I just spent a few days with one of my best friends from college. Her 8-year-old just started participating in swim meets. When they were telling me about the most recent one, I wondered if swim-parents ever get as competitive as parents in other sports and activities. I’m considering it a happy accident that we got this prompt today and I got to put my random thoughts to good use. Don’t play with hair dryers or toasters around water, especially not if they’re plugged in.
This week’s prompts were:
- Character: Swimming Instructor
- Object: Hair Dryer
- Genre/Tone: Crime
Jerry’s hands were clenched with rage around his backpack. This was the fourth time that Rick’s swim team had clobbered his in the county wide meet. He just KNEW that Rick was doping up the kids with sugar. How else could they have beaten his team? He was going to put an end to this. The next county meet would see a new winner. Jerry’s team. He walked toward the pool where Rick was swimming some laps solo.
He stood at the edge of the pool and watched. Rick had beautiful form, as always, could he destroy this perfection? He grimaced as he unzipped the backpack and clutched the handle of his secret weapon. Rick spotted Jerry at his turn and stopped his lap, and smiled. “Hey Jerr!”
“Hi, Rick.” Jerry muttered. He still held the handle, but kept the object hidden in the backpack.
“What have you got there?” Rick was still smiling.
“Tell me, once and for all. Do you dope up your swim team with sugar? Is that how they’re always beating my team?” Jerry said.
Rick was laughing.
“Kids are just like that! I mean, they’re eight-year-olds! They always act like they’re high on sugar!”
“You’re team is different! How are they so much better than mine?”
“Maybe it’s my training Methods?” Rick mused, smile frozen on his mouth but his eyes looking deeply concerned at Jerry’s increasingly hysterical face.
“You’re a stuck up jerk!” Screamed Jerry. He pulled the hair dryer out of his backpack and brandished it above his head. “You’ll never torment me again!”
He chucked it toward the pool, as it arced and fell, he heard what he knew to be Rick’s final yells of surprise.
But wait, Rick was still yelling. And moving normally, lunging up out of the pool and running toward him. Jerry found himself tackled and hogtied with the straps of the backpack. Rick called his wife to come pick him up, and sat calmly talking to him, saying that he’d help him get the help he needed.
“Jerry, that would need to be plugged in to even have a chance of electrocuting someone.” He thought to himself later, as he sat in a locked ward. He clenched his fists as he watched the other patients lining up to get their dessert. Merl was always beating him to the last strawberry jello.