Rules: After we collaborate as a class to fill in a series of “Mad Libs Story Scenes,” I’m going to give you each a prompt you must write a short story / scene describing in detail. The more zany and ridiculous, the better, honestly. However, there’s a few catches.
- The words supplied by the class (i.e. the added “Mad Libs”) cannot be explicitly written in your scene. Show us, don’t tell us that your scene is about a penguin farmer whose evil plot is eliminating their essential cuteness.
- To complete your mission, you are going to have to rely on developing a sense of character, setting, detail, description, and dialogue. Make us feel like we are there!
- After you write your scene, post it here. We’ll then switch off reading it, as dramatically as possible. Our goal will be to guess 1) the plot / characters you have written about, but perhaps more importantly, what emotion / tone you have taken to enliven your story.
Have fun with this!
A quirky explorer who goes by the name Sam is lost on a beautiful island. Waking up on the beach he looks out on the emerald green water. He thinks about going for a swim, but he turns around and notices the palm tree lined forest behind him. Sam, lost and confused shakes off the sand and decides to head for the forest. About a mile in, Sam sees a ruffling in the bushes next to a pond. As Sam heads over, he sees a squatty tail sticking out he reaches out to grab it, but it scuttles away. Sam could see this strange animal clearly now, It had a hard long beak and his body looked like a mixture between a tiny alligator and a beaver. Sam captured the unusual animal and brought it back to the beach front with him.
Once there was an animal that people in Africa loved to hunt. They were gray, and monstrous, with old wrinkly and tough skin, but cuddly on the inside. They loved to play and had cute babies. Their tusks continually got in their way. One day one of these creatures was playing in a pond when something hooked onto it’s tusk. The other creatures roared in fear of what had happened. An outdoorsman had captured it using a metal object. It wasn’t a typical metal object used for hunting or fishing. It was curved with an edge and could be used to tighten nuts and bolts. Even though this animal could dodge a ball, it couldn’t dodge this. Unfortunately, the pull of this object was strong enough to pull in this animal and capture him.
Hello guys, it is Jack from Australia. I would like to report my owner for animal abuse, he has done many crazy things in the past but this is the last straw. It always starts with him putting something in my pouch. In the past he has put super glue in my pouch, let’s just say my pouch was not created to put super glue in there. He has also had me watch a video of someone of my species getting hit by a man in the face just for holding a dog. I am not sure if he is trying to show some type of statement. He could be threating me that I will get smacked in the face, or maybe he wishes he had a dog because it is “Man’s best friend,” but I wish he would get a dog so he can see it isn’t just me who doesn’t like him. Recently he has been throwing this object that I have never seen. It looks like the object that has been used to kill people. However he has shot it before at his child, but instead of blood coming from his body this foam like object came off of him. Then the child start laughing, so it seems that it doesn’t hurt when getting hit by it. However he throws this object or toy at me telling me, “Jack fetch.” The problem is that I ain’t a dog, I ain’t gonna run after this object that has killed my species with.
I put on my red and black checkered skirt. I grabbed my musical instrument and blew as hard as I could. It’s loud, screeching noise filled every inch of the chamber where all the magic happened. I stopped, listened to the cacophony bounce around, and blew again. This time however, I tickled the underside of the sac of the instrument, hoping that the ritual I performed before would transform this object into another object that could shout, “Pull it!”, “Spin It”, and, “Twist it!” and I would do as such unto it.
Bill White always believed that he had to work hard and honest for the money and success he got. This was an important lesson he thought would get him far in life to keep his family financially secure. He was never one to take risks or get involved with risky buisness. The Whites were you average upperclass family, Bill had a wife and 2 kids. They sat down for dinner every night promptly at 7 where they would share their days and tell about their successes over a home cooked meal Mrs. White cooked. Bill always thought that if he kept up his hard work and went above and beyond the expectations at work that he would eventually move up in the company. It wasn’t until Friday the 13th that he was corned with a strange proposition at work. Bill’s boss asked him to perform a less than honest task for one day in return for a promotion. Bills boss said, “Bill, if you get all these packages delivered by the end of the day, i will promote you tomorrow, and we will never speak of this again.”
As Samantha was cleaning the plates from dinner in the kitchen, she began to sing and dance to the background music of “Slumdog Millionaire.” Her family was watching the movie in the other room so she could hear the songs. She pretended she was in India singing and dancing to the traditional style of this country, which is presented in this movie. However, she soon became worried that the neighbors had seen her and felt horrified.
The cold reaches of the ice caps kept James mind off tax exemptions. He was worried about his mortality tables back at work, but his coworkers were covering for him for now. However, James knew he did not have forever and his boss would soon see through his coworkers’ ruse.
