A Short Story

The Pointless Night in the Basement

By Holly Zintel

"Tracey and Lou, Tracey and Lou, Tracey and Lou… they will get married and step in some glue!" Wendy sang cheerfully, in spite of herself, and her imminent illness.

She chuckled and then continued on, "Tracey and Lou, Tracey and Lou…"

The sounds of an awful baseball game continued on in the background of the basement… or at least, Holly wished it were in the background. The volume seemed to be increasing by the minute, if you asked her, and she didn't know how much longer she could listen to such meaningless tripe.

Luckily, at that moment, a car commercial came on the TV. Of course, Holly hated car commercials as well.

Just then, her mother muted the TV. Holly was more delighted than Monica Lewinsky at an all male review, which doubled as an all-you-can-eat buffet.

"You almost done, Mike?" Wendy asked suddenly.

"Mumble, grumble, grumble," Mike grumbled unceremoniously.

Suddenly, Wendy decided to lie down on the ab chair. She stretched out, apparently quite content with life. Little did she know, the ab chair expected her to do work, and a lot of it, at that. The chair forced her suddenly into doing all sorts of gross sit-ups. "Well," Wendy proclaimed, "now I have tight abs."

"That quick?" Mike mumble-grumbled.

"That quick. Abs of steel," Mom said.

Chapter 2

Holly Gets to Use the Internet

Holly didn't need to write any more of this meaningless story, as Mike was suddenly struck by an idea- he could eat four pieces of pickle loaf in a gross sandwich, perhaps stuffed with mayonnaise or some sort of nasty pickles. You know, pickles on pickle loaf? It seemed nasty to Holly, too.

Holly was sure he would burp all night long and, undoubtedly, keep her mother awake.

"It's time for Leno," Wendy swiftly proclaimed. "Should I turn it on… or do you want me to keep it on the baseball game?"

"Uh… I kind of want the game on," Mike mumble-grumbled selfishly.

"Sigh," Wendy sighed. "They'll be flicking the lights now, telling us it's time for Leno," she added dejectedly.

Holly was definitely ready to use the internet. Wendy peeked around the treadmill to see whether or not Mike was yet off the computer.

Just as Holly had suspected, he wasn't. "It just sits there; it won't go," Mike mumble-grumbled in a whiny voice.

Holly was rather disgusted, to say the least. After all, she and her mother had an 11:00 appointment on to take a "7 Deadly Sins" quiz on the internet.

"Can you un-mute it?" Mike asked rudely, in his usual whiny voice.

Wendy did.

Meanwhile, Amy ate from her adorable cat face-shaped bowl, and Daria bathed on top of the wardrobe. Wendy did not know what a "wardrobe" was, but Holly did. It was, in fact, a zipped up plastic thing in the middle of the basement, dividing Wendy and Mike's room from the… well, basement.

Amy licked her chops, now directly next to Holly and Wendy. She stared at Holly. Clearly, she was contemplating eating Holly. Holly did not care for this tactic at all.

"You missed the best part of the story," Wendy pointed out sadly as Mike, once again whined, "Man, this is slow!" He didn't, however, make any attempt to get off of the computer or, in fact, do anything useful to help the situation at all.

Holly was beginning to get rather disgusted. And by "beginning," she, of course, meant, "boiled over with anger."

"It's over," Mike mumble-grumbled annoyingly. "Turn it to 25."

"What?" Wendy asked, puzzled.

"IT'S OVER. Turn it to 25," Mike demanded in a decidedly… mumbly-grumbly way.

Suddenly, to make a happy ending for the story, Holly decided to eat some Jolly Ranchers as Barbara Streissand yelled, "SHUT THE F*** UP!" Ms. Streissand then went on to win 25 awards for her hilarious outfit in The Owl and the Pussycat.

"Man, this is frustrating," Mike mumble-grumbled.

Holly decided to turn him into a pug dog with her special Harry Potter-oriented powers. She has her gay boys behind her in spirit always, and also summoned their special "gay powers" to help.

Why Do All the A-Holes Live Here?

I was watching Cribs last night on MTV, and I tell ya what... I've never heard of any of the people I saw on there. Now, these rich folks have some very cool stuff, I admit. Home theaters, jacuzzies, closets that are bigger than my bedroom... Some of these people's backyards even resemble a waterpark or an exotic beach. Now I've got to say, as fabulous as all these things are, I think my dream house would be cooler. The first thing I'd put in my house would be an escalator, for I am lazy, and lot of my family members are caustrophobic. Then the jacuzzies would be added, as well as horses, namely shetland ponies. I think they would get along well with my dog and cats. The home theater would also be necessary. Hmm... I suddenly feel the need to play The Sims. Excuse me...

