MASHED POTATO #3: "Chain Letter Or No"

Graphics by @fireawaymarmot

Okay, so...I'm not that great at formatting posts, so I'm just going to keep this basic and direct you to other posts to get more details! But basically this is a new version of "hot potato" for the Freewrite Over 20 Club.

You can find the details about the game (as well as the original post of the first installment of the story) here at @fireawaymarmot's blog.

Over at @mariannewest's blog, you can find the second installment of the story and a handy list of everyone in the Over 20 Club here.

I'm also including both installments of the story below, followed by my own addition, so the story makes sense (hopefully!). Read on!

The first prompt and story by @fireawaymarmot:

Mashed Potato

He gazes at the letter in his hand, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. It had been left on his front porch, in a plain white envelope, and he'd actually stepped on it as he ventured out for the morning paper.

It looks like some sort of an advertisement. At the top is a strange drawing of a pin up model made of some kind of strange glop or something. Mashed potato? When you receive a bowl of mashed potatoes you must add a "potato" prompt of your own.

With a grunt of disgust he crumples the paper into a ball and tosses it into the nearby trash can. A chain letter! What kind of fool goes along with that sort of nonsense? Picking up his newspaper, he stumbles back inside, and promptly forgets about the whole thing.

It isn't until about a week later that she enters into his life…

The second prompt and story by @mariannewest:

Gravy

It was early evening when he heard a light knock on his door. First, he was going to ignore the noise at the door. That is what it sounded like to him. But the knocking grew louder.

He pushed back his chair. "Damn kids! What do they want now?"

Yesterday, at the same time - right when he wanted to eat his dinner, these neighborhood brats had tried to sell him some chocolate and a magazine subscription so they could go on a class trip. As if he cared!

Ready to let them know what he was thinking, he threw open the door.

"Get lost" was what he was going to say. But when he saw her, standing in his doorway, kissed by the last rays of the evening sun "Good Gravy!" came out of his mouth instead.

"Come again?" She said.

Her face showed that she had no idea what his exclamation meant.

He didn't know what to do. She was beautiful and mysterious at the same time and he was for once out of words.

"So, you did get my note," she said. "The mashed potato note. Why didn't you respond with gravy a week ago? Why did you make me come here?"

His eyes hang on her lips, but he had no idea what she was saying.

The prompt given to me was "Chain Letter." Here's installment #3:

Chuck was dumbstruck, quite literally. He felt like a dunce. Not the impression he'd like to be making on this beautiful woman. Then his senses started to come back to him. What did he know about her, other than she was beautiful, with hints of red in her hair, shining in the light of the setting sun, curvaceous hips (also well-silhouetted by the light), and lovely full lips that had just said, "So, you did get my note"? That jolted Chuck back into reality. The other thing he knew about her was that she had sullied his porch with a gd chain letter! Now she didn't look quite so attractive.

"You! You sent me that weird mashed potato picture! Who do you think you are!?" Chuck put his hands out to either side door frame, blocking any possibility of entry. She shrank back a bit, then seemed to gather her own indignation.

"What? You said you wanted to participate! It was going to be a fun game, a little flirt, all harmless, and then YOU didn't respond! So I thought you wanted to kick it up a notch and just meet in person finally, but now I get this? Who do you think YOU are?"

What the hell was she talking about? Finally meet in person? Chuck didn't talk to many people, in person or otherwise, and he sure never talked with any woman about any sort of potato game.

"Well, hang on," he said, relaxing his arms a bit. "Who do YOU think I am?"

She looked at him quizzically and took a small inhalation, as if preparing to answer. Good gravy indeed. Damn if she wasn't the most beautiful woman he'd ever laid eyes on, chain letter or no.

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And that's my entry! Phew, I did it. Now let me pass this mashed potato on before it all drips onto the floor. Heads up, @tristancarax, coming your way!

(And, just a little explanation, I had to include the prompts "mashed potato," "gravy," and "chain letter" in my story. @tristancarax will have one more prompt still, mwahaha.)

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Want to be part of the Over 20 Club?

Join the Freewriters by writing every day with the Daily Prompt - you find it on @mariannewest's blog at 7am Pacific Time.