The Price of a Laugh: A Dog House Story

About ten years ago, I gave my students a writing assignment that looked like fun; so, I wrote along side of them. I enjoyed the prompt so much that I decided I wanted to write a

novel. As of now, I've written five novels, but none are published. In all honesty, I haven't had a lot of time for novel writing or querying recently. Not having a book contract is probably for the best since teaching is so demanding. But I still dream of publication of more than just a magazine story.

Just this week, I wrote another story with my kids. They are working on a Dog Unit so the assignment was to write about one of those wonderful dog expressions such as, a dog-eat-dog world, raining cats and dogs, dog eared, dog tired or the one I chose, in the doghouse.

Here's my fiction story. It hasn't had much editing and I didn't spend a lot of time writing it, but I'll share it any way.

The Price of a Laugh: A Dog House Story

     "I'll only be gone a moment," Mom said as she scooted out the door. She'd left us may times before, but something told me today would be different.

     My little brother, Patrick, tugged on my sleeve. His face gave that I'm-bored-expression, even though Mom had only been gone for four minutes. One of my favorite past times was making Patrick laugh. He had one of those goofy snort giggles that seemed to bring the entire house into his party.

     Without giving it too much thought, I grabbed Mom's Japanese bud vase off the marble end table and balanced it on top of my head.

     "Snor-or-ort!" Patrick fell on the floor and rolled into my leg. Not expecting his body to crash into me, I jerked back causing the vase to crash on the floor.

     "Uh-oh," Patrick giggled.

     A meer uh-oh was not going to solve this problem. Mom had bought that vase back in college when she studied in Japan. She had always talked about what a rare find it was and how she'd never seen one just like it. Now her treasure lay on the floor in 1,652 pieces.

     I reached for the broom and swept up the mess all the while thinking of the trouble I'd be in when Mom came home. I'm in the doghouse for the price of one snort laugh.