Act Naturally!

/ roughwighting

bank, dream, HawaiiIt’s an open secret that dreams reveal our innermost worries and joys, fears and, perhaps, even our future.

So when Sue woke up last night at 3:23 a.m. feeling as if she’d just popped out of a virtual reality show, she knew what she had to do.

She waited impatiently until the bank opened at 9.

“I want to withdraw all of my money, today,” she said as simply as if asking for the recipe of a chocolate dessert.

The teller was bleary-eyed Miriam, the passive aggressive woman who disliked all customers. But Sue had befriended this bank down the corner from her New England Victorian house for over three decades. She figured using any bank was the same difference as shopping at a grocery store. Whichever one was easy and convenient.

But Miriam responded: “Oh, you can’t do that,” and Sue wondered what happened to convenience and ease.

“Yes I can,” Sue replied. “It’s my money. I can do whatever I want.”

“But there are forms to fill out, managers to speak to, and delays that are unavoidable.” Miriam rang a little bell by her station and within seconds Joe Tully was at Sue’s side, as if he was ready to take her away to the funny farm.

Sue decided to act naturally as she slowly took her cell phone out of her purse. “Why hello Mr. Tully, big bank manager,” she said as she calmly began to press numbers on her phone. “I’m about to dial 911 for the robbery about to take place.”

The confusion on Tully’s face was priceless. “What robbery?”

Sue poked her finger near the “Send” button on her phone. “The one you’re trying to perpetuate. I want my money – now – or I call the police.”

With a frustrated grimace, the bank manager nodded his head toward his office. “I’ll write you a check within 15 minutes. We just need to get the latest numbers and make sure there were no recent withdrawals.”

“My last withdrawal was $200. So I expect $56,005.45 in cash, within your 15 minutes.”

They all thought she was crazy, the people in this town. Sue knew that. But she also knew what she had to do. Her only choice was to move to the little town of Hana, Maui, sight unseen, and make and sell fresh water pearl necklaces and earrings. She would no longer continue as part of the living dead.

Kauai, Poipu, Paradise

          Sue was on her way to creating reality from her dream.

 

 

I can resist everything but temptation. – Mark Twain

I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible. – Oscar Wilde

I distinctly remember forgetting that. – Clara Barton

I never ever said most of the things I said. – Yogi Berra

Aren’t oxymorons fun? (Oxymoron: a phrase in which two words of contradictory meaning are used together for special effect, e.g. “wise fool” or “legal murder.”) Do you have a favorite one? Oh, and one more thing?  . . . MAKE YOUR DREAM INTO A REALITY!

103 thoughts on “Act Naturally!”

    • Thank you, Roy. I wanted to use lots of oxymorons in this story but also get to the simple truth (is that an oxymoron??) about our wish to bag it all and escape to a world where we can just be who/what we want to be.

      Liked by 1 person

    • Haha – jumbo shrimp makes no sense, and yet there it is on all seafood menus. 🙂 You bring up a good question – if our dreams could become reality, would we find out the dream wasn’t quite right? ;-0 Perhaps we need to spend a bit more time dreaming….

      Liked by 1 person

  10. As a former teacher, “good administrator” was an oxymoron. …. for all of us, so is “Congressional Ethics” … hey – “honest politician” …. OK – enough of that. Related to your story, I’ve often wondered where I would go if my life suddenly changed and I wanted to move. The answer is always the same – I don’t know. PS: Nice move working in a video and Ringo.

    Liked by 3 people

    • You are having waaaaayyyy too much fun here with your oxymorons, Frank. And I love them all.
      Interesting that you’re not sure where you’d go if you took all your money out of the bank and flew off to your dream life. Perhaps…. you are already living the dream!

      Liked by 2 people

  15. Great oxymorons! I’m drawing a blank right now, but the story is everyone’s secret dream to just cut and run. Hawaii is the perfect place to go, too.

    Liked by 3 people

  22. Loved this story. I’m still grinning. I too would love to have a lot of money in the bank to pull out and start all over in some adventure. Oxymorons are so much fun. Everyone of these were wonderful! Thanks for the evening grin.

    Liked by 2 people

  26. Oxymorons are more common than we think, aren’t they? Nicely done. I would love the day to arrive when I could pull all my money out of the bank (er, the stock market–now I have to wait for the recovery) and move to Hawaii. Or Bali. Or North Dakota.

    Liked by 2 people

    • As always, your comments are fun and also thought-provoking. I’d love to read a blog post by you about where you’d move to if suddenly a long-lost relative dropped several million dollars in your bank. Bali? Hawaii? I get those. But North Dakota? There’s gotta be a story behind that dream location… 🙂

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    • No weekend (or week day) is fun without creativity, Liesbet. 🙂 Sometimes I go “off the deep end,” though. (I guess that’s more an idiom than an oxymoron, but it sure is a fun whatever-it-is.) Here’s to both of us feeling free enough to “go off the deep end” and enjoy whatever life has to offer.

