How Daddy Protects His Toothpaste (Wordless Wednesday) and Words for Wednesday

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Linking up with Wordless Wednesday, BeThere2Day, and Sandee at Comedy Plus.     

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Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and has become a moveable feast of word or picture or music prompts to encourage us to write stories, poems, or whatever strikes our fancy.    

This month, the prompts are being provided by River at Drifting Through Life.    

This week's words/prompts are: 

1. random 

2. haphazardly 

3. fixation 

4. vendetta 

5. Christmas 

6. hugs 

and/or: 

1. coastguard 

2. middle 

3. basil 

4. carnation 

5. junk 

6. ladder

use either list or both, or mix and match, just have fun.

Also include if you can, Charlotte's colour of the month which is antique pink for September.

She'd just had them in her hand.

She was puttering around the house as she always did and doing some laundry in the utility room.  She had the utility room keys with her, and she HAPHAZARDLY set them down in a RANDOM place.

When homes like hers were built, there was a FIXATION with putting the washer and dryer in the separate utility room attached to the carport.  This small room generally held said washer and dryer and had room for an average size lawn mower and some garden tools, maybe a LADDER or a bit of miscellaneous JUNK.  The door handle locked with a key.

When homes like hers were built, some people never locked that door, they didn't need to as crime was low.

Now, leaving it unlocked was like asking someone with a VENDETTA against being law-abiding to come and clean the place out.

As noted, she'd been in the MIDDLE of laundry and other various puttering around jobs and had set the keys down...somewhere.

After fruitless searching, and deciding calling in anyone from a neighbor to a private detective to law enforcement or military (COAST GUARD, anyone?) to help search would be overkill, she simply went and got out the spare key from the spare key box in the hall closet and continued on with her laundry and her day.

When i went over a few days later, she told me her tale and asked me to keep an eye out as i cleaned.

"I'm afraid I set it on the bumper of the car when I got something out of the trunk and drove away the next day and lost it," she said.  

Well, i told her, i'll just have to run to the key place and get two new ones for you.

"You'd do that?" she asked, looking like i was giving her the best CHRISTMAS present she'd ever gotten.  "I mean, I've been thinking about going, but..."

Of course, i'd be more than glad to run the errand for you, i said, and i did.

When i got back, the inevitable happened.  We were still puttering, i was about to leave and she asked me to do one more thing, with the garden hose out front.

As we went out there, i was glancing down at the spigot and hose, and she was looking at the kitchen windowsill above it when she gave a cry of surprise.

"Look!  My key!  I didn't drive off with it after all!  I remember now, I had come out here to water the bushes and I must have set it down.  It's a wonder I didn't see it from inside the window!"

We went back in and looked out, and indeed, the brickwork outside is below the level of the metal frame of the window.  It's not like she has much on the windowsill, either, just a BASIL plant and her vase for fresh flowers, which at that moment held Antique Rose color CARNATIONs.  It's just you really can't spot anything so small as a key on the other side.

Well, i said as we exchanged HUGS before i left, you now have spares for your spares!

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Today is:

Arba'in-e Hosseini -- Iran (40th day after Ashura)

Armed Forces Day -- Sao Tome and Principe

Defense Day -- Pakistan

Festa Della Rificolona -- Florence, Italy (one of Florences oldest and most colorful celebrations; through tomorrow)

Fight Procrastination Day/National Do It Day

Flag Day -- Bonaire, Netherlands Antilles

Gaura Parba -- Nepal (women's festival for the goddess Gauri to ask for health and long life for their husbands)

Krishna Janmashtami -- Hindu (birth of Lord Krishna)

National Coffee Ice Cream Day -- Sweetie swears the best ever was at Howard Johnson Restaurants back in the day

Read A Book Day -- can't find the history on it, but enjoy!

Rettir -- Iceland (around this time of year; a traditional sheep round up celebrated in Iceland during September and into October, actual round up dates may vary from region to region)

Sacrifice to Hera Thelchinia -- Ancient Greek Calendar (date approximate)

Somhlolo Day -- Swaziland (Independence Day)

St. Magnus of Fussen's Day (Patron of crops; against caterpillars, hail, lightning, reptiles, vermin)

Stillbirth Remembrance Day -- Canada (some Provinces); US

Unification Day -- Bulgaria

Birthdays Today:

Justin Whalin, 1974

Sarah Strange, 1974

Rosie Perez, 1964

Elizabeth Vargas, 1962

Jeff Foxworthy, 1958

Jane Curtin, 1947

Swoosie Kurtz, 1944

Jo Anne Worley, 1937

Billy Rose, 1899

Joseph P. Kennedy, 1888

Jane Addams, 1860

Catharine Esther Beecher, 1800

John Dalton, 1766

Marquis de Lafayette, 1757

Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, 1711

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp"(TV), 1955

Jack Dempsey/Billy Miske Boxing Match(First match broadcast on radio), 1920

"La clemenza di Tito/The Clemency of Titus"(Opera, Mozart K. 621), 1791

Today in History:

The Victoria, the only surviving ship of Ferdinand Magellan's expedition, returns to Sanlúcar de Barrameda in Spain, becoming the first ship to circumnavigate the world, 1522

The Spanish "Silver Fleet" disappears off the Florida Keys, 1622

Founding of Salem, Massachussetts, 1628

The first US lighthouse is built in Boston, 1716

Hurricane hits Martinique and Guadalupe, hundreds of ships sink and thousands die on land and at sea, 1776

Thomas Blanchard patents the lathe, 1819

Oberlin Collegiate Institute of Ohio becomes co-ed, with 4 women and 30 men in attendance, 1837

Louisa Ann Swain of Laramie, Wyoming becomes the first woman in the United States to cast a vote legally after 1807, 1870

Juliana becomes Queen of the Netherlands, 1948

Canada's first television station, CBFT-TV, opens in Montreal, 1952

Nine Israeli athletes are killed during a rescue attempt after being kidnapped at the Munich Olympic Games; two had died during the kidnapping the day before, 1972

The Soviet Union recognizes the independence of the Baltic states: 

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and restores the name St. Petersburg to Russia's second largest city, 1991

Cal Ripken Jr of the Baltimore Orioles plays in his 2,131st consecutive game, breaking a record that stood for 56 years, 1995

Diana, Princess of Wales is laid to rest in front of a television audience of more than 2.5 billion, 1997

China launches an investigation into its commercial pilots upon learning that more than 200 of them had falsified their resumes, 2010

Central Australia reports the first sighting since 1960 of a Central rock rat, 2013

Catalonia's parliament passes a law to allow a referendum on independence from Spain, 2017

Scientists announce that Conan the Bacterium, an extremely hardy strain of bacteria, has survived 3 years attached to the outside of the International Space Station, 2020