Broke 10,000 words!

This NaNoWriMo has been harder for me to complete than last year's -- and I thought nothing could beat last year's! I'm still far behind, but I crossed the 10,000 word mark today. Here's the selection that helped me make that goal.

OK. Back to work. ;-)

Mom was the Take-Out Queen later in life. If they messed up her order in any way, she made sure that they knew. Did the pizza restaurant forget the free bread? She’d get back on the phone and let them know in a not-so-nice way. It was comical to get mom started –not for the person on the other end of the phone at the restaurant, of course! Before placing her order, she’d mutter that they were incompetent and mused if they would get the order right this time.

(Other people would just stop going to that restaurant. )

So even though she gave the pizza place a hard time, she had a soft spot for the owner, Greg. He’d laugh with my Dad when Dad would pick up our food order.

“Is the bread in the bag?” he called back to his staff before giving the order to Dad. “Wouldn’t want to make her upset,” he’d say with a grin as he handed the order over.

He found it funny, and after a while, it was rare if the bread was left out.

Before Mom passed away, she had ordered a special, gourmet cheese as a gift for Greg. But she passed away before she could give it to him. When the box arrived, my dad felt a bit sullen. But he drove up to the pizza restaurant, this time with no order waiting to be picked up, to drop off the cheese.

When he walked in, Greg greeted him and checked the board instinctively for the order. Dad explained it wasn’t there- that mom had passed away suddenly.

Greg didn’t know what to say as the smile disappeared from his face.

“She bought this for you,” dad offered.

In his outstretched hand, he offered the gourmet cheese.

A tear ran down Greg’s cheek.