Daily Prompt | The Gad About Town

Enjoy Every Sandwich

Posted on September 9, 2016 by Mark Aldrich

Cemeteries are cram-packed full with people who had other plans that day. Reservations for dinner, a movie ticket in the pocket. A refrigerator with new groceries. A sink with dirty dishes.

We all know this deep down, but the occasional reminders can nonetheless surprise. “Always wear clean underwear,” a clichéd cartoon version of a mother tells a clichéd cartoon version of ourselves in a clichéd cartoon version of a conversation that never happens in real life. But the end comes in a moment, and it is always dramatic, even when it is mundane.

(I suppose it is never mundane for the person who experiences it, but I have not yet been there, and no one who has had the end moment has made a verifiable report about it. Tsk-tsk. Where are their priorities?)
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Can’t Dance. Ask Me

Posted on September 8, 2016 by Mark Aldrich

“The less expensive the formal wear, the greater the chances the word will be spelled ‘elegante’, be italicized, and be serifed out of legibility.”

* * * *
W. B. Yeats asks at the end of his poem, “Among School Children” this famous question: “How can we know the dancer from the dance?”

Well, if I’m your dancer, you can. My high school prom story:

* * * *
“Tails.” I spoke the word out loud with my indoors voice. I ordered white tails to wear at my high school prom.

For many American high school students, senior year means at least two things: Graduation and Senior Prom Night (and the morning after). With no research, I can tell you that “prom” is short for “promenade,” which is long for “prom.” For naive bookworm me, the prom, far more than graduation or even thecontinuousthinkingofthoughtsabouttheentirerestofmylife, was the source of many anxieties.

(There is an ancient cliché about how native peoples who live in the Arctic have 1000 words for snow because they know snow so intimately that they have 1000 words to describe 1000 unique realities. Replace the word “snow” with “anxiety,” and you have me. A thousand different anxieties.)
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