I hope your week has been a good one. Here’s a new story challenge for you. Can you tell a story in 38 words using the following words in it somewhere:
- CHAMPAGNE
- TOWER
- OVERDRAWN
- DIPLOMA
The previous challenge was to write a story in 63 words using the following six words in it somewhere:
- NOODLES
- CLINIC
- SWAMP
- DUNGAREES
- OCTOGENARIAN
- BARGAIN
Here are your very witty stories:
At the clinic, an octogenarian in dungarees slurped noodles while recalling a swamp childhood. He’d traded frogs for wisdom, and today struck a bargain: laughter for patience. The nurse listened, smiling, as rain tapped windows and time slowed, proving stories heal better than prescriptions. Outside, sirens faded, memories bloomed, and the old man winked, feeling lighter, braver, oddly young again despite creaking knees.
The Octogenerian decided to buy a dungaress at a bargain store near the swamp. She stopped there on the way to the clinic but the high pruces made her pressure shoot up.To bring her blood pressure down she stopped at the nearby Chinese restaurant and had a bowl of noodles. The salty noodles just didn’t help with her pressure! No more clinic visit!
Brenda sat in the clinic watching the receptionist eating noodles. An octogenarian, she remembered when she was young, wearing dungarees that were a bargain, with a swan embroidered by her onto the pockets. Those had been good days. Now, her days were numbered. She sighed. Her future was bleak. Still, she had had a good life, and she knew she should be grateful. She shivered.
It was no use. No matter how much Shirley breathed in, there was no way those dungarees would fasten around her newly plump octogenarian frame. They’d swamped her former rather spindly form when she first bought them for the clinic’s inaugural Bob the Builder themed party. But not any more. Endless gorging on bulk buy bargain noodles from Costco had taken its toll.
Dungarees, Diagnoses and Discounts
At a clinic near the swamp, an octogenarian in faded dungarees sold wisdom like a bargain. He traded bowls of noodles for stories, saying youth wastes hunger.
Patients listened, healed oddly, and left lighter, realizing time charges interest, but kindness discounts everything if you pay attention. The swamp air smelled medicinal, laughter lingered, bills vanished, and the clinic closed gently forever at dusk.
Matter of Health
Known as “Noodles”, an octogenarian living alone in the swamp, entered the clinic in his threadbare dungarees requesting to see Dr. Frost for his free ten-year checkup.
Dr. Frost (of a similar age) had made a bargain to give him free treatment if his “unhealthy” lifestyle didn’t kill him first.
Noodles simply grinned when told the doctor dropped dead 6-years before.
If you’ve ever seen an octogenarian Dexy-Dancing in dungarees, and lived to tell the tale, then you are not easily shocked.
If, however, you are a dedicated thrill-seeker, and get a chance to visit the Swamp Clinic… don’t!
That’s the place for those who have lost their Noodles bargaining for Groundnuts. Which is another way of saying, ‘They’ve got soup for brains!’
After eating at the bargain noodle joint, I just managed to make it to the Clinic. Being an Octogenarian in dungarees I had about as much sway as a swamp boat driver, but did get seen. A king size Kaopectate to go and good as new.
The Swamp Noodles Clinic offered its inner circle of customers a bargain if they wore cut-off dungarees when ordering crawfish etouffee and oysters last Saturday. The crowd of octogenarians gathered inside was cheerful, admiring the inset of wheat pennies on the tables. As they paid their bills, they were asked to fill out an index card for future discount opportunities by e-mail.
Susan Batten:
Bob’s hairy hound, name of Noodles, had been ailing for a few days, so Bob packed him up in a wheelbarrow and left his swamp cabin to visit the vet’s clinic in the town.
The octogenarian hoped to kill two birds with one stone and get himself some new dungarees at a bargain price, if the vet’s massive bill permitted, that is.
Everyone was suffering and cutbacks were swamping the clinic but they were coping better than most. The cafe staff were all octogenarians, dressed in radical dungarees bought at a bargain store rather than a crisp uniform of the past. However, spirits were high as patient care was paramount. Even the nursing staff didn’t object to noodles being more on the menu than not!
Murray Clarke:
As an octogenarian approaching ninety years old, dear old Albert found that choosing food that suited his delicate digestive system was proving more and more challenging. He’d tried Pad Thai noodles – bought from the bargain basket at Aldi – but spilt them down his new, fluorescent pink dungarees. On his way back from the clinic, he stumbled and fell headlong into a deep swamp.
At lunchtime in the clinic, she slurped noodles and eyed the swamp beyond. Dressed in faded dungarees, the octogenarian ranger grinned, remembering the bargain boots she’d bought years ago. Now she tracked rare marsh birds, rescuing them from muck and mire. Every day felt like a fresh adventure, age irrelevant when laughter and purpose burned bright under her weathered hat.
Escape and all that Jazz
Louis was an octogenarian, imprisoned by his children in a bargain clinic. Escape was going to be difficult. It was in the middle in a swamp. They had even taken away his belt. But Louis was resourceful. He took some spaghetti noodles and threaded them through the slings making a decent pair of dungarees. He’d pass as a janitor. The break-out was on!
