Dressed in Pink: A three Part Weekend Freewrite

Today's freewrite is an illustration of how very distracted I am this week. Even though weekend freewrites are my favorite, I totally forgot that I was doing a three part weekend freewrite... so I got to what was almost the end of my first five minutes and realized that I was just ending the story there. Oops! I usually try to gear myself up for more of an 'actual' story with more... I don't know, plot or tension or suspense.

SO, anyway, this one isn't a great story in the definition of "stories" but I think it turned out all right.

*And no, I have no idea why my brain has all these grandparents in it! Maybe it's the grandparents that @serapium and I will turn out to be... because I've never been close to a grandparent before and didn't even know most of my grandparents.

I was dressed in a completely inappropriate shade of pink. My grandma had always called it “Whore’s Pink” and then she’d laugh until she started hiccuping and tears would pour down her face. The best thing, the funniest thing about my grandma was that she thought she was the funniest person alive. Maybe she was right. I have so many hilarious memories with that woman. Man, I was going to miss her.

Anyway, so here I was at her funeral, wearing this hideously bright shade of pink, surrounded by sad people who were wearing black and being incredibly somber and serious. I tried to tamp down my anxiety because I knew what I had to do. Grandma had made me promise… for YEARS that I would do this for her, this last thing. She wanted to be sure that there were no “weepy pussy ass people” at her funeral. I laughed right then, but quickly swallowed my levity when I saw the hard stares I got from others.

The more I thought about it, though, I think Grandma was right. These people obviously didn’t even appreciate the gift she’d given to all of us if they thought she’d have wanted everyone to sit around being sad and weepy just because she’d moved on.

I clutched my notebook to my stomach and tried to calm my nerves. I would do what she’d been asking since I was 12 years old. Grandma was my best friend, my favorite relative and had gotten me out of more trouble than I could name. She’d supported me through everything and given me encouragement like no one else could have done. If I was depressed, she’d tell me jokes that wouldn’t fly of anyone else had said them. When I got dumped by my first boyfriend, she’d said, “Well, too bad he’s a dick and not in a good way. You deserve better… maybe you should try Frank down the street. I saw him in tight shorts once and my oh my!” Then we’d laughed until our stomachs hurt. She had a way of making me forget my problems like no one else ever could.

I sniffled a bit. Nope. No crying for grandma. She would be pretty ticked off if she caught me crying today. Today was about celebrating. I could cry tomorrow when I realized I couldn’t pick up the phone and call her for our daily chat.

Tears sprung up in my eyes again. DAMN IT.

Before I knew it, we were drinking champagne and losing our shirts. What the heck? How had we gotten here? Did it really even matter? Nope. Poker and dirty jokes at a funeral? Grandma would almost come back from the dead for something this amazing.

I looked around the room at all of her elderly friends, our family, her younger friends. You’d never know that people like us could all be hanging out together, laughing, drinking and telling ‘inappropritae jokes’ together and you’d never have thought it would happen at a funeral!

Still, here we were. I guess I must have done a good job at her eulogy, because when it was done and the champagne flutes were passed around with bright, flashy scarves, everyone had slowly lightened up. The women tied the scarves around their necks or in their hair. People removed their serious black hats and coats and there was finally some color in the room.

I was still standing at the head of the room, champagne in hand, tears of happiness in my eyes. I thought that would be okay with grandma. Tears of laughter are different. I looked at the history in the room. Grandma’s roller derby friends were mingling with her bridge group friends from the nursing home. She’d had SUCH an incredible life.

Oh! There was Frank, her neighbor from the old house where she’d lived most of her life. Now there was a story for sure!

The Day Lillian learned to drive, she was 55 years old and had never driven a day in her life. She’d lived with her husband for so long and he’d always driven her places. After he died, her kids picked up the slack so she still never had to worry about driving herself.

One day she called me up and said, “Honey, that hot neighbor of mine has finally picked up on my hints!”

“What hints, grandma?” I was a little suspicious, because my grandma is not known for her subtlety, and she’d had her eye on her ‘sexy’ neighbor for months now since they were both widowed… she figured ‘why not?’

“Well, you know, I took him baked goods and stuff like that. The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, you know!”

“That’s it? You just took him food?”

“Well, I also invited him over for a meal or two.”

“And that’s it, grandma?” I was still confused. That didn’t sound like my grandma at all. Playing the little suzy homemaker just wasn’t her style.

“Welllll…” she said. I knew it. I knew there had to be more to the story. “Well, I might have worn my sexy apron when he was over.”

“Sexy apron?” I was really lost now. “What the hell is a sexy apron?”

It’s my black one,” She answered, sounding incredibly humored. “You know, I wore that and well, I might have forgotten to put anything else on under it…”

“GRANDMA!” I was shocked, even knowing that it was just like her. As always, I was shocked and then just laughed. What else could I do?

My focus came back to the present and I clinked my glass to get everyone’s attention. The apron story was the perfect way to end this celebration. I could feel grandma looking down on me right then, “Way to go, my girl! Add some spice to these old ladies lives!”

Prompt First Sentence: I was dressed in a completely inappropriate shade of pink.

Set timer: 5 Minutes
Write down the prompt sentence: I was dressed in a completely inappropriate shade of pink.
This is your first sentence. Continue writing the story presenting itself to you.
Continue writing without stopping
Go visit @mariannewest and look for the Second Prompt

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_{Cover Photo Source. Graphics and other photos are my own.}