PREPARATIONS

30 September 2013

Submit a story by next Tuesday evening, September 30th.  In case you aren’t familiar with the guidelines, they are:

1) Use the two photos or one photo and five mandatory words, whatever is given, in your story.

2) Keep your word count 500 or less.

3) You have until next Tuesday night to link up your story.

4) Have fun, don’t stress, and let those creative juices flow!

5) Check back next Wednesday to read the new stories — if they touch you in any way, please feel free to reblog them.

Bog hosts: Leanne, Debb, Heather, Tena's

The prompt this week is a two-photo prompt idea…

 HERE IS MY SHORT STORY:

PREPARATIONS

Rusty, Dusty, Buster, Lily, Poppy and Fleur watched her through the glass door, beseeching eyes pleading with her to let them through.   She felt guilty shutting them in one room but she didn’t have time for any distractions today, there was so much to get through.

Her visitors would arrive early tomorrow morning and she had to get the bedrooms looking spic and span, dusting to do, carpets to vacuum and then there was the guest bathroom to shine and sparkle. 

Helen took a deep breath, paused and looked out of the living room window to her garden that was another job she was going to tackle this afternoon, the dogs had made rather a mess of the lawn. She’d have to go out there with the pooper-scooper and then hose down the patio area in case they had strayed there as well to do their business. 

She loved her dogs to bits but they were hard work sometimes and Jerry, her husband, didn't make life any easier for her by inviting his parents down at short notice and of course they jumped at the chance to come and make sure she was being the ‘proper’ wife he deserved. 

He was such a different man when he was with his parents and reverted back to a more traditional, or as Helen thought of it, a chauvinist way of treating her, the little woman at home, barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, greeting him at the door with his pipe and slippers. He knew darn well that wasn’t her role in life.  

Coming back to the present Helen realised that the time was getting on, one more apologetic look at the dogs she rushed upstairs and completed the chores in record time. 

The barking and tail wagging that greeted her as she returned downstairs was enough to melt her heart but she stayed firm because now the garden was to be tackled next.  She couldn’t do it in her slippers so she would find those ‘welly clogs’ she bought at the Garden Centre a few weeks ago. 

They had really taken her eye, purple sparkly bits and really comfortable to wear.  They would keep her feet dry and she would change back to her slippers as she entered the back door instead of traipsing in muddy splatters from outside.   

Hang on, there was only the right boot, where on earth was the other one?  Helen looked at her adorable dogs, suspicion began to dawn as they stared back at her, not pleading or beseeching eyes now but rather a shuffling, shameful look that came over them all. 

Helen glared back at them; you are little tinkers you know, wagging her finger at them and trying to frown.  She had never really got that reprimand tone in her voice even though she had taken them all to obedience class.  

Perhaps it will rain tomorrow and her in-laws wouldn’t be able to go out in the garden - she could only hope. 

Word count: 500