Prompt: Write about a Summer Day

I liked the big raindrops in summer, how they sometimes steamed on the asphalt when it got hot and rainy all at once. I remember hiding from nature in our orange basement on Mississippi Avenue and in the cellar on East 8th Street. I remember the police scanner in our living room and the emergency broadcast system beeps and warnings all through tornado season.

I remember mom trying to save a sparrow during a storm and how I simultaneously wanted her to help the bird and race inside away from potential tornadoes to the basement for safety.

Nothing bad ever happened during any of those storms, it just forced us all into the Northwest corner of the basement (or whichever direction happened to be opposite of where the story was coming from).

My niece Dani is competing for Box Butte County Fair Queen on Wednesday. Even though those contests are unpopular in many people’s minds, in Box Butte County, the Fair Queen contest is serious business. It was total secret dream of mine to be the Box Butte County Fair Queen. You get a crown, a sash, a fancy dress, one of those jeweled stick things I think. You get to wave at people from a fancy car during the Heritage Days Parade. There is a definite caste/class system at play in that town and I have no idea how in just one generation, someone in my family tree moved up that ladder.

My husband was breaking the news to me the other night. “We’re never going to be twenty again, “ and it felt kind of shocking. Shocking that this was possibly the truth and shocking that I thought it was any other way.

I keep buying appliances and it annoys my family. Yesterday, I came home with three: an instant pot, which practically cooks dinner itself. I mean, it literally cooks dinner, but I thought it would also prep, plan, and prepare it too.

Also a coffee pot so I could stop buying coffee out. And it came with a free toaster.

But this morning I had no motivation to do any type of brewing and I went to Starbucks and Whole Foods for drinks and snacks. Better luck tomorrow.