In the distance the blizzard started kicking up and tumbling towards him, and the long trailed paved in the snow beneath James’ feet began to fade away. At James’ advanced age, he knew he did not have long before he had to turn back. He began to wonder if this expedition was worth the trip. He muttered to himself quietly, trying to conserve his strength, “will I ever see her again?”
And there she was, across the iceberg! Her green and brown scales curling up as her cold blood couldn’t handle the intense snow storm. James winced as his snow cap was blown off. He did not have much time to scoop her and dip, so he ran towards his pet snake without delay. The cold and wind pushed him to his limits; more difficult than any professional exam he had ever taken. James’ pet was struggling as he approached her, her eyes seemed colder than her blood. James’ chase was over.
As Don sat in his office sipping his old-fashioned at 10am while thinking what slogan would take the sixties families away from their dinner tables and into Burger Chef, he noticed chaos in the hallway. “Mr. Draper”, his secretary interrupted, “you should come out here?” “What had Roger done this time?” he thought to himself as he opened the door and noticed the biggest dog he had ever seen roaming around the company’s floor in the Madison Avenue high-rise. Was it really a dog though? It was definitely of the canine variety, but that size was definitely not usual. As Don approached it carefully, since no other employee dared to, he was startled by the animal’s frightening howl, and found himself lying on his office couch. Whiskey at 10am was not always a good idea.
The concert hall was beaming with a laser light show that made your eyes had a seizure. Thousands upon thousands of ravenous fans flooded the hall, kicking and screaming like an aborted fetus. Up on the stage, the marvelous and dazzling singer wore an outfit resembling a chunk of ham and lauded her audience for being here to see her show despite her relationship with her fans being a bad romance. She proceeds to bring out a special guest: a marvelous beast from a faraway land. Its skin was white like snow. Its figure was shaped like a horse but it had a sharp horn protruding out from its head. The singer tried to command the beast to conform to her weird dance sequences but alas it refused! It seemed that the beast thought the piece of ham to be of a lower status than itself and immediately proceeded to kick the poor artist off the stage and into the ravenous audience.
“Excuse me miss, is everything alright?”
Her palms were sweating and she was shaking at her knees.
“Uh… yeah. I’m fine, it’s just a little warm,” she replied.
“Alright, well if you need any assistance putting your carry-on into the overhead, let any of know and we’ll be glad to assist you.”
It’s interesting how everyone has different things they can handle, or on the contrary, have difficulty to overcome. The night before, this woman was handling dead bodies with a one-of-a-kind eager. Before putting a body through the cremation chamber, it was a ritual of hers to ride a skateboard around the room, followed by doing 11 jumping jacks and then play a game of tic-tac-toe with herself. However, after getting into her seat, she was biting her nails, sweating profusely, and her eyes were shifting left and right.
“Preparing for take off,” announced the overhead speaker.
“Oh lordy,” were her last words before passing out in the seat.
It was only a week after they started dating, and Albert wanted nothing more than to show Sandra that he was worth it. Albert; however, was never good at impressing anyone, especially girls. Albert’s professional intelligence screamed through his red square glasses and buttoned up collared shirt. His scrawny stature was the kind that made him sink into the shadows. But, his confidence did not match his intelligence. On their one week anniversary, Albert invited Sandra on a date to the Union on UT’s campus. Underneath all the classrooms, study rooms, and ballrooms, there existed a darker room lit by neon purple black lights and strips of long, polished, wooden runways. The couple strapped into their red and white stripped Velcro shoes. But before they began to play, Albert suggested she watch him perform a trick he learned in high school. He bent down, using all the muscle he could muster in his thin, bony arms to lift the eight-pound ball. As he began to pull up, his fingers lost their grip, and the ball poured out of his hands and onto Sandra’s feet. Their relationship broke just as Sandra’s toes did, on that very night.
Jason walked into store with a pair of Gucci sunglasses, Gucci shoes and a Burberry coat. He walked around the store quickly from aisle to aisle as if he was looking for something important. When he walked down the snack aisle, he paused. His eyes were locked on a girl dressed similar as him, except with a pair of Prada sunglasses, Prada shoes and a Chanel bag. On her wrist, there was something that he wanted really badly. He walked up to her and as she turned her head towards him, he could smell a breeze of Miss Dior perfume on her.
“Hey,” he said, “is it possible for me to buy that thing on your wrist?”
“Oh there’s no way. This was a gift from my grandfather and he said that it was the last one produced by the company,” she said as she glared at Jason.
She noticed that Jason kept his eyes on her wrist so she began running away from him as Jason started chasing her.