*Returns momentarily* Anyhoo, there was this weirdo on Cribs who ticked me off to no end. He had animal heads in every room of his house, along with whole dead animals. This guy talked dirtier than the cast of The Osbournes, had hair as greasy as Professor Snape's, and was actually married! And guess where he lived? Michigan! Now, I wanna know what's going on. Why do all the jerks seem to come from Michigan? We've turned out more scumbags than Slytherin, I swear! Eminem, Kid Rock, Madonna... what's the deal here? Honestly!

Huh. You ever notice how when you go through your favorites on FOD, it appears that all the names of FODers are in alphabetical order? Only... that's not alphabetical order, is it? Only on FOD does the alphabet not start with "A", but "*". That's a tad odd. *AHEM*.

So... who hasn't read my story yet? It's not finished yet, but hey. It will be. Hopefully. Ah, come on, humor me! Everyone who reads my fan fiction, Harry Potter--The Bachelor, gets a free cookie. From their cabinet. If they have any cookies. HEY! Speaking of Harry Potter, his new movie comes out FRIDAY! I'm going to see it with my mommy first. *Nods happily* You should all go see this picture here, since FOD won't let me put it on here for some reason. Harry and Hermione are hugging. *Glows in a glow-worm-like fashion*

--Holly :-D

What Do You Mean, "No More NC-17"?!

Dude. Duuuuuude! Dude. Fanfiction.net is no longer accepting NC-17 rated fics! Now, don't get me wrong, I think porn is gross. But these fan fictions were so not porn. I mean, who can read the Harry/Hermione fic, "It Was You" and think it's dirty? It's like, the sweetest thing I've ever read in my entire life. *Throws a large gob of hair gel at fanfiction.net people*

I showed up to my 7:00 P.M. theater class wearing my "9/11/01" shirt, which features NYC firemen raising an American flag out of a pile of ash. *Shakes head* I can't believe it's been a whole year since the 9/11 tradgedy. *Glares* Stupid terrorists. All I can say is, thank God that Bush is in office. He's an awesome guy, and a great president.

Theater is a super class. I was mucho proud when the cool skater girl, Leah, told me I was hilarious. *Beams* The professor, Laurie, had us partner up, and do exactly what she said. My starting partner was Leah, but Laurie was like, "Back to back, toe to toe, thumb to thumb, sholder-to-shoulder, switch partner!" She said this all very fast, 5 times in a row. Larry, the 6'5" dude, stepped on my bad toe twice, heh. Yeah, ow. The partner I had in the end was Kyle, the volunteer fireman/class hottie.

Laurie then instructed us to study our partners. I was actually assigned to check out the hot boi. *Grins* I think I got an A+ on that one. Then we had to turn our backs on each other and change 3 things about the way we looked, then turn back to each other and spot what the other person had done to change their appearance. We did that like, 12 times in a row w/ the same partner. *Shrugs* What can I say, I like that class! Then we did some really fun pant-a-mime stuff... or... something. It was like, acting without talking. As we walked to the parking lot, though, I noticed that Kyle has one bad flaw-- he smokes. *Cries*

*Quickly recovers* That's okay, 'cause guess who I met?! I actually met a guy in Intro to Theater who IS A VEGAN! He wears an animal rights shirt every day! Today his shirt read: "FUR IS DEAD". Woo hoo! *Points and laughs at all family members & friends who said I'd never meet a vegetarian guy*

Tonight, I went to Samantha's birthday party. It was quite the jovial event! I really missed Sarah and Samantha! I hadn't seen either of them in like... well, a very long time! Good times, good times. Well, it seems that I am rather dead on my feet. So I shall see you all at a later time. G'bye!

--Holly Rachael ;-D

The Day Holly Gets to Do Whatever She Wants

Look, I'm doing a theme entry! Wow, I haven't done one o' these in a long time.

Okay, so here's the deal. If you were given 24 hours to do absolutely anything you wanted, what would you do? Well, I'm going to write about what I'd like to do... but with my luck, there will probably be some unexpected obstacles. So, here we go.

I don't know if I could stay awake for 24 hours, but we'll pretend that I'm capable of that. The first thing I would do is get some donuts. Why, I'd march right up to the counter at the donut store and I imagine it would go down sorta like this:
CLERK: Yeeeeah, what do ya want?
ME: You got any jelly donuts?
CLERK: Noooo, we're outta jelly donuts!
ME: Well, you got any nutty donuts?
CLERK: Noooo, we're outta nutty donuts!
ME: Then you got any Bavarian cream-filled donuts?
CLERK: Nooo, we're outta Bavarian cream-filled donuts!
ME: Well then you got any bear claws?
CLERK: Wait a minute. I'll go check.

