Imitation Number I

In English Class we read a flash fiction titled “How to Set a House on Fire” By Stace Budzko. Then our teacher told us to imitate the story and create our own “How to...” story and encouraged us to add depth and detail just like Stace Budzko. I did the assignment and my teacher thought I had done a pretty well job and encouraged me to show it to some of my classmates, so for the rest of the day I showed my paper to a kid in each class and they said that I should post it somewhere, so here I am. On my blog. Posting my paper, but then again this is an English/Advice blog so here I am. Enjoy the two stories.

How to Set a House on Fire

by Stace Budzko

Before you light the gas , light a cigarette under the old red maple in the front yard, under the hunter’s moon, and take a last look. Before this, walk through the ranch house with a miner’s lamp and pesticide sprayer topped off with high-test racing fuel. Before it was your house it was your father’s house and before it was your father’s house it was his father’s too. Before foreclosure on the family farm, before the new highway. Spray the gaps in the oak floorboards and get into the heating ducts, hit the horsehair plaster and take out electric sockets, then run a heavy gas line out to the barn. There is the combine. That is a backhoe. At one time chickens lived here. Before leaving, make sure the hay bales drip with fuel. This was feed once. On your way toss your house keys into the water well. Before doing anything else, make a wish.

After filling the birdbath next to the old red maple with the remaining octane, call Herm up at the fire station. After he gets on the line tell him to come over and bring a truck or two– with a crew. There’s not much to see now, really. After he asks why, tell him. Tell him how the fire line went from where you stand to the well and then zigzagged to the barn, and after the farm equipment blew to the sky tell him how the furnace did the same. A chain of events, explain, a chain of events. After the windows kicked out there wasn’t much anyone could have done. And after Herm asks if you would do it all over again, tell him you would. But come anyway, Herm. Tell him that.

How To Ask A Girl Out On A Date

By David Ries

An Imitation of “How to Set a House on Fire”

By Stace Budzko

The very first step into asking a girl out on a date is to establish a healthy connection with the girl. Look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself this question “Would a girl want to be seen with me?” The answer is going to be a no, if you think other words you obviously have high self esteem and should tone it down a notch. The next step is to find a girl suitable for you, don’t go into dreamland and try getting somebody you know you could never be seen with, but with a fairly decent lady should be satisfactory.

Then the next step is to encounter the girl at some moment that she isn’t expecting to meet a “special” person. Preferably a place that you two share a common interest, avoid going to the library, the one where your ex-girlfriend Michelle lurks, waiting...waiting....waiting with her switchblade hidden in her pocket, ready to say her last words to you after your tragic break up. Wait for the right time with the pretty lady, to say something flattering, to make her feel good about herself in comparison to other people. Something that she wants to hear more of, then you bust into conversation with her. Look at your watch that you had conveniently worn on this special occasion and tell her that you must be leaving pretty soon. Ask her for her number as you walk out the door and check to make sure it has all ten digits unlike Samantha from when you lived in Oregon.

That evening call your Charlotte on the telephone, the dreaded telephone, the one where you have been rejected and dumped by those girls in eighth grade, Maddy, Paige, Hanna, Isabella and Fiona, and engage in conversation. Ask about herself, ask her how her day was, what she is doing. Make her feel good about herself, her achievements in life, her smarts in academics. When/If she asks you about yourself be humble, do not brag, bragging is a major turn off to girls, especially when you are this deep into it. Merely just tell her what you do, if she asks if you are good or not. Just reply with a positive sounding “I’m not bad” to make it sound interesting as if she wants some more. From this point you have two options; A) She isn’t taking interest in you and the conversation is going rough, like a sailboat on a stormy sea or B) It is going according to your plan.

If your boat is about to sink, you can always resort by recalling that first conversation you had with her, remind her of the fun parts that you two have shared, you do not want this one to leave you faster than a speeding ski boat, just like Anna. Do what ever you can to catch the fish or else you will go hungry, because once the fish is gone, there is no getting it back.

If your boat is sailing smoothly through the nice, Mid/Late July afternoon at approximately thirteen hundred hours, the time of day where all good sailing is at its best at its own peak, ask her if she wants to hang out. DO NOT USE THE PHRASE DATE just yet, see if she’s interested, then find a time and place. Then as you are about to hang up say “so its a date?” and BOOM! There you go. Only to have it shattered like all of your other eight girlfriends from the past year...