How many times have you walked away from a conversation, or scene, and later thought – ooh, I wish I’d said that. I love writing fiction because your characters always have the best of comebacks and the quickest of wits. You can edit and tweak each scene until it's perfectly executed. Your character's thoughts are often profound and always well organized. For someone like me, that kind of writing doesn't flow off my keyboard. It’s hard to write great dialog – very hard.
Perfectly executed scenes rarely happen in real life.
How many times have you walked away from a conversation, or scene, and later thought – ooh, I wish I’d said that. I love writing fiction because your characters always have the best of comebacks and the quickest of wits. You can edit and tweak each scene until it's perfectly executed. Your character's thoughts are often profound and always well organized. For someone like me, that kind of writing doesn't flow off my keyboard. It’s hard to write great dialog – very hard.
Perfectly executed scenes rarely happen in real life.
A couple of weeks ago, I had an experience where I walked away and smiled because – I nailed it! The scene couldn’t have played better had I written it from imagination.
Warning: The following scene is neither deep nor profound. Come to think of it, it may not be as funny in the retelling. Hey, I’m a housewife and mom. I don’t get out much.
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The boys and I had just finished our grocery shopping and were standing in the checkout lane. We shop at H-E-B where the clerks hand out “H-E-Buddy Bucks,” which are bills that kids can feed into a claw machine to win point stickers. When enough points are collected, they can be redeemed for various kid-friendly store items.
So, the boys ask, “May we have some Buddy Bucks?”
“Do you have a couple of Buddy Bucks,” I asked the clerk.
“Yes,” he said, then turning to the boys, “but you’ll have to do the Buddy Buck dance if you want ‘em.”
The boys turned their confused faces to me for explanation, “Oh, yeah, guys. There’s a camera pointing at you right now, and if you do the dance you’ll be on a T.V. screen.” I smiled at the clerk.
After a little back and forth the boys were sufficiently convinced and agreed to perform whatever dance was required to obtain those Buddy Bucks.
After a moment of silence, I turned to the clerk and said, “Okay, now show them how it’s done.”
He was speechless. As he forked over the Bucks, he told me nobody’s ever turned it around on him like that before.
Here’s the profound part: in that moment I realized my true gift – my purpose in life – to confound America’s working class, one store-clerk at a time.