The New Year is nearly here, be careful with those resolutions

 

This Year I R esolve...

 

 Ada had just finished writing her New Year’s resolutions and was letting Aunt Mae look over them.

Mae was amazed that it was only one page. On past years they had run to three and four pages and none of them ever were accomplished. Mae, on the other hand, never wrote any of hers down. She felt they were nobody’s business but her own. She had no such qualms with her niece. She was actually more than her niece; she was also her God-daughter and as such Mae had a moral responsibility to assist in raising her. Lord knew her parents did very little in that area. They either turned her over to the nanny or let her run loose like a heathen.

Nobody could figure out if Ada was just precocious or a bit addled in the head. She always seemed to lean towards the latter.

The first resolution was to take in all the stray cats from the neighborhood.

“Ada, you already have ten cats and two of them are pregnant. Why on earth would you want more?”

“Well Aunt Mae, they just wander around looking for food and their fur is all matted. They need a good home.”

“That may well be, but they don’t need a good home here. Besides, you don’t have room for more cats. We’ll just strike this one off.”

Ada’s shoulders slumped and her lower lip began to quiver.

Aunt Mae seeing this said, “What if we modify it to say you will help find good homes for the stray cats?”

Ada perked up at this and nodded her head vigorously. “Alright, what is this next resolution? Become a vegetarian.

A vegetarian? Ada, you don’t even like vegetables and you know what this would do to your Father and Mother, not to mention the cook. This one we definitely have to strike.”

“Alright.”

“Wait, do you even understand what resolutions are? They are something that you feel strongly about changing in your life.” “I did feel strongly about it until you reminded me I didn’t like vegetables. At that point it didn’t seem too important.” 

“Resolution number three – try to take more walks. I don’t see anything wrong with that one, it can stay.”

“Look at number four; I think you’ll like that one.”

“Learn Esperanto. Ada you already know German, French and a smattering of Latin. Why do you want to learn Esperanto?” 

“Well, Aunt Mae, Esperanto is going to be the universal language one day and if I already know it I’ll be that much ahead and be able to talk to anybody about anything because we will have a common language.”

“Well do it if you want to; I think it’s a complete waste of time.” Mae read down the list. There were a few throw away resolutions like be nicer to Mother and Father, write to cousin Edith more often, innocuous things like that. Towards the bottom of the page she saw, “Become a suffragette.”

Mae pointed to the offending line and asked, “Do you really think that women should be able to vote?”

“Don’t you?”

Mae was taken aback by the directness of the question but then stammered out, “No, of course not; we never have before.” “Times are changing Aunt Mae. Men fly through the air, we talk over vast distances with the Marconi, we have refrigeration and no longer rely on the ice man. We even have indoor plumbing.”

“I don’t see what any of those has to do with women voting.

Women need to remember their place. No man is looking for an uppity wife.”

“Or opinionated old biddies,” she said under her breath. 

“What was that?”

“I just said I suppose you are right.” 

“We’ll just scratch this one off then.” With a swipe of her pen it was gone.

“The rest of your list looks fine to me. Why don’t you go to the study and write it out fresh; it’s quite a mess now.”

“Yes, Aunt Mae,” she said with a smile.

How many times had she pasted that smile on her face for her aunt? Too many to count, but this was the last year she would have to put up with her. This year she would turn eighteen and come into a quarter of her trust fund. The day after her birthday she was leaving for Europe. She could see the scene already. Aunt Mae would have a fit because she couldn’t see an unaccompanied girl traipsing around Europe.

It was actually going to be her and her cousin Edith, but Aunt Mae didn’t need to know that. It would cost her two first class tickets and some luggage, but it would be worth it to get rid of her.

It was a simple plan – two sets of luggage, one with her

clothes and one empty... two sets of first class tickets, one set for Ireland and the other set for England. The timing was going to be the hard part unless she drugged her aunt. That would make sure her aunt was well out to sea before she could stir up any trouble. A little laudanum in her tea and then Ada could slip off of the ship and catch up with Edith and head for England. By the time her aunt woke up they would have gone their separate ways.

Ada went to study and crumpled up the list of resolutions.

She knew that suffragette one would get to her. She patted her skirt pocket that had her real list. It only had one item on it. Get free of the old biddy at any cost.

She sat down and began to write a letter to Edith and outline the plan. She smiled that secret smile, knowing that Aunt Mae thought her a half-wit.

 

2020 (Solstice almost) and a new beginning

 Hi everyone, it's been a while but I came back to the blog and it was still here like a good and faithful dog just waiting for me to come home.

I ventured out into the realm of Twitch for a couple of times in 2020 as a broadcaster and decided it wasn't for me. I applaud those who make a go of it and make it look so easy. In reality it's like the early days of live television albeit the equipment is much more sophisticated. Each Twitch streamer basically has to set up their own broadcast studio and run all the tech as well as perform, any one of those is a daunting task. I was doing some story telling with pictures behind me on green screen so I was doing a lot of scene changes and frankly, I wasn't enjoying it so I stopped.

My goal for the coming year is to post at least once a week. I've recently won a micro-flash fiction contest and have come across what looks like an really neat monthly flash fiction contest out of Australia. So maybe I'll be posting them up here.