Well, after I get my donuts, I think I'll go to Best Buy so I can get the latest Sims expansion pack. I get a really good parking spot, right in front of the store! But then some sqeaky-voiced, pimply-faced Best Buy employee will probably come up and be like, "Hey, you can't park there! That spot's reserved for the employee of the month!" And then I'll be like, "Well, if he's such a good employee, why isn't he here?" But then the employee of the month will probably show up and bash my car all to heck with his special Employee of the Month baseball bat or something.

But as I'm trying to drive away from the crazed employee of the month, a cop decides to pull me over because he hates Mr. Bean, and I'm wearing my Mr. Bean shirt. He'll be like, "Alright, let me see your license and registration." But I won't have it, of course, because I've been too lazy to go and take my driver's test, so all I have is a stinkin' permit. So then I'll have to go to jail. Once I'm there, they'll tell me I get one phone call, so I think about who I should call. I could call somebody that could bail me out. But I have been wanting to call that Ms. Cleo whose commercials are always on the Cartoon Network.

Ms. Cleo tells me that I'm destined to spend the night in jail since I used my one phone call on a stupid psychic, and now I can't make bail. But she says that when I get out of jail, I'll probably do something like go to a noisy, annoying concert since I'm one of those idiot teenagers.

Then I'll probably get a big, mean cell mate who says she'll beat the crap out of me unless I say I want Ron and Hermione to hook up in the Harry Potter books, or something horrible like that. When I get out of jail, I'm guessing I'll only have like, three hours left, which is just enough time to try out for a part on my favorite show, Port Charles. But before I try out, I spot Brian Gaskill, the hottest man ever to appear on daytime television. Well, of course, I jump him and kiss him over and over and over until Brian Presley pulls me off of him, and the writer of the show bans me from the set.

Since I obviously can't hang around there, I figure I'll do what Ms. Cleo suggested, and go to a concert. So, I head over to the Palace of Auburn Hills, but of course, with my luck, Lifehouse isn't the band playing. It's that moron, Eminem, so I stand there yelling "YOU SUCK! YOU GAVE A PERFECTLY GOOD CANDY A BAD NAME!" But then those weirdo Eminem fans'll probably get mad and chase me with box cutters or something until I get back home.

Well, by then, it's time to go to bed, so my day to do whatever I wanted didn't work out very well, did it? *Shrugs* Oh well, that's the kind of luck I'd most likely have if I had a day to do whatever I wanted. But there's always tomorrow! *Gives a hopeful thumbs up*

--Holly Rachael :-D

Orange County & Fan Fiction

Time: 1:25 A.M.
I'm Wearing: "United We Stand" shirt, red and blue shorts, black flip-flops.
My Hair Is: Down and straight.
I Last Ate: Chips.
Holly's Song Pick of the Day: "Short Skirt, Long Jacket"--Cake
________________________________________________________

Oh man, my dad and I rented Orange County tonight, and it was so good! I was actually expecting it to suck, so I was pleasantly surprised! When it was over, I turned to Dad and said, "Wow. I thought that was really good!" to which he replied, "Oh. I thought that was really mediocre!" But really, it was spiffy as all get-out.

So then my dad went to bed, and I got struck by The Lightening Bolt of Inspiration. I immediately fired up the computer, opened up Word, and typed like there was no tomorrow. That's right, now there are two more chapters in my Harry Potter fan fic, "Harry Potter--The Bachelor." *Shrieks like she's at an 'N Sync concert* I'm so thrilled that my inspiration crushed and destroyed my temporary writer's block!

Well, I'm just bubbling over with anticipation, not knowing what people will think of my fic. So I thought I just might post an excerpt from "Harry Potter--The Bachelor" right here on FOD! Please tell me what you think! Here a scene from it:
________________________________________________________
Harry felt his stomach drop. Twenty-five beautiful girls were walking toward him, all dressed in glamorous dresses and beaming at him. Cho caught his eye immediately, and he couldn’t help but gawk at her in amazement.
She wore a dazzling red, strapless gown, and her hair was done up in a stylish twist. That twist kind of reminded him of Hermione’s hair at the Yule Ball last year. He laughed, remembering how that twist had fallen to pieces when she fought with Ron that night, and his nerves lessened considerably. That’s what I’ll do, he thought. When I get too nervous during this, I’ll just think of my friends. Then he turned his attention to Bagman.
“Hello, I’m Ludo Bagman, and I’ll be your host. I’m here at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry where we’ll be broadcasting from all month long! Now, let’s meet our bachelor… Harrrrry ‘The Boy Who Lived’ Potter!” The Memory Capturer turned toward Harry.
“Harry is a fifteen-year-old guy in need of a prom date! He stands at five-foot-four, has black hair and green eyes. Harry spends his free time playing for the Gryffindor House Quidditch team where he’s a Seeker. Now, let’s meet the witches!”
The girls began to walk toward Harry. They all paused to smile and pose for the camera, and then proceeded to shake Harry’s hand and introduce themselves. First up was Cho. “Hey Harry, I’m Cho.”
He smiled back. “I know. You look—”
But he never got to finish his sentence; more girls were already lined up to meet him. “Hey, I’m Jen.”
“I’m Kelly.”
“I’m Brayden.”
Harry couldn’t catch half of their names, let alone take a good look at them, they were moving so fast. At long last, Bagman said, “And those are the witches! Join us after these messages for more of The Bachelor! …And we’re clear! Good job, Harry, bravo. C’mon, grab some floo powder, we’re headed to Hogsmeade!”
“What?” Harry said, caught way off guard. “Tonight?!”
“Well yeah,” Bagman said in a matter-of-fact way. “Come on, the girls are already there!” ________________________________________________________

