Absurd Titles

My son and I like to play a game.  We technically don’t have a name for the game, but for the purpose of this story, we’ll call it “absurd titles”.

We are both avid readers and when I was working and could afford it, we would spend an entire afternoon at Barnes and Noble’s.  

The game was played thusly: we’d see a title of a book and make up the plot on the spot to make each other laugh. Simple. 

Over the years however, the game has evolved.  We now make up our own titles.  The first time we did this, we were in the car driving around Palm Coast Florida as one does, when there was an alligator by the canal next to Walmart.  Also by the canal were Florida’s ubiquitous meth addicts.

I suddenly came up with a title Meth, Alligators, and Nothing to Do. It sounded exceptionally outrageous to our ears and we laughed and laughed and then went to Dollar Tree where there wasn’t an alligator.

Now the thing is, it’s been quite a few years, and this fictitious story still hasn’t been written.  Dino would like to tackle it, as would I.  Part of the problem is, he is a little boy who only knows that meth is a street drug and has only visited Florida for short periods of time.  What could he possibly write about?

What could I for that matter write?  Sure, I’ve met people who were former meth addicts, in Newark, however the Floridian ones are a different breed entirely.  The nothing to do part, anyone could write, because there is literally nothing to do in Florida.  It’s God’s waiting room, you wait to die there or you visit people who are waiting to die.  I unfortunately have a lot of experience with both death and Florida.  The alligator bit also proves tricky.  They’re there, they occasionally attack people, more often then not it’s the people using the alligators to attack others or rob liquor stores, but other than that they’re breathing dinosaurs (I hesitated to say living because they don’t “live” they exist, as I stated earlier, one does not live in Florida you wait.  Then, there is the whole business of meth gators, but the science isn’t yet conclusive.

At first, I had decided that this needed to be a novel.  Then, I thought, I’ve never written a novel in my life, I tend to write short stories.  So, short story then, but still, the plot evades me.  

Dino still wishes to write it.  Should this be a mother and son contest?  When he’s older of course.  I can’t have a child writing about drugs.  And this isn’t the only absurd title!

Other titles that I have kept a list of are:

The Devil Sings Cher on Tuesdays (Dino added the Tuesday bit)

Blanket on the Coffee Table (all Dino)

A Naked Murder Mystery (we laughed way too hard at that one)

Pudding, Flan and Other Soft Desserts (not a cookbook)

Guide to Finding a Toothbrush in the Apocalypse (both of us, but I don’t fully remember)

There have been others, but these are the ones we laughed the most at.  Will any of them ever get “fleshed out” as they say?  Maybe.  I’ve been bored, but generally need quiet to write.  It’s been far to long since I’ve written a story.  It might be time.