Category: Fiction
My Life as a Religious Miracle Marketer
Posted by Amy Vansant in Fiction, Humor Blogs Monday, 9 April 2012 06:53 2 Comments
First published on The Big Jewel
A simple slice of toast launched my career as a professional Miracle Marketer.
I was peering, bemused, at what appeared to be the toasted visage of my Uncle Frank on a piece of rye, when my wife popped her head over my shoulder and said, “I see it. Like the Shroud of Turin, right?”
That’s when it hit me. I grabbed my coat and drove like a hellcat to my friend Ben’s downtown deli. I raised my toasted rye, triumphantly, for him to inspect.
“Can you see it?” I asked.
He squinted and leaned across the counter for a better look.
“It kind of looks like Donald O’Connor,” he mumbled.
With Ben’s permission, I set up the toast on his deli counter for all to see. A last burst of divine inspiration had me instructing Ben to tell his customers the toast had come from his kitchen.
Ben sold over 500 corn beef on rye sandwiches that weekend.
From the 1999 Arthur Treachers “Loads of Fishes” event, to the “Weeping Michael Jordan” phenomenon at the United Center in Chicago, I have created Miracle Business Promotions since that humble piece of toast launched my career.
Selecting the appropriate subject for a Miracle Marketing campaign is of the utmost importance. You can’t just ask people to fill out a card that says “How was my service? Have you spoken to Jesus lately?” The miracle should be immediately recognizable to customers. The sudden appearance of stigmata could be traumatic to a non-Christian. Apollo crossing the sky in a sun chariot these days would have little to no value. I need to go deep undercover, often posing as an employee in order to subtly poll my client’s customers.
For example:
Me: Would you like cream with your coffee, sir?
Customer: Yes, please.
Me: Sugar?
Customer: No.
Me: Hey, you catch the 700 Club last night?
Customer: What? No…
Me: Me either. *cough* Praise Allah. *cough*
Customer: What’s that?
Me: Hey, by the way, we have a special on bagels and lox today.
Customer: Really? That sounds good.
Me: Ah ha!
Customer: Ah ha what?
Me: Nothing, sir. I’ll be right back with your breakfast!
Posing with a Plastic Starfish
Posted by Amy Vansant in Fiction Saturday, 21 January 2012 09:51 7 Comments
The teen held an orange plastic starfish against her hip, grains of beach sand sparkling in the fine blonde hair covering her skinny legs.
“How’s this?”
“Wonderful!” said her mother, taking a picture.
The girl moved the starfish to cover her heart and offered an exaggerated smile, her face titled toward the Florida sun.
The camera clicked.
“Me!”
Another girl, a carbon copy of the first in miniature, ran towards her sister and snatched the starfish. Holding it high above her head, she stood on tippy toes and twirled, careful to stay just out of reach.
The mother offered the older girl a sheepish smile of apology. The girl scowled once at her sister and then shrugged, anger slipping away as she drew a figure eight in the sand with her toe. To shade her eyes she raised her hand in a lingering salute, turned toward the Gulf, demonstrating her deep apathy towards her sister’s shenanigans.
Potential spat diffused, the mother trained her camera on the younger girl.
*Click*
We two sat in impossibly small beach chairs, covertly watching the family pose with the plastic starfish from behind dark sunglasses.
“Iowa,” I said.
“Indiana,” he answered.
“One of the “I’s,” I settled. The girls’ hair was the color of corn silk.
“They drove 2000 miles to take photos with a plastic starfish,” he said, turning up the volume on his iPod.
“On a beach choked with real shells,” I said, knowing he heard only New Order thumping in his ears.
I rolled my eyes for no one.
“Tourists.”
The younger girl threw the starfish into the air and performed an impromptu cartwheel at the water’s edge. Her mother burst into applause as the girl’s small hand prints disappeared beneath the next wave.
Tired of being stoic, the older girl turned and lunged for her sister.
I returned to my book, brushing sand from the pages and smiling as the young girl’s happy squeals echoed across the beach.
Somewhere to my right, an orange plastic starfish washed ashore.
Swim
Posted by Amy Vansant in Fiction Tuesday, 22 November 2011 10:52 5 Comments
I’d like to bring the room down for a second…. Below is my 600 word essay to the Lulu Short Story Contest also available for free download from Lulu.
Swim
“What are you doing?”
Cliff glanced up as his wife entered the garage and crossed her arms against her chest. He returned his attention to the fishing gear piled at his feet.
“What am I doing?” he echoed.
“I hope you don’t think you’re going fishing.”
Cliff straightened. His back ached from bending. He sighed.
“Yes, I’m going fishing.”
“Cliff, come on. You’ve got a doctor’s appointment at two.”
“I’ll be back by then,” he said, picking up his tackle box and heading for the door. “I’m just taking the skiff.”
