Here's a kid friendly bit of super powerful flash fiction:
Food Chase
I refused to chase after
game-playing goof-balls who thought I had nothing better to do than to taunt
me, spit raspberries at me, and hoping I would play along. “No…I will not come after you. No matter what you do. I will not play with my food.” However, the hot dog continued to dash
through the house, passing by the kitchen to see if I was following.
Before my food took off
on me, I was setting all the condiments on the table—mustard, ketchup, relish, and
onion that I chopped myself with a sharp steak knife. I certainly felt more like a responsible
fellow and no longer in the baby stage of my life. When I shoved all the containers with
leftovers that were all green and fuzzy, I grasped the bottle of ketchup and
found it to be empty.
“Mom!” I called. “We’re out of ketchup!”
When it came to my hot
dogs, I could do without all other condiments, all with the exception of
ketchup and mustard. However, I assigned
a particular order on where everything had to go, or I refused to eat. On the top portion of my hot dogs I saved for
a line of ketchup and along the bottom a line of yellow. Once when I went to a place that put mustard
on in a zig-zag line—it promptly went into the garbage. My mom yelled at me for wasting food. Only, I was on my way to becoming a man and I
had to take a stand on what was acceptable to me. Hot dogs were one of my favorite foods, so I
had to take them seriously.
My mom was at the stove
heating up a can of baked beans. She did
take them out of the can before heating them because she’s not stupid (not as
smart as me, but close). I couldn’t
believe the hot dog blaspheme that came from her lips. “Honey, can’t you just eat it without
ketchup?”
I turned from the fridge
to face her with a shocked expression. “Mom. How can I eat a hot dog without ketchup? That’s just wrong. I’m sure that even God uses ketchup on his
hot dogs. He’ll zap us with lightning or
something.”
Smirking as if my comment
was some stupid kid idea, she responded, “God is not going to strike you dead
if you eat your hot dog without ketchup.”
“Well…maybe or maybe
not. Still, I can’t eat it without
ketchup. It’s just…eww. Can’t I just get some money and ride down to
the gas station? They’ve got
ketchup. It won’t take me long”
The gas station was three
houses away from us, so it wasn’t like I was asking to ride my bike across town. Here was where I was baffled by my mom. She always told me how mature I have become
now that I was nine, and she seemed to imply that she no longer thought of me
as some helpless kid. So, I was
disappointed when she argued that she would not let her nine-year-old son ride
by himself for such an errand. If I was
twelve, she’d reconsider. Her argument
was a car could plow into me in which I responded, “I know how to watch for
cars. I’m not a baby. You always say how mature I am and stuff. Now you’re treating like I’m two.”
“Oh, I’m not treating you
like a baby. You are more mature, but
you still have more maturing to do. It’s
a crazy world out there.”
She went on to describe another
worry that a stranger could come along, snatch me up, and then my mom would
never forgive herself for sending me to what could have been my death. She proceeded to explain the horrible
scenario of what kid abductors were capable of.
I told her that my friend Robert had been teaching me ninja moves that
his teenage brother learned in some kind of ninja class. Or perhaps it was from some realistic 3-D
game he and his buddies played that involved being ninja’s and pulling out
people’s guts and stuff. Robert’s
brother was the king of that game and he was 16 and everyone knows that
teenagers at that age were experts on everything. I couldn’t wait to be like Robert’s brother…
“Just let me bring along
some throwing stars or something to use as a weapon. I know how to deal with kidnappers. Maybe…I’ll help free some kid that they had
snatched before daring to try and take me.”
I assumed this would give my mother food for thought as she understood
her boy could defend himself and others if need be.
“Donny. Don’t be ridiculous. Things aren’t like they were when I was a
kid. We could freely go outside and not
be afraid of strangers, dogs, and cars.”
She was at the stove still stirring the beans, which I always
loved to scarf as much down as I could.
Then, I could have fun and while we were curled up on the couch watching
some movie, I would cut the juiciest farts and watch her reaction. It was priceless.
“Mom…there were cars when
you were a kid. And, they were metal and
just as likely to hit a kid on a bike.
There were most definitely dogs or did someone recently invent them?
‘Oh, look, I invented a dog.’” I spoke as if I was a scientist who created
dogs. “And…there had to have been
strangers, even the weirdo kind that take kids.” Something told me there had to have been
scary strangers threatening to take kids in the 1980’s.
Looking at me with that
expression that accused me of being a smart mouth, she relented, “Okay. Those dangers were always there, but the
difference is I’m a parent now, and it’s my job to worry about my kid’s
safety. Look, if you want ketchup so
badly, I’ll drive down and pick it up myself.”
“And leave me by
myself? I thought a gang of pirates were
in the neighborhood today,” I sarcastically said, purposely making a smart
mouth of myself.
