Tag Archives: fiction

December 14, 2025 · 10:07 am

An ill wind

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Jackie Wells-Fauth

Imagine me writing about wind! Wonder what gave me the idea. Maybe it was the random bit of cardboard box that slapped me in the teeth as I stepped out into the “gentle breezes” this week!

There’s an old saying that goes something like: It’s an ill wind that blows no good. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I’m here to tell you that this is, indeed, an ill wind!

I’m used to the struggles we all have with the “light zephyr” type winds that spread their teasing fingertips across our land. Okay, it’s more like a sonic boom that has the power to knock you flat! Knowing all this, however, doesn’t make me any fonder of the blast and if my wording above misleads you, I can assure you that I am taking refuge in sarcasm!

It’s not that I don’t hope. I was checking my phone for the weather (and that’s a new one for me) and all of the sudden, it flipped to a new screen which said, “sunny skies, 69 degrees.” How wonderful! I knew I was on the wrong forecast, however, when it continued, “calm winds, quiet night.” Okay, so with my great technological skills, I had found the forecast for San Diego, California. Disappointing for here, but from the sounds of it, maybe I should go there!

But back to South Dakota and the less than calm winds we are getting. I went out to get the mail the other day and this was not on the worst day. I get my mail from a community mailbox stand and when I got it out, I laid the letters on top so I could turn back and lock my box.

Immediately, the wind picked up the top letter and flipped it to the ground. I debated: did I really want to get down between those two boxes to try to retrieve it? It could just be a bill, but then again, maybe it was a Christmas card—it is the season.

Getting down on my knees in the snow is probably pretty amazing for me, but getting back up is a Christmas miracle. I had retrieved the letter, however, and it was definitely a Christmas card. Standing there, so proud of my achievement, I reached up to get the rest of the letters from where I had placed them on top of the boxes. Just as I did, the wind flipped them onto the ground beyond the mailboxes and in the neighbor’s back yard.

They were scattered around and again, I considered how bad did I want to retrieve them. With my brand new coat’s long skirts (the reason I bought it) twisting around my legs and my not waterproof shoes wading through snow, I chased down all of those letters. Every one was an advertisement!

Oh well, at least I had the Christmas card. I put my hand down to be certain I had placed it in my pocket. In so doing, I knocked it out and the wind took it for another playful little run, with me running behind!

By the time I got it, the paper was somewhat saturated and the Christmas letter inside a little hard to read. But never fear, every one of those ads was warm, dry and undamaged. They also quickly hit the garbage!

The only other thing I had gotten in that ill wind was a couple of large rolls of Christmas paper, which I stacked on the landing to my front door, just a little above my head when I’m on the ground. I was going to fetch something else (I’m not remembering what), so I turned away just in time for the wind to blow both of those rolls of paper off, hitting me neatly in the back of the head.

By the time I got in with soggy mail and damp but dangerous Christmas paper, I was a trifle grumpy. I scraped the hair out of my face with my very best Taylor Swift gesture and said to the dog staring innocently up at me: “What are you looking at? I’ve been out on this lovely day and it just blew my mind!”

It’s an ill wind, folks! How far is it to San Diego, anyway?

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December 5, 2025 · 10:51 am

Letting it Hang

Jackie Wells-Fauth

Right now, as I’m writing, I’m looking at the wall behind my computer and I am rather proud of it. There are two framed photos, a calendar (on the wrong month) two cardboard pieces with chalk drawings and the painting I made at a painting party many years ago.

I love looking at these things, but Roy avoids looking at this wall because it offends all of his sensibilities. It’s not that he minds the things I have on the wall (well, maybe he wishes the calendar was right), it’s the way I have hung them up. I like to say that my ability to decorate a wall with artwork or pictures is somewhat random, if you know what I mean.

Where Roy will measure and estimate and carefully string up a hanger on the back of the item, I prefer the thumbtack and sticky tape method. As for placement, well, I’m a little random there as well. It’s hurtful to the eye of a man who prefers precision in the hangings on his walls.

He came out of the bathroom after his morning shower one day rubbing his shoulder and holding a framed picture that I had just hung up the day before.

“Why did you take that picture down? I want it to hang over the shower,” I whined.

“Explain why we need a picture over the shower in the bathroom, where no one is likely to notice it?”

“It’s a beautiful picture of rain on flowers; perfect for the shower,” I said. “Now why did you take it down?”

“I didn’t take it down. Your perfect rainfall picture fell on me when I got out of the shower,” he explained, handing me the picture. “What did you hang it up with?”

