The other day, my great-Uncle John came into the store and described a writing exercise where the first and last sentences are given, and the writer has to fill in the rest. Well, tonight I had no idea what to do for a blog and my sister suggested this! These are her sentences:
First: "I walked into the kitchen and found the dishwasher foaming around the edges."
Last: "I never saw that movie again."
Suffice it to say, she's not taking it easy on me! Haha! So I haven't posted a fiction blog in a while and I might be rusty, but bear with me!
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I walked into the kitchen and found the dishwasher foaming around the edges. Panicked, I gave an un-ladylike squeal and lunged for the roll of paper towels I had sitting on the counter, throwing the remote control I was holding down next to the sink. My cat Mose, perched next to the paper towels, eyed me with barely-concealed annoyance.
"What do I do??" I demanded of no one in particular, as I was alone in the house, save for Mose. I started seizing fist-fulls of the paper towels and jammed them into the crack between the dishwasher and cabinets. I had more pressing problems to worry about, but a somewhat detached portion of my brain puzzled why the foam was a sickly green color.
I started jamming my fingers at buttons at random, until the machine gave an unhealthy lurching noise and croaked to a halt. I sank to the floor in relief, the dirty hems of my jeans soaking up some of the dishwasher juice that had leaked onto the kitchen tile. Panic subsiding, my heartbeat slowed and I felt a little embarrassed by my hysteria and was glad that only Mose had witnessed my frenzy.
"Sorry," I muttered to the handsome, orange feline.
In response he stood, stretched his back and made his way over to the sink. He took one look at the TV remote and batted it to the floor with a single swipe of his paw. It hit the tile hard, and batteries rolled in every direction.
"Ass!" I hissed, annoyed, and lunged to collect the batteries before they rolled into the new lake on my kitchen floor. Unconcerned, Mose hopped off the counter with an impressive thud and headed to the litter box for some alone time.
Shaking my head furiously, I rose off the floor and grabbed my dingy mop, cleaning up the mess. Sweeping from one side to the other, I found myself wondering, Why did I even come in here in the first place?
Then I remembered: the movie! Of course! My sister had lent me a movie over the weekend and was now on her way to my house to collect it. But where was it? I couldn't find it anywhere. As if on cue, my doorbell rang.
Having finished his "business", Mose came running from the litter box, over to the door, and I had to grab the back of the couch to steady myself after tripping over him. Feeling rather peeved at him, I wrenched my door open and used my foot to nudge him aside.
"Hi, hi," I greeted my sister, and stood aside for her to enter.
"Hey," she replied, grinning, brushing her hair behind her ear. "Hey, Mose." She came into the house and set her keys on the table next to the front door.
"He's on my shit list," I announced savagely.
My sister gave a look of mock outrage and bent to rub his ears. "How could you be mad at him? Look at this face!" She scooped him up in her arms and held him up. He gave a rather smug look and I rolled my eyes.
"Sorry, I know you came for the movie!" I told her. "But I really don't know what happened to it! I've been looking all over."
My sister sat Mose down on the table and shrugged good-naturedly. "I'll help you look!" She shrugged out of her jacket and draped it over the back of the couch. "So where were you--" here she was interrupted by a loud clatter. We both looked over to see Mose had batted her keys right off the table. She and I looked at each other, sharing a look that simply said, cats.
Somehow, though, it reminded me of my dishwasher. As my sister and I looked through my DVD collection, I told her about the mishap. "So you have no idea what caused it?" she asked, moving a pile of DVD cases.
"No idea--" I started to say, but then stopped. I watched as Mose hopped up on the couch and used his paw to bat my sister's jacket off. My stomach twisted. "Oh, god." I muttered.
"What, what?" my sister asked as I jogged over to my kitchen. She stood and followed me.
The kitchen was as I had left it, soggy paper towels littering the floor, stained with the odd green color. I took a deep breath and pulled the door of the washer open. I yanked the top row out, and low and behold, there was a melted, mangled DVD box, dripping green-stained water all over my dishes. Most of the DVD box was that green color, and the soapy water and washed it everywhere.
My sister let out a little gasp, and then started to giggle. It all came back to me- doing dishes that morning, leaving the DVD on the counter while I ran to the store for soap. Leaving it on Mose's counter. The little shit must have batted it right in, and I hadn't noticed.
I took the DVD out, handed it to my sister, and sighed.
It took a good hour cleaning out my now-green dishwasher, and I had a long conversation with Mose, and invested in a water squirt bottle. From then on any time he batted something off a counter or a couch, he got squirted. I had to buy my sister another copy of the DVD, and even though it was a good movie, every time I thought of it, I thought of Mose and the dishwasher.
I never saw that movie again.
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Haha, that was pretty fun! Might have to get back into fiction a little more, though I admit some of the characters in my story were based on real people and real cats. Thanks Emmy!
Sarah
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