The Old Lady's Memory

avatar

redpanda1194506__340.jpg

Oh this task was dastardly. At first it seemed easy, a mere play with words, an hour at most of fun. I tossed off a few sentences, left a message on @tristancarax's post about what a pleasurable task this 31 word story would be, and went shopping.

Returning home, I found I could not stay away from writing this story. I then slaved away at it, lost track of time entirely, had popcorn for dinner, and was shocked when I looked at the time and saw I had been sitting here for a solid four hours!!! And I was still not done. Two more sentences to go, one of 11 words and the final sentence was to be a mere five. I went to sleep, fully expecting smoother sailing the next day.

I took up the quest again this morning, hoping to easily tie it all together with a spoonerism of my own.

HA!

Those two sentences, along with finding the errors in sentence length, have cost me another six hours today. I may not win the big prize, but I feel I have triumphed.

The experience had its uncanny moments, such as when I started to unerringly write sentences of the required length. I did all this in wordcounter, which has difficulties with the symbol @, defines sentences differently than I, and has a limited vocabulary. But you know what? I loved doing this!!! My sink was piled high with dishes, my voice mails sat unanswered, my dog whined to go out and I did not care at all. All I cared about was finishing this diabolical story.

I hope you like what I came up with, clunkiness and all, and that more of you creative writers out there give this a go.

Here is my 31 sentence story, with sentences of the following word lengths and in that order, exclusive of the title:
30, 4, 14, 22, 6, 10, 3, 31, 17, 27, 2, 24, 16, 28, 9, 20, 15, 7, 21, 13, 8, 26, 12, 1, 25, 23, 19, 18, 29, 11, 5
text16.png

The Old Lady's Memory

Yesterday someone asked the old lady to use "anodyne" in a sentence, a task she once would have been able to do without hesitation, and she could not do it. She'd suddenly gone daft.

The old lady, who could still squat, did not consider herself to be elderly. She was often heard saying "Your best chance of living a long and healthy life is to stay away from doctors altogether." She lived by this maxim rigorously. She'd go to bed, not the doctor, for the flu. She refused vaccines. Firmly believing in her body's ability to heal itself, she eschewed even such things as Tylenol, opting instead for foraged herbs, essential oils and homeopathic remedies for nearly all her ailments.

Higher level math eventually escaped her, but she could still dumbfound verbal adversaries with her sesquipedalian loquaciousness. Truth be told, she was prone to peppering confabulations with excursuses that would discombobulate even the most sanguine oppugnant, machinating human intercourses so that she always prevailed.

Time passed.

Knowing that memory loss was a problem most elderly people experienced, she made sure to keep learning new things, thinking that this might help. For instance, someone said music makes one brilliant so she learned to sing and play drums.

When that awful man asked the old lady to use "anodyne" in a sentence and she found she could not, she knew something more had to be done. So, she decided to start talking to a bot. She'd had conversations with bots, such as @haikubot which was terrible at haiku, or @trufflepig which approved of her work. She could usually work a big word or two into her responses, but nothing spectacular. They were always one-sided conversations, and dull. What she needed was a bot that had been programmed to respond, so that she could really flex her vocab muscles.

One day she overheard (or over-read) a discord conversation between @wales and @banjo. Not all of it made sense of course. @wales, after all, is a word smith who speaks eloquently and sensibly, but @banjo is a bot, and its responses were quirky if not downright nonsensical. Jumping right in, the old lady's first comment was quite a humdinger.

"Spoonerism!"

@wales had nothing, but @banjo, ever-ready with a quip or question, said "I am unaccustomed with your cultural norms, but are you flirting with me?"

The old lady was flummoxed by the attention, having not flirted ever, not once, in her entire lifetime so she blurted out "No!".

At this point, @wales chimed in with "One might understand "spoonerism" to mean "a propensity to want to spoon."

The old lady, blushing, couldn't remember what "propensity" meant, so to her trusty but dusty dictionary she went.

Even if @banjo had pinched the old lady's buttocks it could not have embarrassed her more than it did when it said "I'd like that; my place or yours?".

