All of these were great!

The Almost there challenge is now closed.

This week's prompt is Cookie Jar.

Winter Wonderland

She tugged the collar of her coat up tighter under her chin, the cloche farther down over her ears. Eyes squinting against the wind, she wiped the tears off her cheeks. This winter was beating all winters for records: record number of subzero days, record snow fall, record flooding of the rivers south of town. While she waited, she imagined the fireplace roaring at her parent's house, hot chocolate in hand, warm, toasty, loved. Looking up when she heard footsteps coming down the sidewalk, she toed the penguin shaped cookie jar a little farther out.

"Got any spare change, buddy?"

She considers her options before plunging in. She hangs weightless in the ether. There are beautiful things to be had. Worlds to create. Realtime, there are lights flashing, buzzes buzzing. They go on flashing and buzzing, ignored.

She has potential. Possibilities. To select is to begin. Selection also marks an ending, of potential. So she waits and considers. She is still considering when her laptop battery starts to run out, and she promises she will return to take on the cookie jar.

(that is to say, keep doing these - they're great.)

Just a bit of nonsense in response to the challenge... ================================

Joe ducked low, zigzagged through the alley, darted into the street, ignored the honks of angry drivers and made it to the sidewalk, vaulted over a wall, dodged an angry Rottweiler to climb a chain link fence, climbed into a window, sidled into the kitchen and grabbed a cookie from the cookie jar, snuck out the back door ran down the side yard, dashed into the woods, strolled down the path , followed the gravel road past the old abandoned farmhouse, and was almost home, when he clumsily tripped over a clause, smacked his head painfully on a comma, suffered traumatic amnesia, and forgot the subject of this sentence.

typo wins!

I dunno, I like 'em both, Sox. I think I tend to go a little for the melodramatic, so levity of any form is always a welcome thing for me.

Speaking of, I had another two hour meeting. Guess what you guys get out of it--two drabbles on a continuing theme.

Matched Set

He lifted another newspaper-wrapped parcel out of the box. Everything in the box was wrapped in it. The drinking glasses had already been pulled out, unwrapped, and placed in the dishwasher. Wrapping with newspaper left behind black smudges on hands and dishes, but it was cheap.

This particular lumpy package held two parts of a larger matching set: a sugar bowl and coffee creamer. The cookie jar was missing. She must have taken the penguin shaped jar with her since they'd said she was too young to start drinking coffee yet.

He wondered if his hands would ever be clean.

Home Decorating

Dingy grey tile in the hallway led to worn burgundy carpeting in the living area. A double bed, single dresser and one shabby chair crowded the room. The kitchen, one wall of the hallway, faced the door leading into the bathroom.

She set her purse down on the dresser and emptied the pockets of her apron. They held a little over forty dollars in crumpled bills and loose change.

Taking the money into the kitchen, she opened the penguin shaped cookie jar and stuffed her tips into it.

She'd buy a toaster, or maybe a coffee maker; she'd earned it.

These are good, Sail, but they are making the penguin-shaped cookie jar in my kitchen a little nervous.

Hee. So sorry. I just picked an image and stuck with it. That way, you can either look at all three as a connected triptych or you can hold each one individually with a, just happens to be a penguin shaped, cookie jar. I promise, no penguin shaped cookie jars were harmed in the making of these drabbles.

Sail, you're on fire! More meetings, I say!

And now for something completely different...

"Cookie jar"

Her therapist claims she has impulse control issues. She doesn’t argue the point, same way she wouldn’t argue where the sun rises or the utility of a little black dress.

Once she wants, she doesn’t like to wait to have. Life’s too short, she thinks, admiring the view as the new guy walks out of her office, cheap suit too loose, trousers too long. He’s young; it’s probably his first.

When O’Brien catches them, she just smiles, tucks the kid back into his pants. It won’t be the last time she gets caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

Oh, I like that Amy. I'm always so literal, my cookie jars are never anything but cookie jars. Yours sound like so much more fun.