Of Woods & A Woodpecker

E-mail exchanges give rise to some goofing around for me. Here’s a little joke that is perhaps doing the rounds,

Two Woodpeckers

This Mexican woodpecker and a Canadian woodpecker were in Mexico arguing about which country had the toughest trees.
The Mexican woodpecker claimed Mexico had a tree that no woodpecker could peck.

The Canadian woodpecker accepted his challenge and promptly pecked a hole in the tree with no problem.

The Mexican woodpecker was amazed.

The Canadian woodpecker then challenged the Mexican woodpecker to peck a tree in Canada that was absolutely ‘impeccable’ (a term frequently used by woodpeckers).

The Mexican woodpecker expressed confidence that he could do it and accepted the challenge.

The two of them flew to Canada where the Mexican woodpecker successfully pecked
the so-called ‘impeccable’ tree almost without breaking a sweat…

Both woodpeckers were now terribly confused.

How is it that the Canadian woodpecker was able to peck the Mexican tree, and the Mexican woodpecker was able to peck the Canadian tree, yet neither was able to peck the tree in their own country?

After much woodpecker pondering, they both came to the same conclusion:
Apparently, Tiger Woods and Shane Warne were right, when they said,
“your pecker gets harder when you’re away from home”.

This resulted in the following rhyme from yours truly:

How much wood, would a woodpecker peck
When a woodpecker pecks a tree?
As much wood as Tiger Woods would
When Tiger Woods drives off from a tee!
And the ball, as happens to many a ball,
Goes whizzing into a tree.
And knocks out a piece as big as yer fist
While Woods, of course is pissed!
So is our woodpecker pecking the tree
For he’s been struck in the head like a tee
And his pecker’s been put out of joint
So he screams at the top of his voice and says
“Yer s’posed to get to the pin ya git!
Don’t you know that that’s the point?”
“I know,” says Woods who’s in a bit of a dither
“But my iron’s not as hard as my pecker.”

Loser. Baby. Mend. Wet. Only

Five words to create a story. Sometimes just one word will do. These five words were a prompt at one of the Creative Writers’ Workshops held by our Bahrain Writers’ Circle. We had to use all five words in no particular order. What story would you create given these five words and fifteen minutes?

If you’re inclined, send your story to me and I’ll publish it here.

Note: The words are in bold letters.

Only Anita knew how she felt. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, she was happy. Her smile was the biggest, brightest thing that greeted anyone no matter what, no matter when. In the rain, when it’s pouring buckets of the stuff, you’re so wet even your high spirits are damp. On days you felt that nothing could possibly bring a smile to your face, there she was: Anita, with her big, cheerful smile.

Everyone thought she was such a happy person. Why shouldn’t she be? She’d just had that lovely baby and he was all of six months old. He had a thick mop of hair that curled and flopped around his face. He was a happy baby with a gurgling laugh and he rarely cried.

All that was for the world to see.

Only Anita knew the pain and betrayal, the lies and the secrets behind the baby’s birth. In the darkest, quietest moments of the day, she knew the truth. A truth she pushed down into the deepest recesses of her mind. “How could I have done that with such a loser?” She thought. Her eyes clouded over with tears at the memory, her stomach churning with disgust. “How can I ever mend the damage I have done to my marriage? This will have to be my secret, one that I must take to my grave. Poor Jay, he must never know. It will kill him. It’s killing me. Every day I look at this beautiful child, I pray that he’ll look more like me as the years go by.”