      Liked by 1 person

    • I’m thrilled that you enjoyed Sue’s oxymoronic story. And now you remine me of a constant contest when I was a teenager among my friends (and even polling on radio stations). Who do you like best: Paul? Ringo? George? John? I’m guessing you voted for Ringo! 🙂

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  30. Your posts are always so cute and just plain funny as well as thought provoking.. Clearly, Sue was not seeing clearly when she aimed to withdraw all her money. But her idea to begin anew was a good one but not realistic. As far as an oxymoron as concerned the word itself is an oxymoron. Oxy meaning light or sharp and moron meaning dull. Actually I am not the smart about word origins- I had to look it up. I was about to post this m comment when I suddenly remembered one that my mother, I think made up, dumb smart- meaning a person who was very intelligent but who had no common sense. This was one of her favorite sayings.

    Liked by 2 people

    • SO GREAT to read your comment. And thank you for dissecting the word OXY . . . MORON. That is fascinating, and makes total sense considering how we use the word.
      Ah, yes, I’ve known many who were DUMB SMART, particularly in my academic years. Makes one wonder, which would you rather have: Smarts? or Common Sense? I certainly know what your mom’s answer would be. ❤

      Liked by 1 person

  31. In Kauai I ran into quite a few people who could have been Sue. There was the woman selling jewelry near the blow hole who moved to Hawaii from California and the woman selling CDs in Princeville, Kauai who came from the Midwest and the security guard from FL.

    Mark Twain is a genius, and Yogi Berra is hilarious.

    Liked by 2 people

    • YES, I thought of people I met on the Garden Island also when I wrote about Sue. I met a wonderful woman who was a retired teacher (and her husband was a retired NY cop). They moved to Hawaii and he played golf while she worked in a shoe shop, just for fun. I also annually meet up with a wonderful couple in their 80s (first met them over a decade ago) at various locations on the Island, where they sell their own fresh water pearl jewelry. They retired from their jobs in Seattle WA and settled in HI, learning how to make necklaces and earrings and bracelets, and selling them every week at high end hotels/resorts. Isn’t it fun how they made their dream into a reality?

      Liked by 1 person

    • As much as you and I like reading and writing fantasy, Diana, Sue’s story can be more reality-driven than speculative fiction. Hmmmm, can’t wait to read/hear what you’re speculating for the future…. ALOHA! 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

  34. GREAT COMMENT FROM BEN & PETA OF GREEN GLOBAL NESTERS…. http://www.greenglobaltrek.com/
    As it happens we live in an oxymoron rich environment here in Viet Nam. While I always thought of oxymorons as a rare and quirky alignment of non compatible adjectives, But in Viet Nam, we hear at least twice daily “same same, but different’. By frequency of use alone, it no longer feels like an oxymoron.

    In India, where we have spent considerable time, it is very much a case of “orderly chaos”. Try crossing the street, which at first seems totally impenetrable and at the first step onto the pavement, the on-flow of bikes, pedestrians, cows, buses, tuk tuks, starts to part and flow around you like a river flows… It is “orderly chaos” to be sure.

    One of the most interesting oxymorons for us in your story is around that “virtual reality” especially in the context of the dream. For us, this dream state “virtual reality” is less oxymoron and more a precursor of an available future reality.

    And on the subject of alternative realities, for those of your readers that have a feeling of not wanting to go, but not sure where to go to, this is our frequent reality. Pleased to provide a long list of places around the world that have a lot to offer, and appeal to different tastes and priorities.

    Ben (& Peta), “nomadic nesters” in Hoi An.

    Liked by 2 people

    • Ben & Peta – Thanks for messaging your comment on my FB page since you had problem getting it on here. Fascinating that you “run” into so many oxymorons in Viet Nam.
      And “orderly chaos” – WOW, that sounds like my life!!! 🙂

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  39. This was an awfully fun read, lemme tell you!
    I had a boss that told me that it was okay to take initiative but that I had to ask permission first. If that ain’t oxymoronish, I don’t know what is.
    He was/is an eejit.

    Liked by 2 people

  40. Pam, a delectable array of oxymorons encased in this story! Love your creative and imaginative approach to this one and it works a treat. Also,
    Ringo Starr is a hit … the first time I’ve heard this song and it’s so catchy, whilst my husband is singing along! Have a great week, my friend! Xx Also hope your synopsis is going well! ❤️

    Liked by 2 people

  42. That’s most amusing, Pam. I hope Sue realises her potential and her dream – as soon as she gets her money. The quotes with which you conclude this post are great. I would have said them if I’d thought of them. 🤣

    Liked by 1 person

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