As we wrap up November, I want you to know how proud I am of you: for coming to check out the prompts, for writing (or attempting) a story, for using your creativity, and for sharing. This community is only as strong as each member. Thanks for being a part of this adventure. Now, go check out the prompt and write (before I get even more sentimental)!
If you haven't read the full version of the rules, go here. Otherwise, here's the short version:
Rules:
1. Start with the given first sentence.
2. Up to 500 words
3. Keep it clean (nothing rated R or above)
4. Optional Special Challenge
5. Stories submitted must be your own work, using characters and worlds that you have created. Sorry, no fanfiction.
6. Include: Twitter/email, word count, Special Challenge accepted
7. The challenge is open for 24 hours on Tuesday EST
Oh, and feel free to change pronouns, punctuation, tense, and anything in brackets to fit the story/pov/tone. I'm not going to be TOO picky... Our judge however...
Our Judge today is Tamara Shoemaker. Read her winning tale from last week here! Tamara Shoemaker was penning harrowing suspense tales from little on up, and the older she grew, the more harrowing they became. While this genre still holds her interest, her most recent love is young adult fantasy. Three of her suspense books are for sale on Amazon. Her newest suspense, Soul Survivor, will be available in January 2015. The first book of her latest young adult fantasy trilogy, Mark of Four, will hit the market in February. Bonus points if you follow her on Twitter (@TamaraShoemaker) and/or go like her Facebook page (www.facebook.com/tshoebooks).
Your first sentence for FINISH THAT THOUGHT #2-21 is:
Your SPECIAL CHALLENGE from the judge is:
Include at least FIVE of the following:
Locker Room
Locker Room
Homeroom
Cheerleader(s)
Kiss
Bell
A
teacher named Mr. Spitzel
Fangirl(s)
Cafeteria
Homework
Gossip
AAAAAAAND WE'RE OFF!!!
“All may be fair in love and war, but Kayleigh just stepped way over the line.” I sipped my water and stared straight ahead, trying to let the slightly slurred words of the man who’d sat down next to me flow past me without reacting. I wasn’t confident they would.
ReplyDelete“I certainly wouldn’t want someone like that mad at me, that’s for sure.” Ugh. He wasn’t going to stop. It had been a long day, and all I wanted was some quiet. Nobody else in the bar was talking – couldn’t he tell I wanted to be left alone, especially right now?
“What do you think he did to her? I’ll bet it was something pretty bad to lead to all this.”
I took another sip of my water and sighed. “Look, if you have something to say, just come out and say it. This small talk is driving me crazy.”
“I wasn’t – I just.”
“I know what you just. You disapprove of my methods. You always have.”
“Not always. But … did you have to kill everyone in the place?”
“I didn’t kill everyone.” I drained the water and let the silence stretch on. He got my point.
“You couldn’t kill me if you wanted to. You love me too much.”
“I loved him. You, I tolerate. And you’re immortal.”
“There is that. Fine. I’ll rephrase. Did you have to kill all the humans in the place, Kayleigh?”
“Have to? No. Just the three we came for, if you want to be technical.” I’d actually killed them last, ostensibly just to make them watch. The truth was that it was a lot more fun to fight them when the rest were strewn around the room. It added a certain atmosphere to the fight when you had to avoid tripping over a severed arm or two.
“You’re getting worse, you know that?”
“Me? You’re the one downing bourbon like it’s ambrosia. Some days you can’t even get out of bed.”
“I’m not talking about that.” He looked at the amber liquid in his glass and sighed. “And this stuff’s frankly awful. I don’t know why I keep drinking it. I’m talking about you. I know why you killed David. And Alex. And those three in the corner – I can’t remember their names, but I remember what they did to you. Kayleigh, is there an end game to this?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. There’s not really anything they can do about it, you know.”
“No, but you’re like a kid burning ants with a magnifying glass. You killed the one that bit you, and the others around him, but at what point does it stop being fun? The ants can’t kill that kid, nor will they learn anything from the slaughter.”
I know he was hoping to make some headway, but the truth was, I didn’t care anymore. The killing was who I was, so I did it. What else was there?
