Weekend Freewrite ~ The Twenty Eight Minute, 5-Minute Freewrite ~ Prompt: "Plaid" ~ Original Story and Original Everything Else ~

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~ Sometimes, You Just Gotta Finish The Story ~

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Weekend Freewrite Prompt: Plaid

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“You kids are under my feet and driving me nuts. Go outside! Get some fresh air and exercise. You've plaid around in the house long enough.”

Ah, the advent of summer. Warm weather, no rain, and no school! Every season it was the same. Year after year, grade after grade, summer after summer. My Mother, glad to have us home again after a long school year, and all too soon, glad to get us out of the house for a short break from our exuberant, wearying fun.

And of course, we went for it. With gusto! After all, it was sunny, it was warm, we could wear shorts, and the school house was closed for the next three months. Paradise found, at 82° Fahrenheit. Basically, we had nothing to do for the entire summer, except a whole lot of really profound nothing. And we were darn good at it.

Riding bikes down the railroad tracks on the ties till our teeth chattered, playing hoops on the driveway at all hours, games of Hide The Flag and Ditch-'Em at dusk. Then over to build log forts and tree houses in the woods, often accompanied by large-scale crab apple wars with the kids down the block. The tough ones we didn't really know all that well, but were good at throwing things at from a distance.

And of course, my brother and I, bugging my little sister to no end. Much to my Mother's summer-long chagrin. We were pretty good at that one too. I'm not sure why big brother annoyance toward little sisters is such a large part of growing up, but it must be in the manual SOMEWHERE. An off-kilter way of showing true love I suppose, and I'm pretty sure it's planet-arily universal. At least in the polls I've taken.

We started right off, once the school bell quit ringing. Irksome things, like telling her during dinner we were going to ship her somewhere overseas in a giant cardboard box, if she didn't eat all her peas and carrots. Or sneaking noisily into her room, when she told us not to, just to make her scream and carry on. And of course, using her Barbie Doll® car for other things, besides Barbie's big date with Ken.

That one was really a hoot, and took up hours of the day. Putting my funky, rubbery, troll-like monkey guy with a hand held club in the driver's seat, then sending the oddly colored convertible careening down the driveway at full speed, where it inevitably crashed in a heap in the street, after jumping the curb at the bottom of the drive. Ah, such fine, highbrow entertainment. Over and over and over again. What is it about this creative gamesmanship of the absurd that is SO enjoyable? (Truth be told, I wasn't THAT bad of a big brother. As long as Barbie was invited to go on the doomed ride with my squat little guy, my sister got quite a kick out of this whole thing.)

Yes, summer was really something back then. And with it, all the joys we could cram into three months of warm, not-so-quiet paradise. Today? I don't have easy access to a Barbie car anymore, my crash dummy troll-guy finally split in two, and my sister lives far, far away. I can only harass her by telephone or at Christmas now. And any time I throw apples over the fence at my neighbor, he gets rather annoyed. So maybe things have changed a bit. But I still love this time of year. So much of nothing at all to do, and I'm still very very good at it!

Oh dear, I just glanced at the calendar on the wall. It's already June 23rd! Only ninety two more days until Fall is officially here. I guess I better get busy.

_ooo

~ Finto ~ _(almost)