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bleusman — Concerning the Roof
Published: 2011-07-29 21:10:53 +0000 UTC; Views: 63; Favourites: 0; Downloads: 0
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Description
They said they wanted everything done "to spec," so that's what I did. To think that they'd blame me when it starts leaking on them and their three year old gets struck by lightning, well, that's just ridiculous. He said "build me a roof out of Chex Mix" and that's exactly what I did. It smelled awful, to be perfectly frank with you, and I kept eating the good ones and maybe only the weird ones that looked like sausage were on the roof but I did it like they told me to. And I'm sticking to this story, much like a bunch of melted grainy gross things stuck to my skin every day.Of course, my coworker insists that I misheard things. That he actually didn't say "build me a roof out of Chex Mix" but actually "can you please fix the leaky roof." But I know what I heard. And I really like Chex Mix, so don't think that I just randomly heard some silly thing about snack food. Though I'm sorry about that baby, I hope she didn't get too hurt.
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Comments: 1
Before I start, I'm just going to say that a lot of this will probably be fairly nit-picky. It's difficult with a piece this short to be otherwise, I think, unless there are glaring horrors (which there aren't).
Your opening sentence does everything it needs to - draws the reader in with a little 'mystery' - though you go from 'they said' to 'he said' throughout the rest, which while not confusing is slightly inconsistent. I'd lose the word 'that' in the second sentence - 'To think they'd blame me...' flows just a little more smoothly. The 'punchline' in sentence three is spot on, nice timing, nice simple sentence, very funny (even though as a Brit I'm not 100% sure what Chex Mix actually is...). 'maybe only the weird ones that looked like sausage were on the roof' sounds awkward, particularly the last part; perhaps try something like '...that looked like sausage ended up as roofing'. And then a comma before 'but I did it...'. I think the addition of 'those' to the last sentence in the first paragraph (ie, 'a bunch of those melted grainy gross things...') would help there. Even though the context is all there, I think that extra word ties it in more strongly. I must admit that as first I wasn't sure what you were talking about there.
The second paragraph is all fine - particularly like the ending - except I don't like the sentence which begins 'And I really like Chex Mix'. I feel like it doesn't make sense. How does really liking Chex Mix negate the possibility of randomly hearing something silly? Wouldn't liking Chex Mix a lot (obsessively) make it more likely to mishear? There does need to be another sentence in there before the end, to validate the 'I know what I heard', but this isn't it, and unfortunately I have no alternative suggestions off the top of my head.
Overall, this is a fun little vignette; it's original, humorous, with a slight bittersweet tinge to it. Not bad for a couple hundred words 
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