490 words
@drmagoo
Over the line and into my heart, by Mark Driskill
ReplyDeletew.c. 500 without title
Challenge accepted
“All may be fair in love and war, but Mr. Spitzel just stepped way over the line.” thundered Miss Isabelle Rangin, in front of the entire 8th grade Homeroom. Candy Cain, one of the cheerleaders, who saw the whole thing, later said she had never seen Miss Isabelle Rangin with straight hair before. What was usually a neatly kept bundle of tightly bound curls, almost as tight as the lines forming a vortex around her perpetually puckered lips, was now something more akin to a teen spike hairdo. You could feel the hostility crackling and popping across the tips of her newly acquired porcupine hair, with that old hairnet now shredded across the top.
Those 8th graders didn’t know whether to laugh or hide in lockers waiting for the nuclear blast to come. Miss Isabell Rangin had taught at the Fanfare Girls School of Refinement and Cultural Enrichment (G.R.A.C.E.) for the past thirty six years and, in her own words, has done, “Just fine and dandy without a piddly little man to complicate my life!” She has earned more awards, and been written about in the “Fanfare Gossip” more times than any other instructor, except for Miss Minnie Ills, the Science teacher, for reasons we don’t discuss, in Fanfare, Georgia. Miss Isabelle Rangin, who always insists on being addressed by her full name, is revered and feared by everyone. She has lived single and urged her “Fangirls”, as she calls them, to do the same, for her entire career. And the men of Fanfare have reciprocated her lack of romantic interest. Enter, Mr. Spitzel. The newly hired history teacher and the first male at this fine institution. For some reason, known only to celestial beings, Mr. Spitzel, being the exact antithesis of Miss Rangin, fell madly in love with her. But as you might imagine she had no interest in this “Short, round, undisciplined goofball from hell.” And she took great pleasure in telling him so.
Then, on this Monday morning, Miss Rangin walked into her classroom, as she had thousands of times before. Upon entering the classroom she looked down at her beautiful, imported, 250 year old Mahogany desk, on which she had never allowed even a pencil mark, and saw to her horror, carved with a pocket knife, a great big heart, with “I Love You, Horace Spitzel”! For a few cutting seconds she stood there, with hair that hadn’t been unraveled in decades, now standing straight up like razor sharp swords. “….Mr. Spitzel has stepped way over the line! He...stepped…over…the…line…for…me!” Then slowly something happened that no student had seen ever in the history of G.R.A.C.E. academy. Her eyes softened and filled like cups of warm joy, her hair fell softly on her shoulders, and her stony frown crumbled and a hand went up to suppress a torrent of sobs. Then running down the hall she literally danced, yes Miss Isabelle Rangin literally danced in the school Cafeteria on top of tables and on top of the world.
Blinding Switzerland
ReplyDeleteA.J. Walker
Kayleigh was the high school queen in waiting, she was pretty, in an obvious way and loud - exuding confidence. In class she was brash and no one messed with her or her cohorts. Then there was Lindsay. She was pretty - in a pretty sort of way. Quiet and hardworking. Confident in herself, not in a gang. Right now she was in Kayleigh’s crosshairs.
Kayleigh gossiped in the cafeteria with everyone who cared to listen.
“Lindsay was thrown out of her last school for cheating...”
“Lindsay has a foul infectious disease...”
“Lindsay smells like old people...”
“Lindsay pees herself...”
Lindsay heard these comments as they were shouted across the rooms and corridors, but she ignored them; which greatly infuriated Kayleigh.
Raging this war with a pacifist, was like tearing wings from a butterfly for Kayleigh - it was only fun the first few times. She needed Lindsay to get interested, to get wound and up and retaliate. Then, when Kayleigh won in front of the school she could feel like a winner. Right now though Lindsay was Switzerland and nobody could boast about nuking Switzerland.
Lindsay sat near the front of her classes, only answering the difficult questions. Her exams and papers always got top marks. Mr Spitzel said she would probably go to Harvard or Yale. None of which bothered Kayleigh, these weren’t fields she was interested in competing. But she noticed Lindsay was getting increasing attention from boys and even Kayleigh conceded she seemed to be getting better looking as the term went on.
Lindsay did sport as everyone had to. She was good at it but she didn’t try hard and wasn’t interested in the jocks. Meanwhile Kayleigh’s energy was expended in the cheerleading team - she was vice captain and plotting to be the captain. When she was cheerleading the boys all looked at her and passed knowing looks between each other and she thrived off all that attention.
