Recently, some of you have mentioned 'short shorts', stories under 300 words. They're popular because of their economy, I think. The reader gets the fulfillment of a complete story without the investment of a lot of time. Actually, I believe short shorts fill a similar niche to poetry due to their length. So, just for fun I tried my hand. Give it a try, you might enjoy it:

At The Root Of The Matter

Prentiss Calder Biff. The name held refined dignity. Certainly Prentiss' parents took great care in selection, given their abrupt surname. Biff didn't have the euphonic flow of McVicker, mother's maiden name.

Prentiss’ father died in a freak accident during the harvest prior to Prentiss’ birth. Apparently a combine with stuck blades shouldn’t be hammered with a crowbar—especially not by an inebriated driver.

After her husband's untimely demise, Freda McVicker Biff, by necessity, moved in with her inlaws. Her insistence on re-assuming her maiden name, along with her dogged resolve that the boy be called the formal 'Prentiss Calder' caused division within the family- there was a riff at the Biff's.

The controversy raged, until one day Prentiss ran in from playing in the fields, covered head to toe in cockleburs and screaming in pain. The boy suffered mightily each time his mother extracted a bur from his blotchy red body.

After supper that evening (and several liters of elderberry wine), the boy's uncles decided that Prentiss Calder Biff was not a name for a lad who could withstand an attack of killer nettles. In a ceremony worthy of an apprentice knight, he was christened Sticker McVicker.

Cosmic kismet had spoken and the subject was not mentioned again. What goes around comes around… a sense of humor is a lethal weapon.

Secretly, somewhere in my heart, slogging along amidst all that bacon grease, cholesterol and other toxins earned from nearly sixty years on the planet, is a notion... or perhaps it could be better termed a supposition. I can't prove it, but I know it's there, nonetheless. This notion presumes that more of you are reading this than ever leave comments... and that's perfectly okay with me, it's not my purpose this morning to pick a fight with anyone.

My point is, you're here because you want something to read that will entertain and/or amuse you. Well, have I got an idea for you! It's called WordCatalyst http://wordcatalyst.com/  It's a part of us, produced and maintained by our own people, for our own people, and if I may so myself, contains lots of good stuff!

I'll give you an example that I stole from Shirley Allard's blog, http://whispersinthewind.wordpress.com/ :

Songs For Walt Whitman                                                                                                                                             by Harry Furness

I sing to Walt’s inclusive humanity
I see Walt venturing forth each day and becoming
Teaching in poor lit chalk dust air classrooms, 

woodworking callus’d hands cover’d with sawdust,
Building framed houses on Long Island
Writing newspaper articles, gulping nightlife, breathing in late-night,                                 

carousing New York City,  (continued)

And there's much more.  Please, do Bubba a favor today and take a look. Oh, and one last thing... if you like what you see, please leave a short comment and let the writers know you appreciate their efforts. It's really not too much to ask, is it?