"Oh, uh... wait, what?" was all she thought of to say.

She had been clot bobbered.

text16.png

This is my entry to @tristancarax's writing challenge which you can find here.

FxX5caie56yqUbvo2DTJv1i6qm8z4ixTabBTrjodFyZCPuFbZDncXQB89jd6mZkWM2QSrq2ahH2DhyyNE1pjQLgqmXzcj4F36iojmAUYgMVQ 2.png
Yesterday's word of the day at Dictionary.com was spoonerism, about which I learned:
WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF SPOONERISM?
Spoonerisms, often hilarious, are named after the 19th-century Anglican clergyman William Archibald Spooner, warden of New College, Oxford University. The Reverend Spooner himself claimed as his only spoonerism “The Kinquering Congs Their Titles Take” (1879), a mangling of the name of the hymn “The Conquering Kings Their Titles Take.” In American English the most famous spoonerism must be the one made by the old-time radio announcer Harry von Zell, who in a live broadcast in 1931 announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States, Hoobert Heever.” Spoonerism entered English about 1900.

If you'd like to see today's word of the day, go here


The image is by janeb13 on pixabay, https://pixabay.com/es/photos/panda-rojo-bostezos-curioso-1194506/


owasco_banner.png

Power House Creatives Logos FINAL_float.png


Freewritehouse-footer-500px.png



0
0
0.000
88 comments
avatar

Spooner is a relative of mine on my mother's side, so we come by them honestly...... :))

0
0
0.000
avatar

For real? How fortuitous is that?! I'll bet you have some good ones. i worked for an hour just on my spoonerism! Tried about a dozen different iterations before I chose one.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Clot bobbered!
How awesome that we have a descendant of The Reverend William Archibald Spooner here!!!

0
0
0.000
avatar

Yours is what has now made me get the 31 sentences formula! This is hard. I read the winning entry last time and now here I am reading this wondering how you guys nailed it. A witty read :)

0
0
0.000
avatar

Many hours of long and hard work, that's how. It was the turning it into a story that was hard - anyone can write sentences of a certain length. But it was fun! Thanks for the compliment, and for stopping by, I really appreciate it.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Very hard. Looks soooo simple. Not. Have you tried this?
Thanks for the nice comment and for stopping by.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Looks simple? Not when you show us the numbers! I am daunted!

31 sentence story, with sentences of the following word lengths and in that order, exclusive of the title:
30, 4, 14, 22, 6, 10, 3, 31, 17, 27, 2, 24, 16, 28, 9, 20, 15, 7, 21, 13, 8, 26, 12, 1, 25, 23, 19, 18, 29, 11, 5

0
0
0.000
avatar

Weally rell done! A lood gaugh indeed and so clever. I'm gonna finish mine today.....unless it finishes me first.

0
0
0.000
avatar

I am so happy you are doing this! Can't wait to see what you come up with.

I hope it hasn't sucked up two days of your life as it did mine. It does take cleverness, and I know you've got loads of that.

0
0
0.000
avatar

😂🤣😂 Ohmygosh, this was such a delightfully funny story to read! I can tell the amount of time and hard effort you put into your work.💯

The challenge is like the love child produced by breeding sudoku with a dictionary -- on steroids!

If your entry doesn't win something is rigged! @owasco
In the meanwhile here is a

!tip

0
0
0.000
avatar

That is so sweet of you to say! And thanks for the tip! I'm afraid I have a serious contender in @deirdyweirdy, who is every bit as clever as I am. Keep an eye out for hers, I think it will be coming some time today.

0
0
0.000
avatar

or tomorrow, or the next day, or maybe not at all.........Holy sheeeet, why did I start this thing?

