Assignment #1 - Story Exchange

EDIT: This is now an EVEN MORE substantially edited version. Parts of the introduction have been put back in, and several other suggestions from my instructor for tightening up the narrative as a whole have been incorporated as well. Feedback is still my heroin!

Some of you who have been reading for a long-ish while will recognize this post. It is, in fact, a substantially re-written version of this post, written just over a year ago. This week's writing assignment was taken from Stuart MacLean's Vinyl Cafe Story Exchange:

"I want you to write to me about a moment that you have experienced or witnessed or heard about that you think is worth writing about. It might be a moment of kindness or a moment of cruelty. It might be a moment of sadness or frivolity. It might be a moment you are proud of. Or it might be a moment you are ashamed of. It might not even be about you. It might be about someone you know or maybe its about someone you don’t know at all … maybe it’s something you have seen that made you smile, or cry. Happy or sad.

There are just two criteria for these stories I want you to write. Your story must short and it must be true."

The instant I read the assignment, I wanted to submit this piece, and although I attempted several other stories, this is the one I ended up going with.

Much of the revision was due to length requirements (500 words!!). I would love to hear your thoughts on the differences between the two drafts, and which you think is better.

Lost and Found

At one o’clock yesterday afternoon, I began to panic.

I couldn’t find my phone anywhere. My lifeline, my link to the world outside suburbia, had been taken from me. A cursory inspection of my bedroom yielded only my MP3 player, a car charger for same, a similar accessory for my stepbrother’s iPod, two passports, a guitar, the kitchen sink – and a startling number of dirty socks.

Now, I need to tell you a secret.

I hate laundry. I abhor and detest laundry so much that I have actually gone out and bought new socks and underwear rather than do a load of whites. Several times. So many times, in fact, that the socks have taken over my room, have formed a collective, and, I was certain, were holding my cellular phone hostage. Despite an intensive search through my things, I couldn’t find it anywhere. Calling from the landline yielded no results either – the socks had clearly drained the battery as an intimidation tactic.

Now I was faced with a difficult choice: should I negotiate with these terrorists? Should I succumb to their ransom demands of hot water and bleach?

No. I couldn’t possibly. And then it struck me – perhaps my phone had not accompanied me home last night at all. I looked consideringly at the looming mound of socks, and did the only natural thing to do in the face of such a dilemma: I left, and began to retrace my steps from the night before, in an attempt to recover my phone without resorting to such base measures as sorting and pre-soaking, washing and drying, folding and putting away.

I started my search at the restaurant where I had covered the evening shift the night before. However, it wasn’t there, so I began the long and arduous process of duplicating the evening’s journey. From the restaurant I trekked the few short blocks to my brother’s house, where I had visited briefly that evening. Alas – it wasn’t there, either. I then trudged across town to my sister’s place, hoping that she had inadvertently taken it after visiting me at work ( and wishing the entire way there that I had her phone number recorded somewhere other than my phone’s contact list). Not there either. It was beginning to look as though the socks would have their way after all. One last chance - I had also briefly stopped in at a pub on my way home to catch the period of the late hockey game, and it is there I went again, still clinging to the faint hope that I might yet save myself from the rigours of the wash cycle. My hopes soared – the manager had received a phone that very morning. Then my spirits fell once more - it was most definitely not mine. It began to look as though I would have to battle the Seventh Sock Cavalry after all.

So I did what any normal person would do in that situation: I procrastinated, and headed down to a friend’s place for our weekly movie night, obstinately shoving the whole issue to the back of my mind in order to concentrate on having a good time. Unfortunately, that particular tactic worked better in theory than in practice; images of grey and grimy socks shadowed my every thought. By the time the first movie was over, I simply had to get to my house and have one last look around as it was now definitely too late to do put in a load of wash.

I began resolutely looking through my things as quietly as possible and with ever-increasing levels of despair. Finally, defeated, I made ready for bed, resolving as I did so that on the morrow, I would do at least two loads of laundry.

But then, just as I was turning down my comforter for the night, what should fall out of my duvet cover but… my phone! My battle tactics (or lack thereof) had thwarted the socks yet again. Victorious, I plugged it into its charger and went to bed, panic attack finally over, smugly exultant in once more prevailing against the Deadly Scourge of Socks.

Speaking of which, I think I need to go buy some more… I’m out of clean ones.