“That little needle, right there,” I said, pointing to a tiny shard of metal on the wall above the shower.

He shook his head, walking away. “It’s too small to hold that picture and besides, it’s way off center.”

“Well, I’m hanging it back up, so just watch yourself when you come out of the shower,” I said, defiantly.

“Just the words a fella wants to hear concerning his own bathroom,” he was getting sarcastic. “Maybe none of my relatives will have to use the toilet when they are here.”

It’s always the same. What should we hang up and where should we hang it? It’s a question that can at least cause ripples in a marriage. While I am holding the picture up approximately where it should go on the wall, he is dragging out the tape measure and sorting through his supplies of nails to figure out which one goes.

After hanging a picture recently that required him to get up and down on a ladder, he said to me, “Is this hanging evenly?”

“Yes, it looks just fine,” I answered. “Don’t worry about it.”

It seems those are exactly the wrong words to say to him about pictures. He climbed down off the ladder, stepped back to look at the picture, got back on the ladder, adjusted it (he didn’t ask my opinion that time), got down, looked again and went up for one final tweak. I’m convinced the last one wasn’t necessary; he was just showing off.

I have several more things that I would like to hang up, but I am going to wait until this latest round of marital picture hanging has faded into memory. In other words, I’m just going to let it hang!

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November 23, 2025 · 10:42 am

Day of Grace

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Jackie Wells Fauth

As a child, I really wanted to grow up to be a ballerina. Then I discovered you had to be in top athletic shape, practice continuously and most of all possess great balance and grace and I soon got over that notion.

Although I will never dance the lead in Swan Lake, I do try to be as coordinated and careful as I can, but the older I get, the harder this becomes. And this week, I abandoned all notion that I might be considered graceful and poised.

It’s the carpets that get me. I have discovered the joys and comforts of sneakers, but the one thing they don’t like is carpet…especially short nap carpet. I tend to drag my feet a little (okay, probably a lot) and I discovered this week that the combination of sneakers, short carpet, dragging feet and lack of grace can be pretty lethal.

While walking across a short carpet, I pulled a pretty complicated dance move. My shoes stopped short, but the rest of me kept on going. This meant that I took a headlong plunge across the front of the theater at the school. Not one of my finer moments and a bit startling for the student I was coaching in oral interp.

By the time he got over to where I was sprawled, full length, I was dazed but already trying to get up. I had a bloody nose and my glasses flew off and bent, but I was able to scramble to my feet. Perhaps the worst part was that the coffee mug I had been drinking from fell from my hands and landed just perfectly to cushion the fall for my face. This sounds like it might be fortunate, but it’s not!

A coffee mug to the face at full speed tends to “knock you for a loop” as they say, so it took me a few seconds to realize I was bleeding profusely from the nose. I charged headlong into the bathroom, frightening two girls so much, I think they may have kept running until they were several blocks from the school.

Everyone was sweet and helpful, and I got ice packs and cloths and whatever I needed. I was really panic stricken because my vision was completely blurred, but this fear was allayed when they handed me my glasses. Oh, yeah, those help! My vision was still a little fuzzy, but if I set the glasses on my face at just the right angle, they still work! Hopefully I can get them straightened soon!

My most painful injury was along my side where I hit the ground, but because of public decency laws, I can’t show those bruises to anyone. The least painful, but possibly the prettiest is my eye. It developed a shiner like no other and it has been all the colors of the rainbow for the past few days.

Now, I want to just ignore the fact that I have a black eye, but when half your face is swollen and purple, people tend to notice. I tried all the regular jokes, “You should see the other guy,” or “It was a heck of a bar fight, but I won.” It still ends with me having to admit that my lack of grace and addiction to coffee collided in a bad way.

I am already starting to lose the worst of the color from the eye and even my side isn’t as painful as it was, but the fact remains that this accident happened due to my careless way of walking; time to learn how to do that all over, I guess.

The doctor may have had the best suggestion moving forward. “Go home and rest,” she advised. “Relax, read (if you can) and have some coffee…but maybe we should try a sipper cup.” Sound advice to wrap up my day of no grace!

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October 31, 2025 · 2:28 am

Josie’s Dreams

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Jackie Wells-Fauth

I read an interesting article the other day. According to some study out there, dogs dream all the time. And more than that, their dreams are about us, their owners. I’m not sure who interviewed the canines for this or how it was accomplished, but how interesting.

I looked at my dog, Josie, lying on the floor, just waking up from her tenth nap of the day. She blinked up at me and I said, “You must have a lot of nightmares.”

