From: Keenan Wynn

Prompt #11: "Tell a stranger about a beloved family tradition."

My family has never been a family that has upheld strong traditions that weren't simply morally based ways of life. We don't take annual fishing trips, make holiday cards, or have a summer home hidden away in a Tuscan field. That's "Tuscan" like the lovely place near Florence, not "tuscan" like the tusken raiders of Tatooine. Those are spelled differently, so that joke doesn't work well through text. Plus, is Tuscany IN Florence? Near it? Are they the same thing. I should have studied up on my geography before I made that joke I guess. My Earthly Geography not my Star Wars geography. I'm spot on in that aspect. Although, is it geography if you are placing an entire planet? ... You know what? I'm off track.

The point is, my family has small traditions, all of which are both enjoyable and flexible. If they don't happen, we have Plan B: Improvise. There is one tradition, though, that began perhaps a decade ago that we have become so accustomed to, we don't really even bring it up. There are several Christmas traditions that most every Christmas-celebrating family does. We put up a tree, we bake christmas treats, and we try to attend at least one christmas event such as an ice sculpture show or a christmas movie. Of course, there are gifts, too. We do ours slightly differently, though. We shop for them like normal people, or at least our best imitation of what we approximate as normal, we wrap them in seasonal paper, and we might even place a bow on a few of them. The unique part comes in the tags on each of the gifts.

See, something about the Reedy family, is that in our blood runs a deep love for riddles. We like to solve things, but more than that, we like to be puzzled by things. Figuring things out is just... the best feeling. We may seem angry, depressed, even spiraling into certain insanity while puzzled, but in our hearts it brings us joy. So along with the usual lifting, shaking, and attempted x-ray vision on our gifts, we add an element to tease the receiver of the gift.

On the "To:" line, we usually write the recipient's name, although occasionally change it if we want to involve everyone in the confusion. Most of the time, though, the "From" line is where the riddle is. We find a character related to the gift, and say it's from them. I know what you may be thinking. "That's easy". Yes, that would be easy if we weren't so darn good at finding characters so obscure, so very tangentially related to the gift that, to be frank, it would be impressive if you even knew who the character even was. In fact, let's test this out. Everybody turn your googles off.

To: You
From: The Fifth Beatle

I'll give you a moment to think. Scroll down when ready.

See, Billy Preston is who I'd have expected you to go with, and you'd probably think that the gift would then be something related to his career, most likely the album "Let it Be" in which he is credited as an accompanist to the Beatles. But wait, this gift isn't shaped like any sort of musical album, be it CD, Vinyl, or even Microcassettes for that new Microcassette player that David Lightman got you!

No, instead I got you an exact replica of the car behind George on the album cover of Abbey Road, which honestly, is a much better gift than a single album, and definitely better than a microcassette player, so I also showed up someone else in the family in this weird fantasy of mine.

Anyway, that's how the game is played, and the only limit on gifts is your own personal budget! And maybe help from mom, who likes to slip us money! So that means I'd never buy you that car. Maybe a hot-wheels version. But then I'd be torn between saying it's from "The Fifth Beatle" or "Ocho".

Thanks for reading!
~Kyle

Ugh

Prompt #10: "Write a scene where the only spoken dialogue is 'Uh-huh,' 'Umm,' 'Urrrr,' and 'Mm-mmm.'

All I could was sit there and be amazed by his self-proclaimed talent. It was undeniably good, the way he could say nothing and convey so much. I wondered if the person on the other end of the line would ever catch on to the game he was playing.

"Uh-huh." He said it with a long hesitation in the middle preceding a quick upper inflection followed by a drastic fall. It gave the impression of a man who was trying to understand, but didn't quite catch it.

There were a few seconds that I could hear the other voice mumbling from his cell.

"Uh-huh!" This time with a cadence of agreement, followed by a withheld laugh as if he was pretending to be in the company of others who would look down on the joke that he was subtly trying to insinuate, "Mm-mmm"

I almost laughed myself, but he held a finger up to his mouth, which smirked widely as he silently twitched his neck during his own mental laughter. The phone delivered more of the caller's messages, and his face contorted to show his disagreement with what they were saying, but he kept his response as pithy as ever.

"Urrrr," Not disagreeing, but trying to make the caller come up with different options, without doing anything other than passively denying them the original.

This was followed by a quick exchange of slurred noises from the phone and him rapidly repeating 'Uh-huh' after everything they said. At the end, he gave a dismissive yet energetic 'Uh-huh!'

He was right, and I had lost the bet. I slid the five bucks across the table, and asked him if he did that very often to different people.

"Umm"

Here, hold this.

Prompt  #9: "What a character holding a blue object is thinking."

It's no big deal, it's just a quick favor. Don't be weird about it. Is there a way I can hold this and not be weird about it? Should I hold it out like this? No, that looks like I'm trying to hand it to someone. Maybe just down by my side. No, now it looks like it's mine. I look way too comfortable with it. Not that I'm not comfortable with it. I just don't want to seem too comfortable with it. I know: elbow at my side and hold it away from myself slightly. Wait no, that's even weirder, now I look like posing for something. Oh, I can just put it at my feet. I don't have to actually hold it, after all. Wait, no they'll think that's a little rude. I mean, it is a little rude, I guess. But still, how long am i meant to hold it? It's getting a little heavy. What do they even have in here? Am I allowed to look? No, probably not. That's invasive. But, then again, they did give it to me. I am it's primary caretaker. How am I supposed to take care of something I know so little about? I could probably shake it a bit and get a good guess going. Yeah, just one little shake. I'll just yank the handle and give it a listen. Huh... sounded like a bunch of metal and plastic. I'm actually pretty bad at this "shake-and-guess" game, as I recall from every christmas ever. Plus, they just looked over to see if I dropped it. Just wave and smile, everything is fine. Hurry up, though. I wont say it out loud, but I think my eyes said it because they rolled theirs at me. Why even bring this if you aren't going to hold it for the majority of the time? Oh, here they come. I'll just smirk and hold this out. Maybe I'll make a funny joke asking if this goes with my shoes. Perfect delivery. They think I'm hilarious. Here are your belongings, madame.


What an idiot.