Yep, Story #13 is up in the CLASSICS section, ready to be enjoyed by all good people, far and near. The bad people can read it, too, though. They might like it, I wouldn’t know.
See you soon,
the SotWC
The Unfortunate Beginnings of Trebil Spoonbutter (Story #101)
Well, well, well, well, well. Here we are to rock and roll a new story. A bit behind schedule, what’s new. It’s a very busy time here at the club with play rehearsals reaching their peak just before we open (in less than 2 weeks!), so finding time to write a story has been . . . challenging. I am currently writing at work in fits and starts, watching the door hoping no one comes in and sees this. Nothing like a little paranoia to drive the creative muse.
Speak to me, Muse. Speak to me.
Okay, the Muse has spoken. Unfortunately, she spoke in Mandarin Chinese, so I have no idea what she said. Crazy Muse. Oh well. Guess I’ll just have to wing it, then.
THE UNFORTUNATE BEGINNINGS OF TREBIL SPOONBUTTER
Once upon a time, long ago and very far away from wherever you happen to be at this moment, there was a young girl named Special Pooterpie. Now, little Special lived in a cottage with her parents, Biff and Rosemandible Pooterpie. Special did the cooking and cleaning and laundry and somehow still found time to write a one-act play every single night to perform for her lazy, lazy parents, who she loved dearly despite their reluctance to do anything at all.
One evening, Special sat down to write a play and found that she could not think of a single thing to write about. This was quite a new situation for her (remember, this was a very long time ago, and writer’s block hadn’t even been invented yet. Special was actually an early pioneer in the field of writer’s block, but she often gets overlooked because it never really received public attention until Edgar Rice Burroughs’ lesser known brother, Buford, patented it in a failed attempt to explain why he never wrote anything as good as his brother), and she became frightened that perhaps her brain had ceased to function. Taking quick stock of the fact that she was, in fact, still alive (and she was pretty sure she wouldn’t be if her brain stopped working entirely, she was a smart one, that Special), she decided her brain must still be functioning on some level, and she set out to kick-start the creative muse.
Thinking quickly, she slipped out the back door of the cottage (while her parents were distracted doing nothing at all) and ran twelve and a half miles to the nearest cottage, where her good friend, Trebil Spoonbutter, lived with his parents, Molly and Breckinridge. Trying to be surreptitious, she threw a stone at his window to get his attention. Sadly, glass hadn’t actually been invented yet, either, and she wound up hitting poor Trebil right smack on the head and knocking him unconscious. She thought about running away but then she remembered it was twelve and a half miles back to her own house and she decided to sit down and cry instead. Fortunately, Trebil woke up pretty quick (it hadn’t been such a big stone, after all, and he’d mostly gone unconscious from shock rather than impact) and saw her crying outside his window.
“Hey!” he said. “Why are you crying outside my window, friend Special?”
She looked up in surprise. “Whoa, I thought you were dead,” she said.
“Nah, I just passed out or something,” he said. “I think someone hit me on the head. Did you see anyone throw something through my window?”
Special looked at him for a long moment before saying, “nope. Sorry.”
“No big,” Trebil said. “So, what are you doing here, anyway?”
“Oh, yeah,” she said, “well, you know how I write a one-act play to perform for my parents every night?”
“Yeah,” he said, “you’ve told me about that, but I’ve never seen one or anything.” He was trying to make her feel bad for never inviting him to a play, but guilt hadn’t been invented yet, so she didn’t notice.
“Well, today when I sat down to write tonight’s play, I couldn’t think of anything to write,” she said.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“Nothing came to mind,” she explained.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
“I’ve got some kind of block,” she said, “ and I can’t write.”
“Hm,” he said, “what would you call that?”
“I don’t know,” she replied, “it’s some kind of writer’s . . . wall. Yes, I’ve got Writer’s Wall.”
“Gee, that sounds tough,” said Trebil.
“You have no idea,” Special said. “I’ve never had to wait for the creative muse to strike before. It’s like she’s speaking Mandarin Chinese or something.”
“What’s that?” asked Trebil.
“I don’t know,” said Special. “I think I just made it up.” (You’re probably thinking that Mandarin Chinese hadn’t been invented yet, but it totally had – a man named Bill Potrzebie in Port Au Prince, Haiti had invented it two years earlier but he was still trying to raise the money for a plane ticket to China to tell them about it. His efforts actually became very first Kickstarter account and it made the news and everything. Trebil and Special had just never heard of it because they were such country bumpkins.)
After a moment’s thought, Trebil said, “well, why don’t you write a play about me?”
“About you?” she said. “What’s there to write about you?”
“Plenty,” he replied. “There’s the time I went down to the crick and found a dying yak who I named Spotty Pepper and nursed him back to health and then he saved the whole family when our cottage caught on fire because dad was experimenting with alternating current electricity. Then dear old Spotty Pepper went back into the house to get ma’s china pig collection and the house collapsed on him, so I built a monument to his honor in the forest, and yaks from far and near showed up at the dedication ceremony. There wasn’t a dry eye in the forest.”