She simply yawned and went back to sleep. She has nothing to worry about as long as she has Roy.

I generally refer to Josie as “stupid,” but in reality, she is pretty smart for a four-legged mammal who drinks out of the toilet and chews on a rubber pig for fun.

When we plan any trip or activity, I plan what to pack and who to visit and Roy plans for the dog. I love to stop and eat at a nice restaurant along the way on our frequent trips to see the kids. But we can’t do that with the dog along—unless we can find a spot that’s shady enough or warm enough, or just plain fine enough for the dog.

We once parked three blocks out of the way of a restaurant, so the dog was in a shady spot. That, while we strolled through the hot sun to get to the restaurant. But normally, she’s much nearer to us than that. Roy has been known to go out during a meal and move the car, so he has a better view of her circumstances. Now, I don’t want the dog to fry in the car, but I also dread the day when we invite her inside to enjoy a steak and fries and maybe some ketchup to dip them in!

It isn’t only when we travel that the dog lives well. She has chewed up countless dog beds, I presume in protest to the indignity of lying on the floor. She leaves them in absolute shreds while she commandeers the couch I had planned as a bunk for grandsons when they visit. Not that they would mind sharing with her one bit—she has them wrapped around her paw as well.

Josie is beginning to show her age—and aren’t we all? She’s getting gray around the muzzle, and she takes a little more effort to jump in the pickup for a hunting excursion. And after an hour or two of tramping through the tall grass and chasing pheasants, she’s pretty tired, but she and Roy still enjoy the outing!

But even this doggy-master romance has its rough patches. The dog came home with a limp and a sheepish air about her from their latest outing. I noticed with surprise that her best buddy had a bandage on his hand and an air of regret.

Turns out loading an aging dog is not so handily done as before and as Roy was helping her in, she caught her leg. Roy, not realizing this, continued to push and in her distress, Josie drove home her point by driving her teeth into his hand. She obviously felt bad about what was, for an animal, a purely instinctive survival action, but I couldn’t resist a little “jab” of my own.

“So, biting the hand that fees you, are you, dog? That is not very smart.”

She turned and gave me that grave, considering look she has, as though she’s mentally measuring me for a pine box and a hole in the ground.

Yeah, I don’t think I’d care to analyze any dreams that dog has about me!

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October 26, 2025 · 4:39 am

Gremlin Gripes

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Jackie Wells-Fauth

At this rather spooky time of year, I must tell you that I believe a gremlin has attached itself to me. And the grabby little bugger is causing no end of trouble.

On our recent vacation, we spent two nights in Dover, England, where they tell me the spirits of sailors lost in the English Channel wander the streets. I assumed these were just tales designed to enhance the city’s mystique, but now I wonder.

We spent the nights there in a charming old building along the harbor. In the middle of the first night, I awoke because the bathroom light went on. I assumed Roy was in there until I put out a hand and he was in bed.

When you’re half asleep, you really don’t reason things. I got up, went to the bathroom and turned off the light. When I mentioned it to Roy the following morning, he said, “Faulty wiring.”

So, when it happened again the second night, I said, “Roy the faulty wiring is acting up. Go shut it off.” And then it went off by itself. It continued this most of the night until finally I sat up in bed and said, “Casper, knock it off.” That was it. No more “faulty wiring.”

Since then, I seem to have acquired a gremlin, who doesn’t steal my things so much as borrow them. Every time I lose something, Grady (he doesn’t seem to like the name Casper) watches while I frantically look for it, and then, casually returns it to some obvious place where I’ve already looked.

I lost my phone while we were still in Europe, a financial disaster in any case, but also, a loss of our means of communication if we were separated. I looked frantically through every pocket, counter, crevice and my purse, a dozen times. Exhausted, I decided to search the room one last time. There, lying peacefully, in the middle of the mattress, was my phone. I could almost hear Grady the Gremlin laughing.

I said, “Go back to Dover and leave me alone.”

Grady apparently decided he would like to try out the New World, so he followed me home. In the days since I have been home, I have lost and “reacquired” about a dozen items. I could not find the best soup ladle I have ever had and tore the kitchen apart, only to discover that it was sitting ever so sweetly on top of the microwave. I didn’t have soup in the microwave, so it must have been Grady.

My best pair of sewing scissors disappeared out of my sewing bag. I searched and searched, cursing Grady as I went, and eventually ended up using the kitchen shears, which are great for cutting meat, but not so fine for snipping threads. On the second night, I put my hand in the sewing bag, and my good scissors scratched my fingers. They were perched on the top of some balls of yarn. Score another one for Grady.