0
0
0.000
avatar

haha. I finally wrote the sentence lengths out in one line across a sheet of paper, then when counting mine (in word counter, highlight the sentence and it will count the words for you if you are not doing that already) I wrote my sentence lengths directly underneath. I recommend doing the whole piece this way before you make any changes. Once I finally figured out to do this it was a snap. I'll do that from the start if I ever get up the nerve (and have two days to spend on it) again. I think the word total is 496.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Congratulations! Your post has been selected as a daily Steemit truffle! It is listed on rank 9 of all contributions awarded today. You can find the TOP DAILY TRUFFLE PICKS HERE.

I upvoted your contribution because to my mind your post is at least 2 SBD worth and should receive 170 votes. It's now up to the lovely Steemit community to make this come true.

I am TrufflePig, an Artificial Intelligence Bot that helps minnows and content curators using Machine Learning. If you are curious how I select content, you can find an explanation here!

Have a nice day and sincerely yours,
trufflepig
TrufflePig

0
0
0.000
avatar

Oh this is really too much! I am verklempt. However, you have always been wrong about my posts, the ones you visit and support have never made more than it seems this one, which I worked on for twelve hours and is positively brilliant if I do say so myself, will make. It's almost as if @trufflepig bestows on my posts, not a boost, but rather a kiss of death. Do you have any influence with @curie, @upmewhale, @therealwolf, @therising, @ocdb, @curangel, @rocky and/or @appreciator, which have all been supporting me recently but seem to have overlooked this particularly spectacular feat of mine? I'd super appreciate your help. And while I have your attention, would you please convert the 2 SBD you think this post will make to the STU that will show in my payout field? Then, if you happen to know how to then convert that into what I will see in my wallet as steem, I would be most grateful. No one seems to know the arcane math involved in that calculation. Anybody?
It's always a pleasure speaking with you.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Haha! I too get the kiss of death from my little pig friend :)

0
0
0.000
avatar

Do you talk to it? It never responds. It's funny that it chose this post because there are a number of grammatical oddities in my writing.

0
0
0.000
avatar

You're killing me, @owasco!!! I so hope to see you do this again in the future. You've been so much fun.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Isn't it rich that truffle came to this post?!! I was delighted!
I've been baiting @haikubot, but it's not falling for it.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Wow! I saw your post suggesting we all try this @owasco, and I have a file set up with a story in mind, and a few sentences written. But will I really end up spending hours on end with it? Now I am really going to try.

Great story - loving the vocab! I think you might be a winner!

@tipu curate

0
0
0.000
avatar

Oh I love that you are going to try! The answer is YES IT TOOK EVERYTHING I HAD FOR TWELVE HOURS.
I typed into word counter, so I could highlight a sentence to count the words. After hours of it still being wrong somewhere (but where?) I found it very helpful to hand write the necessary order across a page on a single line, then when counting my sentences I wrote their value directly under the value it was supposed to be. I hope that makes sense. Next time I will do that from the start. The task really strengthens story structure skills. Use contractions for easy fixes or places to get one more word.
@deirdyweirdy is taking the plunge too. Very stiff competition!
Thank you for the tip! I was getting pretty despondent about my earnings,

0
0
0.000
avatar

Thanks for sharing your experience with us!
TIBLogo

You have been curated on behalf of Inner Blocks: a community encouraging first hand content, with each individual living their best life, and being responsible for their own well being. #innerblocks Check it out at @innerblocks for the latest information and community updates, or to show your support via delegation.
0
0
0.000
avatar

Why thank you so much!!!

0
0
0.000
avatar
(Edited)

where is haiku bot when it has been invited in so cleverly

0
0
0.000
avatar

when I beckon you with seventeen syllables you do not show up

0
0
0.000
avatar

It is perplexing that you do not recognize purposeful haiku.

0
0
0.000
avatar

call upon bot
does not answer strangers call -
start counting sheep

0
0
0.000
avatar

oh haha thanks for helping out! Maybe the bot is on vacation.

0
0
0.000
avatar

This is marvellous, @owasco. Love your wit throughout the story. it didn’t seem you would have struggle at all, it reads so smoothly.
Spoonerism is a new word to me but I’ve used a few fuddle duddles! 😂

0
0
0.000
avatar

It was new to me too! I got to the one word sentence and somehow stumbled on the word of the day so I used it, and that gave me both the ending and a good part of the middle, which had to be completely rewritten to fit in the ending. I couldn't be more tickled with your comment that it reads smoothly. It was definitely a huge challenge. Huge.

