When Life Gives You Ideas

Fast week last week. Kansas City, St Louis then Myrtle Beach. Don't let anyone tell you that flying all the time is fun! Here's my latest adventure. Recently I purchased a "Body Bugg". (www.bodybugg.com) to try and give me some motivation to lose a bit of weight. The Body Bugg is a calculator of sorts. It monitors, via a black armband you wear on your upper arm, the amount of calories you burn in a day. At night you log on to your Ipad, (thanks guys!) and put in everything that goes into your mouth. The thing then gets plugged into your computer and syncs to calculate how many calories you ate and how many you burned!

When it quits screaming, you've done okay. Well, I got on a plane to Chicago from St Louis. I'd been working all day and was feeling full of energy. For those that know me, that's not always good. I get to my row on the plane and there' a distinguished looking man, a bit older than I am sitting in the tiny seat next to me. He lets me into my seat. I take off my jacket and my Body Bugg shows. I see him looking at it, but at first he says nothing. Curiosity finally wins him over and he says, "What's that thing on your arm?"

I say, "A jail monitor."

"What did you do?"

"Murder." I say matter-of-factly.

He gets quiet and turns away. A few minutes later he looks at me and says,
"You look like a nice enough person. It must of been a long time ago."

I read the hope in his eyes, but I can't resist.

"Yeah, it was. 'Bout two weeks now."

His eyes widen. "Why are you on this plane then?"

"Going to meet my parole officer in Chicago. She thinks I'm a flight risk."

He cranks his head sideways and gives me a good long look.

"But you're on a plane, doesn't that mean you are a flight risk?"

"Naw," I say. "The police put me on this plane. Actually I was more of a driving risk. Got out of Colorado ten days ago in a golf cart. Made it clean to the Oklahoma border before someone stopped me."

"Why did they stop you?"

"I still had someone's clubs on the back end and there wasn't a golf course for two hundred miles."

By now, I'm barely able to contain myself, but the business man is so intrigued I just have to play it out.

"Yeah, even stopping for gas didn't raise anyone's suspicion," I said. "I told them I lived just down the road and had forgotten my purse. Everyone helped me out."

"How did it end?"

"How do these always end, Mr.?"I said straigh faced. "Speed trap."

He stares at me for the longest time wondering if he heard right, then bursts right out laughing.

The trip the rest of the way was hysterical and gave me a great scene for a book! When he got off the plane, he walked right up to my work partner, Anna, and gave my "parole officer" a big hug! Here's to a great flight , Bob!

And THAT's how scenes can be made!

Here's a contest from Tom Howard! Enjoy!



The $5,550 Tom Howard Poetry Contest for Verse In All Styles and Genres, plus The $5,550 Tom Howard Short Story, Essay & Prose Contest are now open for entries.
You'll find full details at respectively http://poetrycontests.exactpages.com (you will need to scroll halfway down the page for the Tom Howard Contest) and http://shortstorycontest.0catch.com

An exclusive site for the Tom Howard Poetry Contest is http://tomhowardpoetry.bravepages.com

An alternative site for both contests: http://www.winningwriters.com (you will need to click the contest of your choice at the top right or top left).