The latest “Grady grab” was my calendar. I use a paper calendar, in a big purple book that can’t be missed and if I can’t find it, it’s like having amnesia. I don’t know anything that’s going on. I missed it while at the school, so I thought I had simply left it at home. I went home and looked everywhere without any success. I’d already looked at the school, so I was stymied.

Finally, given no other options, I returned to the school and started asking people if they had seen it. (Unfortunately, I don’t write my name in it.) No luck. I was frantic. What would I do without my practice schedules?

Completely frustrated, I said to Grady, “Okay, enough is enough. I need that book, or they are going to put me in the home for having lost my mind.” I walked into the theater and there was the calendar, lying right out in the open where I had frantically searched an hour before.

I have my calendar again, but I am still a little worried: Might they put me in the home anyway for talking to an invisible gremlin? I know you’re laughing, Grady, and you can just stop!

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September 5, 2025 · 10:04 am

A sticky situation

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Jackie Wells-Fauth

It was a tricky kind of holiday weekend. For starters, it was cooler than anticipated and yet unpleasantly humid. My daughter and her family were here, so of course, some major issue went wrong in the house because that is how my husband and son-in-law usually spend one of their visits here.

The upstairs toilet decided to spring a leak, causing it to drip downstairs…directly onto the toilet in the lower-level bathroom. What an exciting Labor Day weekend, laboring in the bathroom over a misbehaving toilet! We all avoided the upstairs restroom and made use of the lower level, especially after the upstairs toilet stopped sending down sewer showers!

We waited patiently while the two amateur plumbers removed the toilet (an event in itself), cleared away any debris, applied new adhesives and reset the toilet. Before it was finished, it was supper time and unexpectedly, as happens sometimes, I felt the need to go to the powder room.

No problem, right? All I had to do was go down to the lower-level bathroom and accommodate myself. I didn’t mention that I was going, as preparations upstairs went noisily forward with putting supper on and gathering together at the table. I gave a great sigh and relaxed for a moment on the downstairs commode, enjoying a moment of quiet in a hectic weekend.

It was as I attempted to finish and rise from the toilet that my dilemma became clear. I couldn’t get up. Something had a firm hold on the back of my shirt and it wouldn’t allow me to get up. I tried, unsuccessfully, to extricate myself, but nothing seemed to help. It was in those first moments of disbelief – I could not possibly be stuck to the toilet – that suddenly the door banged wide open, and my four-year-old grandson announced, “Hi Grandma. Whatcha doin?”

He scared the life out of me, but it wasn’t enough incentive to get me loose from the toilet. I heard voices upstairs, calling him to supper and so he turned and ran upstairs, leaving the door to the bathroom wide open.

I know what you’re thinking now: It would be so simple to call upstairs and explain my situation, whatever that was. But the fact that I was sitting there, with my sticky dilemma exposed to the world should everyone come running down, gave me pause. I didn’t want everyone to come flooding down into the bathroom while I was stuck, immovably, on the toilet!

Likewise, pulling my shirt off didn’t seem advisable because I wasn’t sure how I might get myself out of it and even if I could, I didn’t want to walk upstairs dressed basically in my underwear. I continued to wiggle and squirm and try to get myself loose, but that toilet had me in a firmer grip than the loser at a wrestle-mania main event.

It was time to take stock of the situation: I had not told anyone that I was coming down here, and I object to the idea of holding supper because someone is late getting there, so they wouldn’t be looking for me anytime soon. It also seemed unlikely that the four-year-old was going to tell them anything and even if he did, be honest; if a four-year-old were to say to you, “Grandma’s stuck on the toilet,” would you take him seriously?

I figured the older two grandsons, and their father (and maybe their grandfather) would try to get some video footage before they helped me and that thought caused me to make a massive effort and finally wrench myself loose! Heaving a sigh of relief, I washed my hands and ran up the steps, to where everyone was already eating. They nearly choked with laughter as I regaled them with my adhesive adventure.

It turned out that when the amateur plumbers applied serious adhesives to the upstairs toilet, it unknowingly dripped down through the floor/ceiling and settled a little bit on the inside of the toilet seat lid of the lower-level toilet. Now I know there were worse places (and things) that could have been glued together in that incident, but I assure you that five minutes with my shirt stuck tenaciously to a toilet seat lid was more than enough fun for me! Next time, I plan to inspect the facilities a little more closely!

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