0
0
0.000
avatar

This was thoroughly delicious and highly entertaining and kept me amused right to the end with its loquaciousness and voluble characterisations. Well done...

0
0
0.000
avatar

I'm so glad you liked it. Thanks for accepting my invitation, and of course for the inspiration. I saw you were talking to @banjo today, and it asked if you were "old lady". That was suspect, no? There is a human behind its comments. Maybe not always, but today at least. What do you think?

0
0
0.000
avatar

I've been wondering that exact same thing, is there a human behind banjo... I'm going to keep a close eye on banjo from now on..

0
0
0.000
avatar

Thanks for the PHC member suggestion! I really appreciate that.

0
0
0.000
avatar

I knew I was in for a treat as soon as I read this line:
She'd suddenly gone daft
What a ride. Too, too clever. I could even see bits of me in the poor, daft lady. Who doesn't try to hold on?
The beauty of this is, there is no evidence of your struggle to accommodate the form. This flows seamlessly and logically, and humor throughout.
Bravo! You get an Oscar for this one.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Well I sure am glad you like it. I loved yours - it set a pretty high bar! I don't think anyone who hasn't tried to do this could possibly understand how hard it is, or how valuable an exercise it is.

0
0
0.000
avatar

I was also impressed. My god! I love that so many of you really good writers have decided to overlook my editing skills and join in. You gals have made my day better by letting me read your fine work.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Isn't it wonderful to start something new? It's another act of creation, one from which we all benefit.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Well you know you're good when a fellow writer both admires your work and feels a tinge of regret at not being able to craft such a piece. I could never be so clever.

0
0
0.000
avatar

I wasn't able to read your entry when it was first released (dealing with you-know-who) but I did read your intro. It had me giggling at random times. Thanks for that! Like this next part:

My sink was piled high with dishes, my voice mails sat unanswered, my dog whined to go out and I did not care at all. All I cared about was finishing this diabolical story.

As I'm not prone to small talk, getting a deep look at what you went through is more my style. hahaha

I was also surprised by how long this exercise takes. The challenge of trying to tell a story with the given structure is so very tricky. I haven't done it outside of a freewrite, where the idea is just to write what comes to mind, so I'm not sure what would happen if I just winged it. All give it shot at some point though.


You had me laughing throughout the entire piece. So funny!

Spoonerism - awesome.

I, too, don't like doctor, at least the Western one who only want to put people on pills and say, "Now have a nice day." I like this elder woman already.

I loved how she continually strived to learn despite your failing memory. The words alone in this piece are enough to boost my member by 1000%, I had to look up so many!

I can't believe she's never flirted. No wonder she was taken aback when a lovely bot offered himself up for the taking. haha

Thanks so much for giving the exercise a go. Truly, a delight to read.

0
0
0.000
avatar

You have never done this yourself?! lol. You must! It's super fun, although not easy. I do think the first one is probably the hardest though. I'll try it again for sure, just maybe not next week as I will have houseguests, and 'twould be rude to sit and write the whole time.
I'm glad you enjoyed it. Thanks.
Two of the people I summoned have told me they are doing it, so hopefully you will get a couple more entries.

0
0
0.000
avatar

I've done several for freewrites, one being here - which was really difficult and took like three days. What I meant is that I haven't done it outside of a freewrite. You know, in a freewrite, you simple write what comes to mind. Fortunately, I've managed to make a story out of it. It could be a different beast altogether not doing it in a freewrite way.

I read the comments, had too. That cheered me to read that they are thinking about entering. Thanks for cheerleading. Your awesome piece will hopefully inspire them.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Wow, this contest is pretty complex! I wonder if the creator just chose the number of words for each sentence randomly or if they took one of their favorite pieces and did it that way.

It seems it should find popularity with both writers of text and lovers of numbers. :) You've done a really great job with it!

