Three Minutes Giving Santa a Present

Normanday #106: Don’t give the poor guy socks or underwear.

Write for three minutes about…

…the present you plan to give to Santa Claus.

Email what you wrote to bigfootreads dot wernert at gmail dot com by the end of the day December 15 (put “Norman Knows It’s Better to Give Than to Receive” in the subject line). I’ll post as many of my favorite entries as I want next Monday. Include your first name (or, even better, use a pen name) and age (unless you’re tortoise-old).

Here is the single entry from last week when I asked you to write for three minutes about…

…the woman examining oranges in the produce department.

Tren Rewy Steb

She was there when I came into the store. Squeezing the oranges. I didn’t think much about it at the time. I mostly noticed that her sweater was bright orange. I snickered to myself imagining that she was in camouflage. I was in the store a long time, going up and down the aisles getting everything on my list. A couple of times I had to backtrack because I’d forgotten something. When I passed the produce section again on my way to the checkout, I was surprised to see the Orange Lady still squeezing oranges. 

But no, she wasn’t squeezing them. I watched as she picked one up and lift it to her mouth. I couldn’t believe it. Was she going to take a bite out of it? That would be weird both because she hadn’t yet paid for it and because it hadn’t been peeled.

But no, she didn’t bite the orange. She whispered to it. Then she put it to her ear. She shook her head, then put the orange back. She selected another, whispered to it, and then put it to her ear. Again and again she repeated this. 

I’ll always wonder if she put the oranges back because they didn’t answer or because she didn’t like what they had to say.