Lindsay stopped wearing glasses and was undoubtedly the second best looking girl in their year now, making Kayleigh more uncomfortable. One day Lindsay came in late to watch a basketball game, Kayleigh noticed Todd turn his eyes away from her to Lindsay; that was the last straw. She needed to beat Lindsay once and for all and she decided she would up the ante against her quiet nemesis.
Thursday night was taco night at home, and her mum had ended up crying after touching her eyes - her stepdad said she hadn’t washed her hands properly after cutting a jalapeno. It got Kayleigh thinking.
In the locker room laughing Kayleigh dripped the juice of a scotch bonnet chili into Lindsay’s contact lens case; all may be fair in love and war but Kayleigh just stepped way over the line.
On Monday Lindsay didn’t come in to school. On Wednesday Mr Spitzel told the class that she wouldn’t be back as an unfortunate accident had occurred. Kayleigh had won the war; she wouldn’t tell anyone though that she had blinded Switzerland.
(499 words)
@zevonesque
#FlashDogs
Doh! Didn't remember the rules - or title of the challenge - and put the line in the story. Doh!!!
DeleteBlinding Switzerland
ReplyDelete(amended)
A.J. Walker
All may be fair in love and war, but Kayleigh just stepped way over the line. She was the high school queen in waiting, pretty in an obvious way and loud; exuding confidence. In class she was brash and no one messed with her or her cohorts. Then there was Lindsay. She was pretty - in a pretty sort of way - quiet and hardworking. Confident in herself, not needing a gang. Right now she was in Kayleigh’s crosshairs.
Kayleigh gossiped in the cafeteria with everyone who cared to listen.
“Lindsay was thrown out of her last school for cheating...”
“Lindsay has a foul infectious disease...”
“Lindsay smells like old people...”
“Lindsay pees herself...”
Lindsay heard these comments as they were shouted across the rooms and corridors, but she ignored them; which greatly infuriated Kayleigh.
Raging this war with a pacifist, was like tearing wings from a butterfly for Kayleigh - it was only fun the first few times. She needed Lindsay to get interested, to get wound and up and retaliate. Then, when Kayleigh won in front of the school she could feel like a winner. Right now though Lindsay was Switzerland and nobody could boast about nuking Switzerland.
Lindsay sat near the front of her classes, only answering the difficult questions. Her exams and papers always got top marks. Mr Spitzel said she would probably go to Harvard or Yale. None of which bothered Kayleigh, these weren’t fields she was interested in competing. But she noticed Lindsay was getting increasing attention from boys and even Kayleigh conceded she seemed to be getting better looking as the term went on.
Lindsay did sport as everyone had to. She was good at it but she didn’t try hard and wasn’t interested in the jocks. Meanwhile Kayleigh’s energy was expended in the cheerleading team - she was vice captain and plotting to be the captain. When she was cheerleading the boys all looked at her and passed knowing looks between each other and she thrived off all that attention.
Lindsay stopped wearing glasses and was undoubtedly the second best looking girl in their year now, making Kayleigh more uncomfortable. One day Lindsay came in late to watch a basketball game, Kayleigh noticed Todd turn his eyes away from her to Lindsay; that was the last straw. She needed to beat Lindsay once and for all and she decided she would up the ante against her quiet nemesis.
Thursday night was taco night at home, and her mum had ended up crying after touching her eyes - her stepdad said she hadn’t washed her hands properly after cutting a jalapeno. It got Kayleigh thinking.
In the locker room Kayleigh laughed unhinged as she dripped the juice of a scotch bonnet chili into Lindsay’s contact lens case.
On Monday Lindsay didn’t come in to school. Mr Spitzel told the class on Wednesday that she wouldn’t be back to school as an unfortunate accident had occurred. Kayleigh had won; she wouldn’t tell anyone though that she had blinded Switzerland.
(500 words)
@zevonesque
#FlashDogs
And They Are Ours
ReplyDelete(498 words, challenge accepted)
@pmcolt
All may be fair in love and war, but Kayleigh just stepped way over the line. And considering that our original plan started with "nuke 'em 'til they glow," that says a lot. But that civilian, Mr. Spitzel, joined us at Fort Rigel and sparked some crazy ideas in Kayleigh's brain.
