Wednesday, February 26, 2014

#WCW: "The Groundhog stared at the radio."



The groundhog stared at the radio. My dad, tired of all the broccoli plants in his garden turning up nibbled to the brown dirt was trying a new tactic in the war on rodents. He decided that if the groundhogs were afraid of people, they might just buy that there was a person out there if a radio was left blaring in the garden.

Now, never mind that the garden was 10 yards from my window. And never mind that the station he had chosen to set it on was my most unfavorite station. Those broccoli plants were going to feed us through the long, cruel winter come next November.

So, here I was at 1 AM, leaning out my window, devoutly wishing that it had not been a long time since Robert Plant had rocked and rolled. I was watching the vanguard of the groundhogs make his investigation. Right now, he was staring at the radio and sniffing the air.

I somehow had the feeling that this was not going to work.

Suddenly, two more groundhogs popped up from the long grass at the edge of the "prairie reclamation project" Dad has started in the field near the garden. They sat up on their hind legs and whistled to each other. I had no idea that groundhogs whistled. But they do.

Three little bitty creatures emerged from the weeds next. With no caution at all, they darted to the other end of the garden to eat all my dad's newly planted little bok choy seedlings. I guess they decided that Mr. Plant could keep the broccoli if he wanted to scream about it.

I thought about throwing rocks at them to chase them away, but they were so cute.

Besides, I never liked bok choy anyway.

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It's Wildcard Wednesday over at "Will Write for Tomato Pie" and I am flexing my fiction muscles. The writing prompt is "The groundhog stared at the radio."

Now, to be fair, this is more like creative non-fiction. Dad really did keep a radio in the garden to drive off the animals. It worked for deer, but groundhogs are a little more wily. But the garden was on the other side of the house from my room and the radio never kept me awake. It is true though that I am not a Led Zeppelin fan.

Head on over to Erin's place to see more examples of crazy 10 minute fiction.

3 comments:

  1. Ha! I thought the groundhogs were going to start dancing! :)

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  2. This was AWESOME! I especially liked the play on words: Broccoli? Plant on the radio? Pure genius. Thanks for playing!

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    1. Thanks, Erin! This is such a blast. I loved your workshop at the CWCO, too. Thank you for the ideas. Hopefully I;ll be more focused in April and can get to WCW next month. I kinda missed March... -_-

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