I did not mean to go a week without posting, but it’s been one of those weeks…every day, I start hoping for a nice quiet day.  Maybe I should stop that and try using reverse psychology on the universe. “Today, I am hoping it will be really crazy and that I have lots of students in my office for in-school suspensions and it would be really fun if we had the sheriff, and maybe a fire truck, oh! And the ambulance, too.”

Maybe that’s not such a good idea. The universe might laugh at me and give me what I deserve.

Thank you to everyone that was so kind about my little story last week. It was interesting to read other entries, there were others that were light and sweet, and many that were really dark and sad. One of my favorites was one in which the snow falling was in a snowglobe!

This week’s prompt at Write on Edge reads:

The countdown. We’ve all done it, whether it’s disciplining our kids, gathering up nerve, blasting off into space, or getting ready to pop champagne and scream “Happy New Year!”

This week, we’d like you to write a post – fiction or creative non-fiction – which begins with a countdown. “Three, two, one.” You pick what the countdown is for. The ideas above are just suggestions. Use your imagination and have fun with it!

We are keeping the word limit to 300 to help you all not only edit yourselves, but also to support your fellow community members by making it easier to read more link-ups.

I am happy to report this week, I managed to meet the requirements, in fact, my little story clocks in at just 279 words! I’m not sure if this is the narrator is the same person as last week’s story. I think it might be.

“Three, two, one…oof.”

The tree popped through the door before I was ready, and I toppled over. Jeremy kept pushing, so pretty soon, I was suffocating underneath most of a 12 foot Douglas Fir.

“Stop, stop! Jeremy, you crazy man, stop!”

The tree stopped moving forward, and then I heard a muffled “What? What happened?” He was rustling the tree around, trying to figure out how to get inside.

“Jeremy, you were supposed to wait until I finished counting and THEN push.”

“Uh, isn’t that what I did?” He was still shaking the tree, and by this point, I had needles and branches poking me every which way.

“Gah, no. You went on one and now I’m stuck under the tree. Will you please stop moving it? Come through the back door so you can help me.”

“Oh, OK. Don’t go anywhere!” I heard his boots clomping away.

It’s not that he’s stupid, in fact, quite the opposite, but sometimes…let’s just say that his common sense is a little underdeveloped.

Jeremy took his sweet time, and I bit back a swear when I realized that he had stopped to take his boots off. His sense of urgency is a bit underdeveloped, too.

After he lifted the tree, I was able to crawl out. He helped me up, and brushed needles out of my hair and off my clothes. He looked so sheepish — when our eyes met, I couldn’t help it. I giggled.

“All right,” I said, once the laughter had stopped and I had recovered my breath, “let’s get this tree set up and decorated. You grab that end, I’ll grab this one. Ready? Three, two, one…!”