I am in a concert that is extremely full. No one is sitting down everyone is jumping up and down, drinking and yelling. Out comes the main act, Metallica they played their best hits and after a while for some reason someone in the audience threw an instrument to the stage. It looked like an instrument used in indian music. Of course it broke, but the musician started playing a song with it. It sounded like nothing I had ever heard, it was kind of weird. A few months later it became a big hit.
Red. A deep scarlet red plastered along the walls, floors, and, my god, even the kitchen table. How could I even begin to hide this delicious bloodbath from….her. I remember my last spanking like it was 30 years ago, and there’s no way I can go back. Maybe it was 40, I’m not too sure, but the PTSD haunts me in the night. I quickly grab all the available helpers I can- Buzz Lightyear, my one true hero, and Elmo (I assume his red touch will help mask the unspeakable tragedy)-and play my all-time favorite soundtrack to get into the mood. Nothing screams “I have to fix this up or else I’m going to be in ‘Big Trouble Mister’” like the clean-up song. Damn I love that song. My large, masculine figure tucked into this Star Wars onesie really has its drawbacks in terms of flexibility. I move as quickly as I can, but there’s no cleaning up a spill this voluminous and squishy. It feels like guts between my fingers, and I whisper “cool” under my breath. There’s just something about getting messy that is just so cool.
*Click*
Oh my god she’s home, WHAT DO I DO?
“Lil shnoogie bear I’m home! Where’s my favorite little man?”
Her angelic voice lifts me in this moment, but I know her demonic screech is only moments away. Pray for me, and give my linkin logs to Greg next door. He’s so much younger than me, but that man can build the hell out of some logs.
“JOHNATHON MICHAEL WILBERT!”
My final moments are here, surrounded by those I love and a puddle of Chef Boyardee’s finest. I take one final bite before I’m pulled by the ear into the other room.
How did it come to this? Aladdin wondered as he stared off into the distance and watched the sun slowly sink behind the dunes in the distance.
“Looks like you messed her up pretty good,” the mechanic said as he wiped off his hands with the old rag he kept in his back pocket.
“How long do you think the repairs will take?” Aladdin asked with trepidation.
“At least a week. We have to order some parts from our supplier. I haven’t seen a fringe this torn since I was a boy.”
That was not what Aladdin wanted to hear. Jasmine was expecting him to meet her at their palace by the beach in a few days.
“So what are my options?”
The mechanic sighed and said, “well, come with me,” as he made his way out of the shop and around to the back where he kept the rentals.
The area was filled with a mixture of old and new rentals. Some of them had corners that were black and rounded with years of use. The logos were faded from the constant grasping by the renters. The new rentals still held the same shape they had when they came out of the factory. The color was consistent throughout the rental with pristine logos.
“We have Pink Pearl, Staedtler, and the generic Office Depot available. The Pink Pearls are known for their speed but they make some renters nervous because they have a tendency to hug the ground. Staedtler have a smoother ride and are preferred by families who just need to get the job done. They fly at a higher altitude for a smoother ride. Do you have a preference?”
Aladdin let his head fall back as he contemplated his life choices that led to this moment. Who knew choosing a rental was such a big deal?
“I’ll take the Pink Pearl.”
The moon shone bright on Halloween night in Austin, TX as John made his way to a friend’s apartment. He felt stupid in his costume, walking on all fours, the long horns protruding from the top of his head. “People aren’t going to know what I’m supposed to be,” John thought to himself as he walked up to the door. Taking a deep breath, John entered the apartment and was greeted by a swarm of oddly dressed people. John created a path in the crowd as the horns on the top of his head pushed people out of the way. As the crowd thinned out, John spotted another cow-like creature in the corner. It was his friend Stephen, dressed in the exact same costume as John himself, complete with the long horns on the top of his head. Laughing, John and Stephen were proud to be dressed as the pride and joy of the University of Texas.
He was plastering his face with make up and powder resembling a tween girl who cakes on her foundation. While preparing to perform at Michael’s 5th birthday party he realized his final spongy accessory that completes his signature look was missing. He stormed into his partner’s changing room carrying a sharp blade with a long wooden handle.
“Where is my nose?” Bimbo shouted while violently swinging his weapon as he noticed his partner was wearing the obnoxiously round, bright nose.
Unfortunately, Michael’s birthday party was cancelled due to this deathly duel.
At 13 my world started to change I wanted my parents stop fighting so much. I would always hear that same saying “you son of a bitch.” For some reason I thought it pertained to me. I hated people at my school because of this, I hated the world because of this. I didn’t see the need to live, until I met my best friend one day. He would always tell me what to do and I would listen. I just hated that would could never physically touch or talk. I loved him like a little brother that I never had. I drank this drink it was toxic and I had no idea. I felt off for the next few days and woke up one day and my body was stronger and more flexible. I could turn into anything I wanted but I still missed my friend.
