Time to Play!

31 days of stories with Inktober

For the month of October, I’m participating in a challenge with Inktober, which supplies a one-word prompt for each day. The traditional way to participate in Inktober is to make an ink drawing for each prompt. I’m using my ink to write stories instead— very short stories, short enough to fit in an Instagram caption. I’ll be sharing them on Instagram on my writing account: @elizabetharwellwrites

I think that play is an important part of growth, so this is me playing as a writer and hoping to grow while I’m at it. I hope you have places to “play” at your work too.

I will share a few of my favorites here, but if you want to read all of them you’ll need to head over to Instagram! Maybe you’ll want to play along too?

Here’s the first one for October 1st:

#Backpack

Rather uncharacteristically, I waited until the last minute to purchase my children’s school supplies this year. I was able to find basic items like #backpacks and glue sticks at Target, but Target was out of the more color-specific supplies I needed, like a “yellow plastic folder with brass brads and a pocket on one side.” My procrastination took me on a scavenger hunt for these items, and this scavenger hunt landed me in Staples one afternoon with my three children. 

After finding the last few items on our list, my children and I took our folders and divider sleeves up to the cashier. The cashier was standing behind one of those double checkout counters with back-to-back registers, but she was the only worker present and the other register behind her was unmanned. As she started our transaction, a lady came up to the unmanned register and began to empty her arms of items.

“Are you next?” Our cashier turned around and asked, as a way of calling the lady over to our side of the register.

“Excuse me?!” The lady spewed. She slammed her reams of paper down onto the counter. She started breathing heavy. She knit her brows. She looked as if she had been given stage directions by George Costanza. I knew this woman wanted a fight but I was having trouble processing what she was so angry about. Did we get in in front of her somehow? Was she mad that she had to walk around to the other side of the counter? Were my children and I in danger in this suburban shopping center in one of the safest cities in Georgia? 

“Are you next?” Our cashier offered again, this time a little more timidly.

“Oh, Oh….” The angry lady’s eyebrows relaxed and she started to laugh. “Oh, I thought you said, ‘Are you NUTS?’” We all laughed nervously with her. Turns out, she already answered the question which no one was asking her. Turns out, it was the real question we should have been asking in the first place. Turns out, the nuttiest people will ask it of themselves, if no one else bothers to inquire.