“No,” said Special. “I need something good.”
“Well,” said Trebil, “there was the time I went down to the crick and found a dead squirrel.”
“Yeah,” said Special, “like that! But who would play you? I’m a girl and you’re a boy.”
“I could play me,” Trebil said softly.
Special looked up, a light burning in her eyes. She smiled at Trebil as if seeing him for the first time. She stood up and ran to his window. She grabbed his hands and squeezed them. “I’ve only just thought of it,” she said. “I can pull my hair back and wear a cap. That way I can play a boy!”
With that she turned and ran twelve and a half miles back to her own house and immediately wrote a play called “The Unfortunate Beginnings of Trebil Spoonbutter,” in which a dying squirrel is transformed into a little boy at the banks of a magical river and has to find a family to take care of him before his heart explodes from all the magic that is in him (obviously creative license had been invented even way back then).
Special performed the whole play herself, and her parents liked it so much that they invited some people over to watch the following night. The character of Trebil Spoonbutter was so popular that everyone demanded that she write and perform more plays about him. In the end, she wrote over a hundred plays starring the character, some of the best being “Trebil Spoonbutter and the Tadpole Witch,” “The bewildering Middle of Trebil Spoonbutter,” “The Trying Times and Cruel Intimations of Trebil Spoonbutter,” and, of course, “Trebil Spoonbutter’s Magnificent End.”
The series was wildly popular, and probably would have made the real Trebil Spoonbutter extremely happy and famous and wealthy if only Special had ever thought to invite him to a performance. Unfortunately, thoughtfulness wasn’t invented until two years after all of this happened.
THE END
Well, that’s what I did at work today. What did you do?
Love and skiddlypoops,
The SotWC
Story #12! (or Story 10.3)
Late again, I know. But, trust me, dear readers, it’s been a long week. I’ve been thinking of you all every day, though. You know, at least a little bit.
So, here’s the final installment of the “Jim and Jym” saga for your tremendous enjoyment. Tremendous, I tell you.
Love,
the SotWC
Story #11 (or Story #10.2)
Well, we’re late again, but here’s the second installment of the Jim and Jym mini-series. Huzzah!
Sorry. That’s it. I mean, it’s pretty late and we’ve got work in the morning.
Peace, y’all,
the SotWC
Story #10, and a Whole New Season!
Hey, kids! Look at us, actually publishing on time (once again with the “I haven’t gone to bed yet, so it’s still Thursday to me” caveat) for the second time this month!
So, welcome back from summer break! What’s that you say? It’s not summer? Well, it was back in 1994 when this week’s Classic was published. Which brings us to Classic Story #10 the very week after we published Story #100 in the present chronology. I’m sure that must mean something, cosmically speaking. But I leave that to the egg-heads among you. I got nothin’.
Anyway, go on and check out Story #10, Jim and Jym and the Treasure of the Big Mountain!
Texas Timmy and the Quid Pro Quo (Story #100!)
Whoa! Check us out! It’s the 100th Story of the Week! This means something. Oh, well, moving on.
I have recently developed a love affair with a company called Peace Tea. For those of you who know me at all, this may seem a little hippie for me, but the fact is that I love iced tea, and these guys know how to do it. It is almost exactly the same as Arizona Iced Tea, pretty much the only difference being that, while Arizona Teas use HFCS, Peace Teas are made with real sugar. Boo yah. Why am I shilling for Peace Tea on my story blog? I wish I could say I’m getting an endorsement, but no. I simply bring it up to let you all know that the convenience store across the street from my work just started carrying a new Peace Tea this week, the “Texas Style Sweet Tea,” and I’m so excited about it that I’m going to write a story about Texas.
If you think that introduction is disproportionately large when compared to the reasoning, just remember that everything is larger in Texas.
TEXAS TIMMY AND THE QUID PRO QUO
"I Don't Like Your Face!" art by Eric Jansen
Way down south where it’s hot and sticky
And tumbleweeds tumble the land
There lived a man who was mean and tricky
Who lived by the strength of his hand.
Texas Timmy they called this pest
For Timmy, indeed, was his name.
He lived in Texas, you may have guessed,
But Texas is not to blame
For the way that Timmy wound up, you see,
And that is the tale that I’ll tell.
You may not remember you heard it from me
But it’s probably just as well.
Now, Tim was like a train wreck
And every Friday night
He’d drink away his paycheck
And try to start a fight.
But, once upon a humid eve
As Timmy tied one on,
A stranger drank, then tried to leave
And just before he’d gone
He found a man was in his way,
A wall named Texas Tim
Who tried to make the stranger stay
But found the joke on him.