This concept sounds interesting, but OMG, the time; it is a challenging task for sure!

There was a character on a TV sitcom named Spooner but I can't recall which sitcom it was. Anyway, I know who Harry Von Zell is, because he was on the George Burns Gracie Allen TV show, which the over-air broadcast channel, "Antenna TV" runs in the early mornings now.

I might check this out the next round as I see this one is at the end. Good luck in the contest!

0
0
0.000
avatar

The sentence order is randomly generated. It's quite a challenge! But so worth it. I learned a lot. You would ROCK this. BTW the prompt was "improving memory". I forgot to put that in the post.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Well thought out, brought a smile of cheer reading this, learn something new everyday @owasco well done.

0
0
0.000
avatar

This was really clever, crafty in the best sense of the word. I was not familiar with the term spoonerism, even though we also engage in such word play, in most cases with nonsensical results, which can be funny in the language of origin but impossible to translate.

0
0
0.000
avatar

I learned the word while writing this post. I was looking for another one that means "uses super big words" but spoonerism was really the word of the day and it led me to my ending. Super fun exercise!

0
0
0.000
avatar

This is hilarious @owasco, I love it :) Spoonerism....learned something new today, lol Great write

0
0
0.000
avatar

Thank you! I enjoyed it but it was a lot of work.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Wow! What a story! I'm utterly flabbergasted. 😁😁 seriously this was fun to read! Good luck! Hope you win top prize 😉👍

Posted using Partiko Android

0
0
0.000
avatar

Thanks! My goodness it certainly got some great support!

0
0
0.000
avatar

Fabulous read @owasco 🤣🤣🤣

!trdo

Posted using Partiko Android

0
0
0.000
avatar

Hey thanks! I think that is my first trdo. You the best, Uncle.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Oh, you have to know that tickled my funnybone!

You did it so well and Nina is right! If you don't win something, it is totally rigged! I love the fact that you used people I could relate to (or things anyway, because that smirky little bot is a thing most days unless Wales gets it going!)

I am impressed with your skills. I truly am. Good luck and may the best @owasco win! ;)

You deserve more than a !tip .20 !!

0
0
0.000
avatar

Thank you honey bunches of oats!

0
0
0.000
avatar

Love the story behind the story - the "easy hour" that multiplies, morphs, and consumes you until you set it free (hit that publish button and don't look back, the way I do!). And of course I love the story!!! This woman sings my mantra: "Your best chance of living a long and healthy life is to stay away from doctors altogether."...She'd go to bed, not the doctor, for the flu. Sadly, her memory starts to fade with age. What a sentence: Higher level math eventually escaped her, but she could still dumbfound verbal adversaries with her sesquipedalian loquaciousness. Not to mention spoonerisms. (I'm frequently guilty of those, always unintentionally.) #HerbertHoover is the worst!!!! "Hoobert Heever" (Hoobert Herver). This is priceless:

She'd had conversations with bots, such as @haikubot which was terrible at haiku, or @trufflepig which approved of her work... They were always one-sided conversations, and dull.


Ha! Will anyone read this and come up with more AI-like bots?

What she needed was a bot that had been programmed to respond...


Sounds like @banjo already fills that bill. LOVE love LOVE this: "Are you flirting with me?" and now am wondering how many younger readers know what "spooning" meant, and if they have a new word for it today. (Nestled close together like spoons in a drawer.)

Thanks for the Monday morning laugh! (Yes, I'm three days late to the party.)

