Souvenirs from Cape Cod: 4 Writing Prompts with the Cheesiest Cheeze-It Snack Exchange and a God-Awful Harriet Tubman
The things you find when you take a Mini road trip
We left the safety of our quiet little gay village this week to venture up Cape into the big city.
Hyannis, population 14k and change. It’s huge.
“But wait!” cries our gentle reader, looking at yonder map.
Yonder in this article means above.
“You said you went “up” when clearly Hyannis is south of Provincetown. South equals down, dude—aren’t you an English teacher?”
Gentle reader, you are correct.
For those not familiar with Cape Cod, up is down here. East is Lower, West is Upper, and Provincetown and its environs are Outer. I’d like to say that it’s because everyone in Ptown is out, but that’s probably not the case.
Cape Cod is shaped like an arm, flexing below Boston, MA, and east of Providence, RI. The Outer Cape is the outside of the arm.
Hyannis, where today’s adventure takes place, is the bingo wing.
When is a story not a story?
In his MasterClass, David Sedaris stresses the importance of anecdote vs story.
I have no story for you today, but I offer these souvenirs, these anecdotes, as the basis of your own stories
Your tales might be:
- a flash fiction
- a social commentary
- a rant on how Medium is turning to shite because writers post dolled-up journal entries and call them articles
- a detail in something else you write — for anyone wanting to learn how to better do this, I urge you to read the story “Point of View” by Lucia Berlin in her brilliant collection, “A Manual for Cleaning Women”.
I don’t care how you use them, but I would LOVE to read what you come up with.
The purpose of our visit was straightforward: my partner, Larry, needed to get his eyeglass prescription refilled, and our optometrist is in the big H.
Fun fact: In Massachusetts, a prescription for glasses and contacts lasts only one year. After that, you can’t get new lenses.
Apart from the eye exam, we ran several errands in the not-so-big city, taking advantage of glamorous shops that Ptown doesn’t offer. We do, however, offer glamorous drag queens.
My souvenirs = your writing prompts
Snack exchange
This is my “Summer of 59”. I’ll be turning 60 in a week or so. A big birthday calls for a mid-sized party, and Larry thinks the party space we’ve hired needs decorations.
So we went to, no lie, ItzAParty.
We pulled into the parking lot, with the top down on our Mini Cooper. The song of the summer was blaring. Larry’s mostly deaf, so I had to use a double-outside voice:
“Do you want more snacks before we go in?”
The snacks in question are Ritz Salt & Vinegar Crisp & Thins Chips. They’re amazing. Trust.
Fun Fact: If I’m in the car for more than 20 minutes, there will be snacks. Ask my sister about what I bought for our last real road trip.
He held out his hand to be served. The woman in the truck that we pulled in next to did the same.
“Do you want some?” Larry said.
“I heard him offer,” she laughed. “And isn’t Maggie Rogers great?”
I leapt out of the Mini to regale her with Ritz thins. Ever since my mom died a couple years ago, I’m compelled to talk to strangers. It’s like she’s possessed me. I’ve yet to Google “Momorscism”.
“Have you tried these?”
She said she hadn’t and took a couple.
“Oh my god, so good!”
“Right?” I implored her to take more. “Do you have a bowl?”
Gentle reader, she had a Tupperware full of Cheeze-Its.
She was a woman after my own heart. Snacks in the car. And so smart to have decanted them—easy access and much simpler to keep them fresh in the Cape Cod humidity.
We had an impromptu snack exchange, talked about the new Maggie Rogers album, and the joys of parking lot snacking.
“My daughter is going to be mortified,” she said, “me talking to strangers while she’s in ItzAParty.”
“My mother would be so proud,” I assured her.
Can she say that?
We were waiting in Super-Quick-You-Get-What-You-Pay-For Cuts. There were two middle-aged women sitting at opposite ends of the “salon”.
One woman is very tan. Her hair is short and dark and she’s on her phone, minding her own business.
The other lady, out of the blue, with no “Hello” or “How about those Pats?” says very loudly, “Are you a Jew or Italian?”
Is this how we break the ice in 2022?
Without missing a beat or looking up from her phone, tan grandma says, “I’m Greek.”
“Good for you! I love the Mediterranean blood.”
How to stop being an Uber driver
Jen is the lead optician at the eye doctor. I hadn’t seen her for a couple of years when I got my last prescription .
“Hi Jen,” I said.
“I know you, I recognize those frames. I love them.”
“How’s your Tesla?”
On his last visit, Larry had learned she’d just ordered one. Someone is doing okay managing the spec shop.
“It’s in the shop. Somebody ran into the back of it while it was parked, then drove off.”
“A hit and run? That’s awful,” I said.
“It’s going to be okay. There was closed circuit in the parking lot and I’ve got the whole thing on tape. I gave the tape to the police, his insurance is covering it. He was driving an Uber. Guess who’s not an Uber driver anymore?
“Are you guys still in Ptown? I need to come up and see you.”
What could go wrong?
This was on one of the racks in the back of ItzAParty.
I … um …
I’d love to see what anybody comes up with for this one.
Great for school plays and book reports.
The point of all this is that ideas for stories are everywhere. You have to quit thinking about “coming up” with them and get outside, live your life, listen a little bit, and pay attention.
And always carry snacks. And talk to strangers, but maybe not the racist ones.
Bob Merckel is a writer, language teacher, and corporate refugee who spends most of his time between Barcelona and Provincetown. He usually plays well with others. You can follow him on Twitter @bobzyeruncle.