Well, what do you think? Is this pure crap, or is it okay? I'd really appreciate it if ya'd drop me a note and tell me. Thanks! Ah, it's storming outside! *Hides under desk*.

--Holly Rachael :-D

I Just Realized Something!

I've been to Las Vegas 12 times, and have never seen Wayne Newton! That's odd.

So anyway, I got a new purse yesterday. It's a pink and white Hawiian-print backpack/purse with the Powerpuff Girls on one side of it. *Beams* I'm quite fond of it. And it was only $4.90! What a bargain.

Today we celebrated Mike's upcoming birthday with a bear-shaped cake that Mom made and decorated. Good Lord, it was so packed in that house! Check out the list of people who were there: Mike's grandma and mom, Rhonda, Tom, Katie, my grandma and grandpa Shoup, Zach, Mike's uncle Troy and aunt Peggy, Billy, Carrie, Garrett, Mom, Mike and I. My dog was too scared to even venture downstairs.

I'm having a lot of fun writing my fan fiction, "Harry Potter--The Bachelor." See, to write the story, I need to come up with twenty-five different personalities for witches to have. I decided to make almost every girl have at least one intensely undesirable character flaw. One witch even has the very same character flaw as me! She's obsessive-compulsive to the highest degree. Yup, it's lots of fun.

Well, I'll get back to writing it then. See ya.

--Holly Rachael :-D

Inspiration Hits... *Ow*!

*Rubs head* That lousy inspiration hit me right over the head! Did you see that? Good Lord...

Anyway, I was watching The Newsies extras on my DVD, and they have this thing on there about the history involved in the movie, and how they thought up the songs and the storyline. It's really fascinating, and it makes me want write.

I really like learning about where things come from, and I love music and stories, so why not combine all three? I'm going to surf the web to see if I can find an old, true story that sparks my interest. Then I want to write a musical about it.

I know musicals aren't very popular these days (with the exception of the awesome Moulin Rouge), but I love them. Even though my singing voice is far from Mariah Carey's, I also want to try out for some musicals in my town. I really want to join the Flint Community Players, and I think I will. Even if you don't get a part in the Community Players, they can put you to work making scenery and stuff. So... yeah.

For now, though, I'm headed over to google.com to check out some cool historic tales. Later!

--Holly Rachael :-D

I'm Inspired! I Must Start a Business!

My mom taped Once and Again for me, and I watched it last night. I was *so* good! Lily's sister has this book store, and she was going to have a "matchmaking night." She took pictures of a bunch of single people who loved books, and hung their pictures on the wall, along with their favorite book and why it was their favorite. Lily's sister is single herself, though, and when she saw all the couples getting hook up, she felt sad that *she* wasn't hooked up with someone. That hit a bit close to home... I hooked Sarah and Zach up, and now I'm sad when they kiss. But check it out! If I started my own matchmaking service, I'd be in the business of romance... my favorite thing in the whole world! And I don't think I'd be as lonely watching couples hook up that I don't know!

Last night, I went to work on my matchmaking idea, but I'm going to write a story about fictional people starting a matchmaking service first. The matchmaking service these people run is called "Inevitably United" and I made a big poster for it. Maybe I'll scan it and put it on my web site later. These people I made up, Shane, Miriam, and Kayle hook people up through this service according to their favorite TV shows. Shane's into shows like Norm and Drew Carey, Miriam's into show's like Daria and The Simpsons (like me, hee hee), and Kayle's into soaps like One Life to Live and General Hospital.

I also had another idea. I've been designing prom and wedding dresses since I was about four years old (I've been a hopeless romantic my whole life), and recently, people have been telling me that my drawings are actually good! I thought if I could start my own prom dress designing business, and call it "Prominade," that was rule! Hopefully, I can find a way to start these businesses. I have no idea where to go to ask someone how I would do this! Maybe my school counciler would know, or something. Welp, talk to ya later!

--"Holy" Holly Zintel ():-)