griping about them to each other, this week we're happy to present our ideas on what we could all do to make the world better.  His Take:  Fixing the world seems hard, but I have it nailed down to just 4 easy steps. Why 4? 'Cause that’s the number that Sue told me I had. Challenge accepted!!  #1)Social Media Wipeout- Social Media is VERY useful. You can catch up with old friends or new friends, you can see what’s going on in their lives, you can check out movie or book reviews from people that aren’t “professional” reviewers. The possibilities are endless. The problem is..the possibilities are endless. For every person that says “Hey, that’s a great new car you got!” there’s one that says “I can’t believe you bought that piece of dogshit!”. Unfortunately, that’s just the beginning. I’m not ...

This week we decided to go back to our old friend, the random writing prompt generator.  (Seriously, if you want to write, especially if you want to start out confused and frustrated and THEN write something, find one of these and try it out.) Our prompt was simply "You have no idea who I am, do you?" and here are our takes.  Her Take: What follows is the most frightening example of horror fiction that I could dream up. The characters and setting are real, the rest is a fever dream. Be afraid.   “You have no idea who I am, do you?”, she said from behind me.  I squeezed the handle of my shopping cart more tightly, drew a deep in-breath, and turned to face her.  Her whole being was furrowed into one enormous frown. She stood with forehead wrinkled, lips pursed, arms crossed, hip jutted, and eyes trained on me, accusatorily.  It seemed very unfair to be honest, because of course I knew her.  Flashback 20 seconds before my life had ...

His Take: I’m 99% sure that there’s a special place in Hell for ex-girlfriends & old bosses. And just as sure as I am of that, I’m sure that there’s a special place in Heaven for Grandparents. And I know that that’s where mine are right now.  First, I have a very important PSA for everybody reading this. If your grandparent are still around. TALK to them. Sit down and write as many questions as you can possibly think to ask a person. Did they play sports in grade school or high school? What role did they have in their Kindergarten play? Who was their first kiss? When they were little, what did they want to be when they grew up? You should have a full big yellow legal pad pull of questions. Then go spend the day with them and ask them these questions. Even cooler, record it. My phone can hold up to like infinity songs. There’s gotta be room on your phone for a day’s worth of voice recording. Someday you might be a grandparent and this will be something SO cool to pass on to t...

Her Take: I’m excited about this week’s topic because I get to share the second-best life lesson I ever learned with you. Well, why don’t I give you the BEST life advice too, as long as I’m at it? THE BEST was when I came home from school crying because people were bullying me for my weight. I looked up at my wise and impossibly ancient (he was maybe 40 at that time) father with tears in my eyes, yearning for guidance, and he gave me his sage counsel. “Tell ‘em to kiss yer ass.” I’m still not sure if he had been listening or if he thought I asked for the absolute quickest way to get suspended from Lutheran school, but I took his advice anyway, at least internally, and still do. Now, the second-best life lesson came from my mother, and I hate to overshadow it with what is arguably my best story from real life ever, but it sets us up for what we really need to talk about now. Flash forward to when I’m about 22 years old, and I find out that my Then-Father-in-Law h...