He had spent all of the $40 his mother had given him on this one game. A prepossessing girl shifts uneasily four feet behind him, desperate to leave. He digs his hand in his pocket searching for just one more coin, he was determined to beat the previous players high score. Empty. He glances back at the girl anxiously, afraid she might scamper off soon. She puts on an unsettled smile, and takes another step back. Afraid that he is running out of time to impress her, he looks around him. His eyes land on a plump little boy just two lanes down, couldn’t be more than 6 or 7 covered in freckles, cotton candy in one hand and a small round object in the other. Not caring about anything but winning the girl, he sprints over to the boy, shoving him onto the dirt floor and stealing not only the object in his hand but all of the balls coming out of the narrow shoot. The kid bawls, but he doesn’t care. He goes back to his lane. Five more tries. He rolls the first one up the ramp. 5 points. The second one follows. 5 points. He aims the third one to the top, desperate to score the 30. Misses. 10 points. That’s better. He takes the fourth ball in his hands, knowing without a doubt this was the one. This ball was going to get the girl. He pulls his arm back, swings it forward and releases the ball. It goes up, rising higher and higher it goes to the top of the 30, it starts to drop to it, almost in slow motion, his heart starts racing, knowing that it is going to go in. The ball takes a sudden turn goes around the hole and drops all the way down. 0 points. Frustrated he takes the last ball, throws it at the girl, runs to the still crying boy, steals his cotton candy and escapes the carnival. Never to return again.
Max stood over his brother. Brown mud and bright red blood stained his black and white exterior as he attempted to process the previous five minutes.
“What have I done,” Max thought to himself. “This was never supposed to happen.”
The 1,000-pound animal attempted to dust himself off. He limped towards the buffet counter, staring at his greasy prize. But then the remorse kicked in.
“He deserved it more than me,” Max said.
It had been two weeks since Max had his last meal. A devastating drought plagued his home prairie, known by locals as the “Chris” Rock. With empty stomachs, Max and his brother roamed for days on an empty stomach, searching for any scraps they could find.
And what they found seemed like a miracle. A 15-foot wide counter with the word “Schmorgesborg” painted on the top. But the stand was all but empty, with just one mushy sandwich left.
“We thought it was an old hamburger at first,” Max recalls. “Then the tomato sauce smell kicked in and we knew it was a whole different animal.”
The two looked at each other with nostrils flaring. Max doesn’t remember what happened next, but when his mind returned to reality he found his brother motionless on the ground.
“It wasn’t worth it,” Max recalls. “I can’t even eat gluten.”
One day after school a group of middle school boys went to Alan’s house and decided to play truth or dare. Nathan was one of the friends that went to play the game, it was his first day being included with the group and when it was his turn he decided to choose the “dare.” Most of the boys had been picking the option of “truth” and he wanted to stay in the group so he chose the “dare.” This was when Alan brought food in a plate, which looked like red, circular meat that had a few white dots. Nathan did not know what it was but he was embarrassed to back out. He ate what Alan gave him as his other friends just watched him with a blank stare on their face. It was not exactly a sad face but as Nathan ate what he was given, his friends started looking down and some let their head fall back as if they were suffering more than Nathan as he completed his dare.
A rhythmic knocking on my skull gets me up at noon for the third time this week. I walk to the bathroom and greet my babies.
“Good morning Celexa, Zoloft, Lunesta.”
Mama’s gotta take her vitamins.
“Who wants meatloaf tonight!”
“Ah!” “What the ouchhhhh!!” “UGH.”
Oh no, now what will tommy use to simulate blue collar American jobs?!? (exasperated)
(phone dialing)
“Hi honey!! So so sorry to interrupt your busy day at work, but where is the super glue?”
“None? Okay, I’ll just figure it out.”
Sticky…sticky…stickyyy… what is sticky…..
Stickers will do….
Attach this here… stick this there… just…like…new…
Great job, rock star.
Disney World was not on his wish list. Things definitely changed since the last visit which was 70 years ago. The only thing that has not changed was Mickey mouse, which does not seem to age at all. Among all the rides, my parents want to get on a roller coaster, which had an age limit of 115, and they did not hesitate to lie about their age to get on it. It seemed like a roller coaster was definitely not a good idea for Alfred. He gently took off his glasses and his denture in a basket right next to his cane, which he got for his birthday from his parents. Even before a roller coaster started moving, he could barely open his eyes throughout a ride. When he finally got off from a roller coaster, he turned back and saw his parents all excited talking about their next ride.