Quit your bitchin’ and suck it up

Who Has the Beef With Kale?

Overdone, side of bitter greens, drizzled with ¡Hasta luego! sauce

So. You have a beef with kale. Isn’t that special.

Headline for ya’, Galileo. You’re not supposed to like kale. Why? Because it’s kale.

Duh.

If God wanted you to like kale, kale would look like Nia Long. It would taste like the Sun setting over the Matterhorn. You would crush it into lines on a mirror and inhale it with a rolled Benny Franklin.

If the kale prompt’s not lifting your kilt, we have plenty more. Prompts. Not kilts. Well maybe T. Kent Jones does. Has. Not does. Kilts. Not prompts. He looks Scottish. Kent. Ish.

Kent told me that when he goes to the gym, instead of pumping iron, he lifts kilts. Ish. JK, LOL. Hey, write that down! Let’s add that prompt to the library in the warehouse.

Speaking of which, let’s cut through the MuddyUm office and hit the warehouse. Where we store the prompts. Also where Gary Chapin hides when he wants to do a doobie in peace, for cryeye.

Whoa! Watch out for that accordion! That’s Gary’s. The bearded dude over there meditating on the highboy. No, I mean he’s sitting on the highboy, not pondering its highboyishness. I think it’s a highboy. Last time he was sitting there, I said “Gary, how you doing, man?” and he said “Highboy!”

OK, maybe it was “High, boy!”

He sits up there and communes with his ancestors. Then he writes. Pro tip — don’t mess with his ancestors. They would eat you alive. That’s why we’re always on the lookout for new writers.

Here it is! The prompt warehouse. Not your father’s warehouse, eh?

See that black door in the corner? The one that says DANGER ☠️ HAZARDOUS WASTE? Don’t go in there. That’s where we quarantine prompts that turn your brain into vichyssoise. Writers go in there, they never come out. Like, when did you last see Matt Lillywhite? Another reason we’re recruiting.

I don’t mean prompts like that one-hand-clapping Zen mind candy. I’m talking woodchucks. If you’re quiet, you might hear someone in there moaning about woodchucks chucking. It’s a thing. I’m not sure who’s moaning, but we haven’t seen Rachael Ann Sand. Have you?

We organize prompts by topic. Feel free to browse. You can check a couple out. Grab a MuddyUm tote in the corner, we’re re-ordering in jute, just toss a quarter in the jelly jar. Pays for the Paxil. We eat it like candy.

Sports prompts

• Novels you have completed while watching a baseball game.
• You’re managing a fantasy football team. Your starting quarterback Tom Brady just re-re-retired. Your backup, Davis Mills is, well, Davis Mills. You can start your cousin Wee-bei who was a backup punter in junior high school. Or, that bowl of ramen that’s been in your fridge since Easter. Never mind, all good, Brady’s back with Bucs.
• Why do responsible adults with jobs and mortgages watch American Ninja Warrior?
• The Washington Commanders, the Cleveland Guardians, and the transmission vector of team names that boast the inspirational voltage of apple sauce.

Science prompts

• Wormholes are less about the curvature of space-time than they are about quantum entanglement. Discuss. Show your work. Put your phones in Airplane Mode.
• Did Chicken McNuggets first surface on this planet when our wires got crossed with a parallel universe?
• If your freezer made ice cubes fast enough, could you construct a hockey rink? Would you name your team The Commanders?

Politics prompts

• What might happen if Amy Coney Barrett’s husband told her that the Constitution was “stupid”?
• Is Donald Trump the unfortunate by-product of an American science experiment gone horribly wrong? Or a Chinese science experiment gone horribly right? Or two people who should have pledged celibacy? Discuss. Show China’s work.
• Did Lauren Boebert first surface on this planet when our wires got crossed with a parallel universe? If not, might Chicken McNuggets be an evolutionary forebear? Have you factored in dipping sauce? That’s ridiculous? If we stipulated Habanero Ranch, would that change your answer?

Personal prompts

• That shard of pecan that’s been wedged between your lateral incisor and your cuspid since you ordered the Cobb Salad at Applebee’s.
• What if your urologist scolded you for negligence in flossing your urethra?
• The wee folk that inhabit your navel.

Medium prompts

• Testicles. Are they trial balloons for listicles?
• The arduous yet transformative journey of becoming a top X writer in Odd-Toed Ungulates. Plus the ungulates which think you’re full of shit.
• What if you earned $5,259 last month due to a Medium software bug, and your writing actually sucks? Would you strive for top X in Writers Who Suck?

Still have the urge to bitch about MuddyUm writing prompts? Here’s a prompt that never fails.

Think of something funny. Write about it.

Are we good?

Want an email heads-up for new articles? Click me.

Want to join Medium? Click me.

More MuddyUm!