"IT HAS A WAY WITH WOMEN"

It's Janet Reid's Upping the Ante writing contest!

You guyz have gotten entirely too good at these writing contests. Time to move up a division. (Sorry Carolynn, not doing essays!) Read the rules carefully this time: there are changes!

1. Write a story using 100 words or fewer.

2. Start with this phrase:  "And then she saw"

3. End with the phrase: "stunned her."

4. Use these three prompt words: cat   hat   splat

5. You must use the whole word, but that whole word can be part of a larger word. The letters for the prompt must appear in consecutive order. They cannot be backwards.

Thus: cat/catering is fine but hat/heat is not.

6. Post the entry in the comment column of THIS blog post.

7. One entry per person. If you need a mulligan (a do-over) erase your entry and post again. It helps to work out your entry first, then post.

9. Titles count as part of the word count (you don't need a title)

 13. You agree that your contest entry can remain posted on the blog for the life of the blog. In other words, you can't later ask me to delete the entry and any comments about the entry at a later date.

14. The stories must be self-contained. That is: do not include links or footnotes to explain any part of the story. Those extras will not be considered part of the story.

            Contest opens: 9am Saturday 4/30/16 ~~ Contest closes: 9am Sunday 5/1/16

My Entry:

The original 1951 Buick ad

 “And then she saw Catherine Higgins, Mrs. Platt said, after she hit her with her vehicle,” said the officer. 

“Ms. Higgins said nothing’s broken, it was an accident and she won’t press charges,” said the Chief. “Thank God that sweet old lady was driving slow and doesn’t know Arthur is seeing Ms. Higgins.”

Later, Arthur told his wife, “That Buick is simply too big. You can’t see over the steering wheel.”

“I can see just fine.”

“You need a smaller car.”

“Arthur?”

“Yes, Dear?”

 “Stop seeing Catherine or next time I’ll gun that Buick. This time I only stunned her.”

.....

The contest is now closed, so of course now I think of a slightly better version of the story. I couldn't think of it when I still had time to do a mulligan (#7 in the rules).  siiiiigh Of course not.  This story is actually a miniature version of a longer one I've been working on for a while. Reducing that story into 100 words was quite a feat. Regardless, I'm certain my story above won't win and the one below wouldn't have, either. Btw, I purposely did not italicize any words, as I did in the version below, because I thought (mistakenly) that Janet Reid doesn't care for italicized words. But I digress. Here's what I consider to be the better 100-word version:

“And then she saw Catherine Higgins after she hit her with her vehicle, Mrs. Platt said, but not before,” said the officer. 

“Ms. Higgins said nothing’s broken, it was an accident and she won’t press charges on that sweet old lady,” said the Chief. “Thank God that sweet old lady was driving slow.”

Later, Arthur told his wife, “That Buick is simply too big. You can’t see over the steering wheel.”

“I can see just fine.”

“You need a smaller car.”

“Arthur?”

“Yes, Dear?”

“Stop seeing Catherine or next time I’ll gun that Buick. This time I only stunned her.”

The results are in:  I didn't win, but I made the finalist list! JR remarked: I'm a sucker for an old lady driving a Buick story, most likely cause Granddad was a Buick man. And I do like the little twist that no one expects a little old lady to be lethally aware of her man doing her wrong.


UPDATE! UPDATE!! 6/7/2016: If I want to collect and publish a selection of blog contest entries, like this one from Kitty,
.....