Officially, Mr. Spitzel was a teacher. He turned our mess hall (which he called the cafeteria) into his personal classroom, crammed us together with the infantry, and taught us everything Earth science knew about the Qatzu. Anatomy, physiology, strengths and weaknesses, while we ate lunch.
Afterward, the infantry discussed the intel in the locker room, brainstorming ways to kill Qatzu. Aim for the mouth, not the tentacles. Burn their skin with phosphorus bullets. Slash their carapace with a bayonet. Grotesque stuff.
War with the Qatzu obeyed Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle: it was strangely distant, yet also brutally personal. Wherever the 135th Orbital Engineering Regiment went, we opened with a volley of nukes, cratering their strongholds. Yet this was insufficient. Within a few days, a lone surviving Qatzu could lay its clutch of eggs. Within a month, its new brood would be combat ready. A dozen Earth colony ships, thousands of civilians, had been killed by forces from Qatzu planets we'd already bombed back to the stone age.
So wherever the 135th went, infantry followed, to track the Qatzu survivors through the radioactive ruins and claustrophobic tunnels. The stories those infantrymen told were haunting... I was just glad to be an Orbital Engineer. Our official motto was Fiat Lux, but our unofficial Ka-Boom! worked, too.
Kayleigh was quite the firecracker, herself; everyone in Bravo Company called it the Irish in her. Funny how we carry our stereotypes with us, no matter how many hundreds of parsecs we go from Earth. Halfway to Alnilam, she got one of her bright ideas, and locked herself in the lab.
Whatever she told the muckety-mucks must've wowed them. Gossip started spreading the day after orbital insertion. Instead of following protocol, carpeting Planetoid Alnilam/3/35A with a 500 gigaton kiss of death, we simply launched Kayleigh's mystery superweapon... and waited.
For weeks we circled the planet.
We broke orbit.
The infantry never dropped.
Though the infantrymen were dying to know our secret, I never told any of them what Kayleigh told me about our miraculous superweapon.
"Mr. Spitzer's seminar made me realize how similar the Qatzu are to us, biochemically," she told me that first night in orbit. "DNA. Proteins. Cellular structure. So I created a mutagen to make them even more like us."
Her explanation took awhile to sink in. "So... any surviving Qatzu on the planet will lay their eggs..."
"...which will hatch and quickly grow up to become humans," Kayleigh affirmed cheerfully. "If it works, we'll deploy against their home planet. War over, and instant human colonies."
I didn't get much sleep after that. All may be fair in love and war, but Kayleigh just stepped way over the line.
The War
ReplyDeleteAll may be fair in love and war, but Kayleigh just stepped way over the line. A very real line, actually, marked in elvish blue chalk and running eight inches wide from the locker room to the cafeteria. And then she looked back at us, grinning as though she’d just cured cancer.
“C’mon, guys!” she said, pushing up on her fat tippy toes. Up, down. Up, down. Click BOOM. Click BOOM. “It’s fun over here!”
Mr. Spitzel had warned us. Teachers on this side, students on that. Don’t cross, he said, no matter how great the temptation. DO NOT CROSS.
As Mr. Spitzel was the creative writing teacher, though, I guess not enough of us took him seriously. So now we were forced to watch Kayleigh giggling, en pointe, off hairy pointe, on the other side of the line.
When after a few minutes nothing happened, most of us relaxed a little bit. I’m not sure what we’d expected. Homeroom to explode, maybe? The bell to screech without stopping? Dragons to burst through the walls? At this place anything was possible.
Eventually even Kayleigh settled down, her round, greenish face and multiple chins wrinkled with disappointment. “Well, gee, guys,” she said. “Gee.”
“Not a troll, nor nuffin’,” said one of the smaller girls with a sniff strong enough to set her short brown beard floating. “What’d he put the chalk there for then?”
“He said the worst thing imaginable would happen.” A shadow walker spoke this time. His face burned with anger, but the dark shape clinging to his heels betrayed his fear.
“Maybe it was just a prank, you guys.” Kayleigh’s hope-filled voice ricocheted off the walls.
A chorus of agreement rose from our side of the line.
“Yeah, a prank.”
“No way Mr. Spitzer knows about real magic. He just knows words and stuff.”
“Yeah. Come back over, Kayleigh!”
The green teen appeared rather uncertain about this. “Didn’t he say if we crossed, we couldn’t come back?”
