For the Win

The line was long. She looked at her phone again. Fifteen minutes had passed. The couple at the front of the line was chatting up the cashier. She rolled her eyes, hoping someone noticed. Work had been a mess, and now she was late for dinner with the one person she wanted to see.

Tina angrily removed enough items from her cart to qualify for the express lane. She was not about to miss the most important night of her life because some bozo insisted on buying forty tins of cat food with loose change covered in hair. No, tonight was Tina’s time to shine.

The talent show audience will be just as impressed by me juggling 10 pieces of fruit, and they won’t know it was originally going to be 20!

I open the curtains with confidence, excited to impress the crowd, when I realize that there’s 10 watermelons waiting for me.

Alas! As part of my coronation, I would be expected to inspect all 10 watermelons and choose the seed for the next year’s harvest. The crowd begins a slow, melodious chant, “MELON TIME!” Suddenly I feel overwhelmed with the urge to dance.

Usually not one for spectacle, I overcame my inclination to shrink from their cheers, grabbed the prize watermelon, and began to slow dance with him on stage. In a glorious wink of fate, the band started playing my favorite song: the 1986 classic, Clown Factory. I had indeed won.