My current book Dead People From the Attic is available in hard copy from budscott.com and in ebook format from smashwords.com.

Here is a Christmas story from the book called 

 

Ho, Ho, Ho

From left to right: Bob Knolls, Rick Webster, Me in the Santa suit, Mr. Norton and Mr. White, Buzz Hackett

This picture was taken on Christmas eve 1940. Buzz and I were going to take the truck around to our customers’ homes and I (Santa) was to give out candy canes to the children and calendars to their parents. This sounds innocent enough, but you’d be surprised how much trouble two grown men can get into.

Even though the government said that the Depression was over, they didn’t live in our neck of the woods. There were people just scraping by. Mr. Norton and Mr. White owned the oil company I worked for and thought it would be nice to give a little something back to our customers. They had also given us a list of those customers who owed us money. We had about a hundred customers and the list only had about twelve names on it. They wanted us to “just mention” the past due bills and see if we could collect a bit. So much for good will to all.

Just as we were all to go our separate ways, me and Buzz to deliver candy canes and Bob and Rick to head home to their families, Mr. Norton came around. He shook our hands and as he did said, “Merry Christmas”, he placed a twenty-dollar gold piece in each of our hands and told us it was our Christmas bonus.

All the boys were thrilled with the windfall. I may have been the least enthused; since my wife ran off I had nobody to buy gifts for but it would fund a good two day drunk. I pocketed mine like everyone else and thanked Mr. Norton and Mr. White.

Buzz was the new kid on the block, having only been with the company since August. I was supposed to be taking him around and showing him the ropes. So Santa and his helper jumped in the truck and were off.

The first few stops were pretty uneventful. I’d get out and do my Santa thing. The moms would take the calendars and usually hand us a tin of homemade goodies. We had made our circuit of most of the houses on our list, but saved the slow pays for last. Neither Buzz nor I wanted to talk about what people owed at Christmas time and I’d pretty much decided not to mention it at all.

Buzz swung the truck around the corner and headed into the less desirable end of town. You could see the yards weren’t kept up quite as well. Many of the houses needed a fresh coat of paint. Some yards had cars up on blocks in the midst of a repair. Nevertheless, Santa was there to spread good will.

At the first stop three children wearing threadbare clothes came running out followed by their mother. You could see she was happy for the children but there was some underlying burden she was carrying. I went over to hand her a calendar, determined not to say anything about her past due bill when she surprised me by bringing it up.

She looked me in the eyes and said, “Santa, I know we are a bit behind in our payment but they cut my husband’s hours back at the mill. Is there any way you could let us have just twenty gallons of oil to get us through till the New Year? My husband is supposed to go back full time next year.”

I looked at her and the kids and the house then said, “Buzz, put twenty gallons of oil in this lady’s tank.”

I could see tears welling up in her eyes and I had to turn away. You can’t let the kids see Santa cry.

Buzz said, “But Santa, I thought—“

I cut him off mid-sentence. “Ho, Ho, Ho, Santa knows what he’s doing.”

Buzz just shrugged and pulled out the hose and gave her twenty gallons. I dutifully wrote it down in the log book.

Then the kid’s mom said, “God bless you Santa.”

Well that’s kind of how it went for the last twelve stops.

Only two of them didn’t ask for more oil.

It was just getting dark when we rolled back up at the office and I could still see a light on in Mr. Norton’s office. I told Buzz to take off and I’d handle telling Mr. Norton. I’ll tell him I made you do it and I am totally responsible.

Mr. Norton’s door was open when I came in and I pulled off my Santa hat and mask. I cleared my throat and Mr. Norton looked up.

“Well how’d it go?”

I handed him the log book and he looked it over.

“That’s two-hundred gallons of my oil you have given out on credit and to the exact people I wanted you to collect from. What’s the meaning of this?”

“Well sir, some of these people have fallen on hard times. There’s been cutbacks at the mill and ... you should have seen some of them. Those women looked like they had the weight of the world on their shoulders. All they needed was a helping hand.”

“I run a business here, not a charity!”

“I know sir.”

I handed him the twenty-dollar gold piece that had briefly resided in my pocket.

“I think this should cover all the oil from today and then some. Please split whatever is left across all of the outstanding debts.”

“But, why would you do this?”

“Well I’ve got nobody to buy gifts for and I’d have just blown it anyway. It’s just me and the cat so there’s not much to celebrate. But if you could have seen the way those kids’ eyes sparkled just from getting a candy cane, and it was the same way with their moms. Twenty dollars is a cheap price for all of that.”

I could see the boss was thinking hard on what I just said and thought it might be a good time to make my exit.

“Good night Mr. Norton, and Merry Christmas.” I began to edge my way toward the door.

“Hold up there. Why don’t you come and have Christmas dinner with my wife and me? My son and his wife will be there and a couple of rambunctious grand kids. There is always plenty of food. I won’t take no for an answer.”

“What time?”

“5:00”, he said as he flipped the twenty-dollar gold piece my way.

I caught it in mid-air and looked at him inquisitively.

“I think I can absorb a twenty-dollar loss better than one of my employees. See you tomorrow.”