“I don’t like your face!” Tim cried,
Which made the stranger laugh.
And after a moment he calmly replied,
“You should see my other half.”
Of course ol’ Tim, he got confused
And then ol’ Tim got mean.
He’d never been easily amused,
And his intellect wasn’t too keen.
“I don’t know what you mean by that,”
Said Tim, “but you should know
I’m presently planning on pounding you flat.”
The stranger said, “quid pro quo.”
Tim got angry and shook his head.
“Stop using that fancy talk!
I’ll beat you within an inch of dead!”
The stranger said, “walk the walk.”
Tim screamed, “come on! Let’s go outside!
I’ll deal with your wise-crackin’ ways!”
The stranger said, “if it’s a matter of pride,
I’ll go anywhere he says.”
So out they went into the street
And everybody followed.
Tim saw just a man to beat,
Not pride there to be swallowed.
“Before I pound you just for sport,”
Tim said to make a scene,
“You seem a mouthy, egg-head sort.
What’s all that hogwash mean?”
The stranger sadly stared at Tim,
Then sadly shook his head.
No one knew what to make of him,
But this is what he said.
“When I say to ‘walk the walk,’
It means to follow through it.
You’re loud and brash with talking talk,
But don’t just say it; do it.
‘Quid pro quo’ is easier yet
And I’ll explain quite neatly.
It means I give as good as I get,
So careful how you treat me.”
Well, Tim had had enough by now
So he swung his mighty fist.
But the stranger ducked the blow somehow
And Texas Timmy missed.
The stranger then returned the swing
And rattled Timmy’s teeth.
A punch as hard as anything
Hit Tim’s jaw from beneath.
Well, Tim, he fell. And Tim, he bled.
The stranger stood and waited
While Timmy sat and held his head
And acted addlepated.
After a moment, the stranger knelt down
And just before he went,
He said, “before I leave your town,
I’ll tell you what I meant
When I said you should see my other half.”
Then he whispered in Texas Tim’s ear,
“The story might not make you laugh,
But it’s one that I think you should hear.
I came to Texas in order to find
Someone to take home to my mother.
Someone that she’d once left behind;
My long lost baby brother.
She said his name was Timothy.
She said he’d grown up mean.
She said that she was trusting me
To tell her what I’d seen.
That’s why I came, and who I found
And now before I go
And leave you bleeding on the ground
There’s something you should know.
We could have been a family.
We could have had a ball.
But I’ll give you what you gave me,
And that’s no chance at all.”
And, just like that, the stranger left
Without a backward glance
And left ol’ Texas Tim bereft
Of any second chance.
So now if you see Tim drinking here
And ask him, “what do you know?”
He’ll buy you a drink and he’ll shed a tear
And he’ll just say “quid pro quo.”
THE END
Why that turned into a poem, I’m really not sure, except that when I came up with the first line, it sounded awful poetic and the rest just sort of followed suit. Hope you enjoyed it! It WAS the 100th Story of the Week, after all. 
See you soon,
the SotWC
Story #9 is here (or, Pretend It’s Last thursday and Nothing Will Be Amiss)
Hey howdy hey, dear readers! Obviously Saturday is not the new Thursday (as I postulated last week) because, if it was, this story would have been published last Saturday! Well, anyway, if you go to this page in our Classics section, you will find the first ever SotWC Season Finale. It’s like visiting a historical landmark without having to go anywhere!
See you soon,
the SotWC
Story #8, or “Is Saturday the New Thursday?”
Geez, it’s like I officially changed the publication date to Saturday. But I haven’t, okay? It’s just these darn play rehearsals on Thursday nights. I get home and don’t remember a thing. Well, I’m hoping to change that in the future and become more remember-ful on Thursday nights, doggonit. But, until then, here’s this week’s Classic, all ready to be read and stuff. It’s pretty silly. Don’t mean to shock you or anything.
See you next week (hopefully Thursday night),
the SotWC
Story #7, or How We Dropped the Ball Again!
A word of explanation; I have recently been cast in a play that rehearses on Thursday nights, so when I finally got home from rehearsal this past Thursday, I was exhausted and went straight to bed, not realizing the consequences of my actions. Not until late last night did I realize I had missed a publication day AGAIN. Boo, me.
But, anyway, the story is up now and it’s kind of a milestone for several reasons which I have already outlined in the new introduction to the story. So go read it here. Between the new intro and the old story, this week’s entry is chock full of birthdays, history, family-friendly curse words, and lies about a true story. What could be more exciting?
Love,
the SotWC
STORY #6, or Better Late Than Never!(?)
After a very long, very full weekend that started on Thursday (hence the lack of a post on Thursday), the newest “Classic” is up for your perusal. Check it out here and be on the lookout for another “Classic” story this Thursday, a bonus story for March, since this month has five Thursdays! We promise that one won’t be late!
See you soon,
the SotWC