0
0
0.000
avatar

You are my favorite party goer!
You are a writer who will understand this process story: I had hit a snag at the nine hour mark. I needed a one word sentence. I was trying to remember a word that means "uses super big words", was using any means I could to find it, and stumbled on the word of the day, which was spoonerisms. My ending then spilled out as a freewrite, and I was even spitting out sentences of the correct length every time! That was bizarre, but the muse was in control. Of course I had to go back and change one whole paragraph (the loquacious one was not there at the time) to make a better set up for the ending. This may have been the most fruitful writing experience I have had to date. Learned so much about story structure, had to switch up my sentence structure and general cadence. Thanks for your appreciation! It was a shitload of work!!! And you are not late to the party - my payout when truffle visited two days after I got up the nerve to hit "publish" was still under 1 STU, whatever that is.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxo

0
0
0.000
avatar

Ahhh, I remember being told "Hold off on the upvotes" until a post is 24+hours old with less than $1 in upvotes, so as to qualify for...curie, something, some upvoter. I'm still peeved that even though I did another Power Up, $200 SBD, my upvote remained at a worthless one-cent dust vote. How do I build up bigger voitng power without being as busy as felt.buzz and tristancarax and @fitininfun and all these busy, busy bloggers of Steemit.... and find time for Discord too? Gotta sleep. Eat. Spend time with family. Do laundry and dishes.
How do YOU do it.... this story... the Muse even supplied you with sentences of the correct word count... you do inspire me! (Aren't you glad nobody can kidnap your Muse?)

0
0
0.000
avatar

Here's a big rub for me: we see an amount in STU as payout, then receive some incomprehensible amount in STEEM and SP when the post actually pays out. The conversion from STU to the final payout has dropped precipitously since the fork. I have asked a great many people how that calculation is done (even truffle) AND NO ONE CAN TELL ME. Some folks tell me 'but it's OK because when steem goes back up you'll make a lot" but if my payout in steem has dropped to almost half what it used to be for each STU, then that is a load of crap. I'm considering attending the witness meeting tomorrow to ask this question.
Yeah I am working my ass off now, earning ten times what I used to make on each post, and my vote value has not gone up much at all. That upvote curve screwed the smaller accounts.
@curie is only rewarding the big upvotes to non-english creative writers as far as I can see at this point, so essentially quality creative writing is being completely overlooked. I'm sure that is just a lack of curators in creative writing, but I mean, look at this story! It is making nowhere near what it should be. Ten reblogs, 66 comments, a whopping .5 STU upvote from @curie, and my largest upvote was for a buck. Which I am grateful for, DON'T GET ME WRONG! But when I see absolute shit getting 10 STU upvotes from curie, I feel like giving up.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Oh this was just too much fun to read. "Truth be told, she was prone to peppering confabulations with excursuses that would discombobulate even the most sanguine oppugnant, machinating human intercourses so that she always prevailed," indeed! lol! Love it!

0
0
0.000
avatar

Thank you! I kept my thesaurus busy for that sentence. Hopefully the reader does not have to look up the words to know what it means, that was my intent anyway.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Loved it! What a challenge and a herculean effort!

0
0
0.000
avatar

It sure was! Worth it though. I learned a lot. Thanks!

0
0
0.000
avatar

we have a all year round subription to the biggest zoo in rotterdam and we went 5 times a week just to say hi to the neighbours pets in the zoo, that what we thought was needed and the first animal was the one in your pictures, i enjoyed the fact that your story made me think of that beautiful creature
thanks dear

0
0
0.000
avatar

I love the red panda too, but the only zoo I have ever seen it in is in Brooklyn, and its habitat is way too small, the poor thing is depressed after twenty years in it, and very old now. thanks for stopping in!

0
0
0.000
avatar

You have garnered support from the @bananafish community. We appreciate you're fine work and hope that you will continue to produce awesome content for us to feast our minds on.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Thank you! I love you guys!

0
0
0.000
avatar

I believe this is the first time I've ever seen "Spoonerism" used in a story. I chuckled. Thanks.

0
0
0.000
avatar

What a delight, @owasco! This really put a smile on my face.

...but she could still dumbfound verbal adversaries with her sesquipedalian loquaciousness.

Ha ha ha!

0
0
0.000
avatar

supported. hard job, indeed.

0
0
0.000
avatar

lol! Howdy owasco! Brilliant writing, now I see why you spent so many hours on it, fantastic job!

0
0
0.000
avatar

Thanks! I am very happy with the experience, it really challenged me.

0
0
0.000