This fun “Acrostic Story” was prompted by an expired contest from Brucedale Press in Ontario. It should be easy enough to spot the parameters — follow the link ↑ to confirm your suspicion!

Who uses tape with a sticky note?

You’ll never guess what I saw on my way to pick up supplies for my daughter’s school project. XL: that was the shirt size she insisted on. Where did she get a nonsense idea like that?

Very early yesterday morning I had found her note taped — yes, taped — to the fridge! Understand that she’s always been extremely careful about things like that. The last time her brother wrote on her whiteboard he’d used permanent marker, which gave her an absolute fit. Same thing when her dad left the cap on the glue bottle open to air so it dried up.

Raising a fussy kid has taken years off my life, I’ll tell you. Questions began running through my head at the sight of that note. Perhaps I’ve gone too far and she’s finally snapped. On the other hand, maybe I’ve incited her to rebellion. Now I’m really not sure how to address the matter with her. Maybe I’m taking this all too seriously.

Leaving the house with the list, I carefully folded the sticky part of the tape over to the back, locked the house behind me, and headed to the car. Kindly tell me: would you have done any different? Just think about it a bit before you give me your answer though. I’m not sure I can handle much more adversity this week.

Having two hours to get the shopping done should have been more than enough. Generally I only need one. For the first hour I was sitting in traffic — something must have happened to reroute all the cars into our section of town. Eventually it cleared though, and I turned onto the highway that leads to the shopping complex.

Driving past the lake, I glanced over to see how many shorebirds were wading at the edge. Counting birds while driving on the highway is not recommended in the rule book. But I am experienced at such things and did the grouping task quickly: 20 birds. After I reached my exit and was waiting at the light, can you even guess?

Zebras — all over the downtown streets!

Images are from Pixabay. Story © 2023 Ellen Carnahan.