Nicola Daly:
The clinic was swamped by pensioners all waiting for hearing tests.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked in astonishment.
‘It’s a bargain!’ cried an octogenarian excitedly. ‘Buy a hearing aid and get a free pack of noodles! And even better, they come ready cooked!’ He tugged a limp handful from the front of his dungarees. ‘You don’t even have to put your teeth in!’
Smell of Success
Octogenarian Sam, wondered through a swamp in dungarees, clutching a bowl, happy he’d found his bargain at the Clinic ‘Noodles Cures Smelly Feet!’
Suddenly a frog jumped up holding his nose. ‘You need a refund, mate!’
Sam thanks the amphibian for his advice, slurped his noodles and skipped towards the sunset.
Sarah sat eating her noodles, it was lunchtime in the clinic. She was in charge of the wildlife centers swamp area. Soon she was putting on her dungarees.
It was time to inspect the octogenarian turtles: they had been a bargain because they were mutant ninja ones.
Sarah wondered why they wore masks? And headscarves? Maybe that was the mutation? Time would tell…
Noodle High, Noodle High, Good Ol’ Noodle High! The Octogenarian was reminiscing about the days he was a student at New Deal High School. He and the others started the nickname, ‘Noodle High’, and it caught on, being passed down through the years. Now he wore bargain dungarees, and sat in clinic waiting rooms, hoping the swamp cooler would beat the Texas heat.
He sits outside the clinic
And thinks of way back when
A young man with a future
Was not this octogenarian
Now draped in dirty dungarees
Just trying to survive
A bowl of instant noodles
Barely keeping him alive
Arthritis in the bargain
His world a rotting swamp
Just waiting for redemption
From a passing psychopomp
What’s success? The first captain of HMS Bargain was George “Swamp” Dungarees. He got that odd nickname when, as a trainee pilot, he drove HMS Noodles into shallows off the Tiger’s Mouth. If he hadn’t failed up, he would have been an octogenarian now, possibly wasting away in a clinic. Instead he’s slowly turning into a skeleton in the wreck of the Bargain.
My octogenarian sister, Molly, had a strange addiction to Chinese noodles. As she got fatter and fatter, she booked herself into a weight loss clinic at a bargain price to try to fight her addiction.
She can now successfully get into her dungarees, her favourite dress, and her swimming costume. She has taken up the strange hobby of swamp diving and bog snorkling.
The Witness
The octogenarian at the free clinic remembered him. Dungarees and work boots, buying cup noodles at the gas station near the swamp.
“Said he had a bargain property out there. Fixer-upper.”
Torres drove to the wetlands alone. Found his camp: photos of her pinned to trees, her daily route mapped in red.
He’d been hunting her long before she knew his name.
Now the swamp would hide one of them.
The Oldest Make the Rules
Here’s a brief synopsis of our swamp,
Where the octogenarians rule in this clinic for seniors.
Wearing bargain dungarees, they insist on noodles,
But we seventy-somethings want rice but have no interveners.
Day after day, we eat food we hate,
All because the others were born first.
But in ten years, we’ll be the oldest,
And will eat rice for all we’re worth.
The octogenarian in faded dungarees trudged from the swamp to the clinic, clutching a bowl of noodles he’d bought as a bargain from a wandering vendor. He claimed the noodles held magic, able to heal anything. The clinic staff humored him, but when he shared a bite, their aches eased, and they wondered if his strange tale held truth after all that day.
Rall:
From a stall outside the clinic swamped with bargains the octogenarian bought dungarees and 20 packets of noodles, stocking up in preparation for another war. She had a nose for it.
My Lucky Day
When the supermarket flyer arrived, I saw the ad: Ramen Noodles, 50 3oz packs for $8.00! First twenty customers only.
What a bargain! They’re usually twice as much.
I stripped off my dungarees, pulled on a wetsuit, ran down the street, jumped into the swamp, swam past the Octogenarian Erectile Dysfunction Clinic and got to the store just in time!
My lucky day!
Looking at the wet cuffs on her dungarees, she chuckled. Walking through the meadow’s morning dew past the swamp and vet’s clinic would do that to one’s clothing. Mulling the rest of the outing over in her mind, she pushed on. First stop: The Bargain Store to stock up on her favourite flavoured noodles. “Life is good. Being an octogenarian is only number.”
The devil was eating spicy noodles, when he heard a “fwooop” from the swamp. He ran out in his dungarees and found an octogenarian on an old nag in his trap. The man tearfully begged for a bargain: “My life if you take Beauty to the clinic!” Both were freed because the devil did not want to be seen on such a “Beauty”.
pasta hasta
noodles swamp me
a clinic
of what a bargain
the ramen bag give
til im an octogenarian
in my blue soiled and stained
jeans dungarees
the mirth
gave birth
to the places
and spaces
of my manic autistic
miasmas!
***
Image Credit: Pinterest
Esther Chilton 
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