Once I jumped off the corporate train and decided to learn how to be a writer, I took various jobs to bring in a decent paycheck while the husband went back to school for his much more obvious and lucrative career-change path. One of the jobs I fell into during those years was at a dental office. In the 18 months or so I was there, I amassed enough material for several novels, if I could manage to move through those mental files without shivering. The other day I made myself take some notes on that experience and what I came up with inspired shorties two days in a row (I’m writing this story post on Monday the 26th). The shorty for the day happens to mark a “first” for me: I am almost certain that I have never used the word “pussy” in a story before. In fact I can’t remember ever having mentioned lady parts before at all, but if I did, I wouldn’t have used that word, as I tend to be priggish about crude words for lady parts (though I can talk like a sailor in every other way). Anyway, I used the word SEVEN times in this very short story. So I’m thinking I can go another 10 years of writing without using it again, yes?
Working Title: In the Chair
1st Sentence: The boy who made her miserable in middle school, who labeled her “Tammi Tuna” because, supposedly, her “pussy stank like fish,” has grown into a man who just swung himself into her dental chair and is telling her about the pain he’s been feeling in his right lower molar, the one in the very back.
Favorite Sentence: I would kill for such a powerful pussy, she wants to say now, a pussy like that could win the war on terror, negotiate peace between Israel and Palestine, orchestrate a world-wide nuclear freeze, a pussy like that could win the goddamned Nobel fucking Peace Prize you gigantic pimple-faced PRICK.
Word Length: 550
Photo of a dental chair in the University of Michigan School of Dentistry 3/2010.
Daily Shorty 
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