“You can only die once,” said someone cheerfully.
“Not me!” The youngest/oldest of us, a phoenix girl sprouting soft orange down, piped up, her voice a thin squawk.
“Nobody asked you,” muttered the shadow walker.
I hadn’t dared speak. My skin looked as youthful as any of theirs, but I remembered what Mr. Spitzel had once been. And I knew what blue chalk did, even for one like him with no right to it.
So I alone watched Kayleigh.
I alone saw her legs lengthen, her face narrow.
And I alone saw the telltale peaks stretching at the tips of her ears.
The transformation was nearly complete before anyone else noticed, and then jaws dropped universally in horror.
“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” said the shadow walker, and promptly fainted.
“You’re a—a--!” the smallest dwarf gasped in horror.
“TELL ME!” Kayleigh demanded, but the other kids had already gone screaming down the hall.
I slunk after them, pulling my cap lower.
Worst thing in the world, my ears.
495 words
@postupak
Judge's challenge: yes!
Y'know... I've been corrected on this before. awhile -> a while
ReplyDeleteSisters:
ReplyDeleteAll may be fair in love and war, but Lily just stepped way over the line. Amelia knows that her half-sister Lily is no longer an ally. Not with what that jezebel did.
Amelia stares at a photo of her sister and tries to decide what an appropriate punishment would be. Should she flush Lily’s prize black angelfish? Should she slice those snakeskin boots that Lily loves so much?
Not good enough.
Amelia rocks on the front porch, trying her best to ignore the flies that snuck through the holes in the screens.
The sound of an engine wakes Amelia from her dreams. Up the driveway comes Lily’s fiancé. The masculine purr of his smooth running engine precedes him.
What a better way to repay Lily’s betrayal than to take Ron from her? Lily always thinks she’s so smart. This will teach her.
Amelia runs to her closet and retrieves the most revealing outfit she owns, a scarlet and gold low-cut dress with bare shoulders. Amelia races down the stairs and out to meet Ron when he pulls up.
His eyes linger on her longer than normal. He always would give the cursory glances that polite men still give, but not the longing gaze he just stole.
“Good afternoon Ron,” Amelia says, “How may I help you?”
He swallows. His Adam’s apple bobs under his two blonde beard. “I — I was looking for Lily. Is she here?”
No, she’s too busy ruining other people’s lives. “She went to town.” A lie, but creek and town are both far enough away that it doesn’t matter.
“Oh. Then I guess I should be going.”
Amelia grabs Ron’s and intertwines their arms. “Nonsense. Come inside. You are practically family. Whatever is ours is yours.”
Amelia drinks in Ron’s eyes being on her. He’s a foot taller than her, with thick shoulders built from years in the gym.
Ha - what a waste all that gym time was. Lily and she used to spend hours a week working on perfecting a rounded butt so they’d look proper as they aged. What a false promise.
“Ron. What made you love Lily?”
His eyes are transfixed on Amelia’s legs. He shakes the staring off and looks at the wallpaper of the house. “I don’t know.”
“Do you think you could love me like that?”
He rubs the back of his hand across his lips. “What are you proposing?” he asks.
Ron’s nervousness feeds her. Amelia answers with a kiss.
#
From outside the window Lily watches as the man she loves — like a brother — is “seduced” by her idiot sister. She hopes Ron enjoys that little present. Lily leaves to go see Amelia’s boyfriend. When the cat’s away…
@michaelsimko1
452 Words
Mine's late, but I thought I'd submit anyway, just for fun.
ReplyDeleteIntolerable
by Nancy Chenier
499 words
@rowdy_phantom
All may be fair in love and war, but Shandriss just stepped way over the line bringing that guy. Here. Tonight.
Top three reasons NOT to bring an ogre to prom:
1. The smell—old jellyfish and steaming toad entrails, left to moulder in a zombie crew’s locker room. Gag.
2. Dance ability—or should I serious *lack* of ability. And even if ogres could manage to keep a beat, they smash the cafeteria’s dance floor and the disco ball
3. Hello, our people have been at war for twenty trillion aeons
No self-respecting troll-kin would do such a thing. She used to be cool and fun. This is so getting her kicked from the squad. Maybe. She’s the best cheerleader we got.