Cliff walked through the door and stopped. He turned back, his gaze sweeping the workbench covered in bits of metal, scraps of sandpaper and hunks of line. He’d spent most of the morning organizing the garage; hanging fifty years worth of tools on peg boards and sweeping. His father’s lathe sat in the corner, rusted and covered with spider webs. The garage still resembled his father’s messy shop. It had taken Cliff weeks following his father’s death to sort through the junk. His own project would take more time.
Passive-Aggressive Cashier Pinches Your Bread
Posted by Amy Vansant in Fiction, Humor Blogs Tuesday, 21 June 2011 07:28 10 Comments
- Can you tell I hate you?
First Seen on Cavalier Literary Couture (Bonus: they have a very cool web site design.)
I know you. Not by your real name, but by the name I’ve created for you. Poodle Girl, Mr. Tracksuit, Lipstick Teeth, Porn Mustache… I know you all. You treat me like you’re so much better than I am. Why? Because I wear a polyester vest? Because I have a name tag? Have you ever read my name tag?
Hello, my name is: The Angel of Vengeance.
Perhaps you disregard me because you are jealous. I’ve seen you in the self-checkout aisle before; you don’t have a fraction of my skills. I can weigh AND ring-up 30 different kinds of produce in less time than it takes you to find a parking space no more than five spots away from the automatic door. The same automatic door you huff at for being too slow to open. Every. Single. Time. Why is it still such a shock when you have to slow your cart from the battering ram speed you’ve achieved by the time you’ve reached that door?
You’re rude to me in a hundred different ways, and you think it doesn’t matter. But what you don’t know is, while you stand there in line yapping on your cell phone so I can see how hectic and important your life is, I pinch your bread.
You know the bread you throw out because it got squished in the bag on the way home? It wasn’t squished in the bag. I pressed it into dough between my nimble fingers while you were idly watching your kid knock 10 packs of gum to the ground.
And it isn’t just the bread.
You know those crescent moon shaped holes in your apples? About the size of my fingernails? I grow out my nails just so I can tattoo my revenge on your produce. Sometimes their length slows me down on the register — speed of which I’m proud — but I don’t care.
I’ve cracked your butter sticks. If you shop long enough they soften, and with a little pressure I can snap them as they sit still wrapped in wax paper. It’s the perfect crime. It’s like finding a body in a room locked from the inside.
Feel like your yogurt goes bad before the expiration date? I’ve imperceptibly slit the foil top on your fat-free treats with a deft poke of my index finger right in front of you. I’ve done it a dozen times and still you never see.
Oh, and for the record, those yogurts may be fat-free, but the fructose in them contributes 11g of sugar, Stretchy-Pants.
When I ask you how you are, the correct answer is “Fine, how are you?” Not just “good.” Not an unintelligible grunt. Grunt at me and when you think I’m securing your egg carton with a rubber band, I’m REALLY cracking the lid and flicking an egg shell with with all the force and accuracy that years of sitting the backseat with siblings has afforded me. You thought you checked to be sure no eggs were broken. Looks like you missed one.
I’m sure once or twice you’ve thought to yourself, how did my bread end up flattened like a pancake? How did I miss that broken egg shell?
But it doesn’t matter. I’m not even the lowest animal on your totem pole.
You’ll blame it on the bag boy.
When Aesthetics Get in the Way of Larceny
Posted by Amy Vansant in Fiction, Humor Blogs, Published on Other Sites Wednesday, 23 March 2011 13:55 1 Comment
Originally posted on McSweeney’s Internet Tendencies, which has pretty high standards so I’m pretty happy about it.
I think it was the lamp that started it all.
I’d been casing this neighborhood, and noticed a pile up of newspapers clumsily hidden next to the front door of this brick rancher. There were no cars in the driveway. I watched the place for a day, and sure enough, the neighbor came by and moved the afternoon paper behind the bush with the others. The owners were out of town.
That night, I broke in.
Everything went as usual, until I was unplugging the 50-inch television in the living room, and realized I couldn’t keep my eyes off this damn lamp on the table next to the sofa. It was one of those tripod lamps with an old brass-and-wood nautical theme. The rest of the room was done in 50′s retro by way of IKEA.
Something in my cheek just started to twitch.
I tried to put it behind me. I went down to the basement and found a “man cave” in its embryonic stage; nothing but an old navy couch with little embroidered anchors all over it, a sofa table, a neon Budweiser sign and a rough-in for a future wet bar. I took one look, and the next thing I knew, I was bounding back up the stairs, two at a time. I grabbed the tripod lamp from the living room and ran it back down to the basement, setting it on the table next to the anchor sofa. I swear my blood pressure dropped 20 points after that.
I packed up my goods and left.
A week later, I broke into a big gray contemporary overlooking the bay. There was some pretty choice stuff, and all was going well, until I found my attention drawn to this rug in the middle of the floor. It was just floating there. So, I took a second to slide it back and tuck the edge of it under the legs of the sofa, to make the room feel more connected. While I was at it, I moved the furniture in and away from the walls. They looked like they were preparing for a barn dance, for crying out loud. The place was pretty stark, so I took some pillows they had on the bed in the guest room and arranged them on the sofa. The color really made the room pop.
