Bonnie's Journal

Bupkis: One of my favorite Yiddish words. Figuratively, it means nothing. Literally, it means goat shit or tiny balls of crap.

You should thank me for not being able to find a picture of goat shit to post here :)

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Posted for therealljidol Home Game. I've got nothing.

One day back when my fiancé, Brian, was working at a gas station, he was sent by his co-workers to a local wing joint to get the spiciest wings he could buy for them for lunch. When he got there, he ordered the extra, extra, hot wings. While he waited for his order to be filled, a friend of his came in and ordered the nuclear wings. Those weren't on the menu. He asked his friend about them and she said, "Oh, you have to be in the know to know these wings exist." So, Brian told the person who took his order to change it to the nuclear hot wings. The person behind the counter laughed and said, "Okay. It's your funeral."

When the wings came out, they were NEON PINK.

He took the wings back to work and showed them to his co-workers. They approved and sat down to eat them. The wings were so damn hot that after the third wing Brian ate, he could no longer eat them, not because of the heat but because the sauce had burned his lips so much that he was afraid they'd blister if he continued to eat them. Only one of his co-workers was able to finish his own portion. Everyone else gave up after two or three.

This happened quite a few years before I had met Brian, and unfortunately the place he bought the nuclear wings from had closed down by then, so I'll never be able to experience the nuclear wings that he did all those years ago. I would have really liked to try those wings, the pepperhead that I am.

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This is my entry for Week 6 of therealljidol. It is a true story. And now I want hot wings.

"Bobby can't be gone. He just can't be." Darla dissolved into a puddle of tears. Her husband, Sam, did his best to comfort her. He held her close and gave her a kiss on her forehead. "We'll get through this."

Darla cried out, "I just spoke to him on the phone two hours ago!" Sam had just told her the news: there had been an accident and it involved a custom painted, silver striped '67 Chevy and a train. There was only one person in the entire town of Springfield who owned a car like that. Darla could not believe that her friend of 35 years had been struck & killed by a train.

For weeks, the people of Springfield had been telling City Hall that the railroad crossing at Bay Street between 5th and 6th Avenues needed to be fixed, lest someone ends up getting struck by a train. The Mayor tried his hardest to find the funds needed to repair it, but the town was broke. He knew that. The townspeople knew that. But there was nothing he could do.

Everybody knew Bobby Paulson. Bobby owned the corner store on 8th Avenue where everyone went to grab their morning newspaper and a cup of coffee. He was a friendly man with thinning hair who was always looking out for everyone.

Darla had met Bobby in college. She was new to the area and he offered to show her around town. They became fast friends and flirted with the idea of possibly becoming lovers, but ultimately decided that doing so would ruin the friendship they had. That didn't stop them from thinking about the might-have-beens. Finding out about Bobby's death made it feel like someone was jabbing a thousand knives into Darla's heart. Darla loved Bobby.

There was not a dry eye in the funeral parlor. Because Bobby didn't have any living family, Darla was chosen to read the eulogy:

"Dearest Bobby Paulson, You were taken away from us too soon. I will never forget the time when we walked down to the lake and looked for frogs. That one frog meant business when it leapt up on my shoulder and I freaked out and then you calmed me down. You were always good at that. I'll also never forget the time when you decided to try your hand at being a stand-up comedian. You told that story about when you were growing up and how your cousin stuffed a shovel full of sand down your pants. I thought it was funny. The rest of the crowd, however, did not..." Darla was struggling to fight back tears. She took a long, deep, breath. "When you opened up that corner store, it was the best damn thing you could have ever done for yourself and Springfield. You got to know everyone and everyone got to know you. Thinking about you being gone is so hard for me to even fathom. It's surreal. I... I found out that I was the last person to talk to you before you were taken away from us. You ended the conversation with "See you next Tuesday!" Well, it is Tuesday now and instead of us going out for lunch, I'm standing here reading this. I will miss you, Bobby Paulson. I love you."

Darla didn't know how she was able to keep her composure throughout reading the eulogy, but somehow she did. She slowly walked back to her seat next to Sam and promptly burst into tears.

Bobby had always said that when he died, he wanted to be cremated. Darla was given the urn. After the last person left, she and Sam walked home. On the way home, Darla said to Sam, "Bobby's death is no longer inconceivable, but it sure as hell still hurts." Sam took Darla's hand into his and kissed it. "We'll get through this," said Sam.

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This is my Week 5 submission for therealljidol. It is also my first time writing a fictional story.

Calcium phosphate
Organic matter
Pieces of fossilized excrement
Really old
Older than dirt
Like dinosaurs that roamed eons ago
Identifying traits:
Texture, color, compositional makeup of the stone
Eventually, all poop will turn into coprolite

~*::Meow::*~

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This is my submission for week 3 of therealljidol. I have learned a lot this week while researching coprolite.

Since I haven't been writing in my LJ lately, and I really want to but don't know what to write about anymore (my life has become very routine)...

I have decided to follow in the foot steps of the many great people on here who have participated in therealljidol (chris_walsh & popfiend come to mind) and throw my hat into the ring for this season of LJ Idol.

Want to sign up too? Click here!

I promise you, there will be a lot of writing on this LJ in the coming weeks/months because this will keep me on my toes.

~*::Meow::*~