Yes, I’m bitter. She was my best bud. She knows how I feel, how it—okay, look, I lost a cousin and her parents to the skirmishes, okay? The other cousin had to get injections to grow another leg, but it’s all wonky. It sucks. Ogres have no finesse, they just go smashing everything with no consideration for targets. For all I know, one of his parents trampled their bungalow.
Look at our cave-economics teacher, all, like, trying for diplomacy. "Uh, Mr. Spitzel, I wouldn’t…" Too late. Idiot. Lucky for him he’s got those extra arms.
She told me about it in homeroom, passed me a note, figuring I wouldn’t make a big deal in the middle of class. Uh, yeah, her new boyfriend’s parents crushed my relatives and I’m supposed to be chill about it?
Ew—they’re making out. I’m going to make sure this goes viral. Just got to come up with at good title.
Top three obstacles to any future friendship with Shandriss:
1. Ruined prom
2. Her mouth made contact with that mouth
3. If this goes viral, she probably won’t forgive me, even if it serves her right.
I’m just about to upload it when guess-who comes over for a chat? Splintering five chairs in the process. I scoot away. I’m not with him. He turns his snot-green eyes at me and I make sure I’m checking out the lanky DJ with the red mohawk.
"We’re not all alike, you know," he says, smooth as tempered steel.
Okay, that jars me a bit. You expect this drooling hulk to speak in the vocal equivalent of a boulder tied to a stick.
"My tribe’s never been involved in the war effort."
I shoot him a look full of cross-bolts. If only I had my bow…
"Yeah, Shan told me about it. I know how bad it sucks. My sister—I miss her too." He left it like that.
He gave me a wink with eyes that were more the color of moss than snot. I guess. I watched him lumber around the other dancers, more or less to the beat.
I tucked the image into my personal files. I might use it someday. But not tonight.
All may be fair in love and war, but Kayleigh just stepped way over the line. And she knew it. And in homeroom she wept. Sobbed really. First like the winner of a Ms. America pageant, then like the winner of a Ms. America pageant who lost her crown due to several nude, though tastefully done, black and white photos discovered in the output slot of a Chucky Cheese photo booth.
ReplyDeleteGigantic drops of combined water, salt and bits of genetic material (a 30/50/20 split) spurted from Kayleigh’s emotionally stimulated tear ducts and streamed down the side of her foundation-caked face much like giant raindrops during a recent storm washed down the dirt-caked, rear windshield of an abandoned ‘94 Ford Windstar on which, in broad index finger sized strokes, were written the words “WASH ME”. Despite numerous “No Loitering” signs riveted to numerous light poles, to this day the old Windstar van, some say due to a case of crippling depression, while others say due to an unshakeable hope its owners will return, remains in the unlit parking lot corner of the outlet mall which is cluttered with rusting shopping carts mall workers refuse to collect for fear of wolves.
Kayleigh continued weeping through first, second and third periods and well into lunch. Great globs of sludge, pulled down Kayleigh’s cheeks by an invisible force not unlike the gravitational yank of the moon on the sea, smacked the ground with the energy of large bowling balls with cavernous finger holes drilled for large men with meaty hands.
The great globs exploded on the cafeteria floor like frame after frame after frame of struck bowling pins and splattered bits of Mary Kay Foundation Number Five, salt, water and bits of genetic material (a 40/20/30/10 split) on the shoes and various exposed body parts of innocent bystanders and not so innocent, catty cheerleaders.
Just before gym class, Kayleigh’s tears stopped, but soon restarted as she changed in the locker room because gossip travels fast.
Kayleigh considered her left side her worst side and every morning liberally plastered it with Mary Kay Number Five using a spatula and caulking gun, then touched it with a kiss of Virgin’s Blush rouge.
Throughout the day students and classmates unlucky enough to have been on her left side for any length of time reported, and later officially documented on form DD-219 as required by school policy for insurance purposes, cases of temporary blindness and mild burning caused by flying bits of asbestos infused tile floor which Kayleigh’s sludge-filled tears had impacted with sufficient force to break into micro shards and flecks.
It is unknown whether Kayleigh eventually faced criminal charges or whether the injured bystanders received punitive damages, although one bystander did report getting a new pair of Buster Browns. However, bystanders who wore Keds received nothing, as the jury felt canvas shoes could be tossed into the washing machine.