WinoCollabo: A tall tale about short stuff
Friends and fellow readers, are you feeling creative? Wouldn’t it be fun to collaborate on a multi-authored story?
My challenge to you is to use this blog’s Add your thoughts here/Leave A Reply feature to add a paragraph that either dovetails with its preceding paragraph or departs from it in a convincing way, as long as the story flows naturally. I’ve begun our story collaboration with the paragraph below. Crack those finger knuckles and dive in - let’s have fun with this!
I used to love hanging out in the kitchen as a kid. At a point in my life somewhere between diapers and daycare, I remember my mom getting me a small stepstool for use in the kitchen. The stool’s purpose seemed obvious to me: it was for reaching the top shelf of the fridge, where the good stuff was. But Mom had other plans for me: I was now tall enough to wash the dishes!
monkuwino, RichardA, and CarolB have contributed to the story. Who’s next? 
December 6th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
That unexpected twist to growing up left me wishing I was little again. The kitchen held lots of memories for me. I looked at the two holes in the wall left by since-removed picture hangers and thought back to the time I was sure Santa Claus was watching me through one hole and God through the other. That’s what I had been told - two who are always watching!
I’d be on my best behavior each time I walked past those two holes, imagining the two watchers sitting on stools behind the wall evaluating my every move.
Then one day I got wise. It occurred to me that there was a bedroom closet in back of that wall and that’s where they must be sitting! Ever so slyly I scooted over to that bedroom, to the closet, and quietly turned the knob.
December 7th, 2007 at 10:09 am
The door opened almost silently and the light from the bedoom illuminated the contents of the dark closet. Neither God nor Santa Claus were there. In fact, I could not even tell if the holes in the kitchen wall actually penetrated into the closet or not. The contents of the closet filled its entirety, floor to ceiling, side to side. Hundreds, if not thousands, of videotapes. Homemade videos, each with a hand-written label. I peered closer to read the titles.
December 10th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
Each label was dated and labeled in my mother’s careful, perfect Palmer script: Christmas 1967, Family Reunion 1974, and on and on. From the dates on the tapes, I guess that these movies had to have been taken with something like a Super 8 camera and tranferred to video. My parents never had any kind of movie camera — at least not that I remembered.
I looked at the labels again. Surely, I was mistaken. But there was no mistaking my mother’s handwriting. I’d know it anywhere. She wrote the labels. So who had taken all these movies?
December 19th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
As I pondered this conundrum, still scanning the myriad video titles, I failed to notice someone else enter the room. It was only when that person cleared their throat did I realize I was not alone. I quickly turned, almost embarassed at being caught snooping. I did not recognize the strange older man standing there. Yet something about him seemed to trigger a memory within me. I found myself remembering Christmas 1967.
December 19th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
I stood there looking at him and he at me. His gaze didn’t wander and I became uncomfortable so I glanced back at the stacks of videotapes.
One videotape caught my interest and caused me to do a doubletake. Did that say Thanksgiving 2011?? My mind was digesting this when my partner in the room started speaking to me, and I quickly forgot about the future date on the videotape label.
December 19th, 2007 at 9:15 pm
[Editor’s note: if you have read this far, you’re ready to write the next paragraph in this unfolding mystery! I double-dog dare ya, especially if you’re on Twitter.]