“No, you can come along,
but we’re just getting ketchup. No
chocolate bars, no ice cream, no soda, no comic books…just ketchup.” My mom always said this before going to any
store, but she could always count on me to ignore her and plead for something
anyway. She didn’t mention chips or beef
jerky, so I would exploit this omission from her list of what I couldn’t
get. I would have had my own money, but
Robert and I spent it all on ice cream bars when his mom took us both to the gas station down the street.
Getting up off the table
in preparation to go with my mom to the gas station, I noticed my hot dog had
gone missing. I first wondered if I had
eaten it already and I asked my mom about it.
“Hey, Mom. Did I eat my hot dog
already?”
“No. I was talking to you this whole time. I would notice if you ate your hot dog. You complained that you had no ketchup for
it. That’s why we’re headed to the
store.” That’s when I saw in the corner
of my eye, my hot dot walking upright on little tiny human legs extending from
the end of the frankfurter part, but not the bun. Human arms waved out of its side protruding
from the bun. “Mom. Look.
My hot dog is alive.”
“Wha—” Her mouth hung open in disbelief.
Well, I was not going to
let that thing get away. First, I had to
remind my mom, “See, if I put ketchup on it, it wouldn’t be doing that.” I stepped over to it, but it took off running
and I chased it around our town house occupied only by my mom and me. My dad lived in a different city and I visited
him every other weekend.
“Get back here!”
That hot dog was
quick. It reminded me of the Gingerbread
Man, and when I thought of that story, I halted in my tracks. “Fine!
I’m not chasing after you. That’s
what you want in the first place.”
I went back into the
kitchen and sat stoically at the table, watching that little frankfurter doing
its crazy dances, even running up so close to me, but then sprinting away when
it thought I was coming after it. “I’m
not chasing you, you wiener!”
“How is that thing alive?”
my mom asked. When the beans were warm
enough, she removed the pan from the burner and onto a hot pad on the dinner
table.
The hot dog passed right
next to her and I thought I heard it mutter, “C’mon, lady. Come and get me.”
She just laughed at the
thing. “No. I’m not chasing after you either. Get back here so Donny can eat you.”
“No…not without ketchup.” The hot dog somehow was making raspberries at
her, but there was no visible mouth or tongue.
My mom got up from the
table and poked her head in the fridge. “I
gotta throw out all these left overs.” She
pulled out the bottle of ketchup I claimed was empty, and she pointed out a
tiny amount at the bottom of it. Shaking
it in front of my face, she questioned, “I thought you said we were totally
out.”
“Yeah,” I said because it
was so close to being out, I knew trying to get the minute amount left inside
would have involved a great deal of effort.
Not only that, it would make a bunch of fart noises and I couldn’t stand
to use ketchup out of a bottle that did that.
“I can never get that tiny bit out of there.”
My mom rolled her eyes,
but whistled to the prancing hot dog. “I’ve
got ketchup.”
My hot dog pattered over
to the table, crawled up my leg, which really tickled, and then it lay itself
down on my plate. It waved its hand at
her, “Bring it on.” Pounding the spout
end on the table, the ketchup managed to find its way onto the hot dog bun in
the spot I desired, but it wasn’t a perfect line and it did make several fart
noises.
I curled up my lip in
disgust and uttered, “How can I eat it?
It’s not in a perfect line and it made fart noises. It’s like it came out of someone’s butt.”
“Donny,” she sighed. “Well, you better decide to eat it before it
dances off again. And, you better not
throw it all out.”
Reluctantly, I accepted
the ketchup as it was and I added the mustard, relish, and freshly chopped
onion, and I did eat the little dog. I
let out a great, humongous belch, and I felt as if my stomach was coming up out
of my throat. That hot dog was attempting to run free again and I would throw
it up if I wasn’t careful. Suddenly, a
whole line of hot dogs in buns waltzed into the kitchen and there must have
been thousands of them. We could see
outside a flying saucer where they were all coming from and we heard them all
chanting, “We want Obe. We want Obe.”
I wanted to get up and
run, as did my mom, but as soon as I left my chair, they tackled me onto the
floor. They pried my mouth open with
some kind of ketchup energy ray at least it sure smelled like it, and they made
me throw up their brother hot dog alien dude.
He was all chewed up and disgusting from being in my stomach. Using a mustard ray, they reformed him into
what he was before. After that, they
returned to their tiny flying saucer and vanished from our eyes.
Lying bewildered on the
floor, crying some from what those little wieners did to me, I shouted to my
mom. “Can we just order a pizza?” My mom helped me off the floor and found the
number to Little King Tony’s Pizza. I
vowed never to eat hot dogs ever again.
Be good to yourselves!
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