my new firpensmaggle

The rain did not fall and I wanted to play
but my new firpensmaggle was coming that day.

I sat there and waited and waited some more
‘til my waiting was sprained and my patience was sore,
and it’s then the deliveryman knocked at the door.

He said, “sign it here, ma’am,” and held out his pen.
and I signed, and I sighed, and I signed once again—
he was gone with his clipboard, but came back real quick,
to bring me my packages, lickedy-split:

there were three, one a huge one, just taller than me,
the second was teensy, the size of a pea,
the third one was strange—why, my mouth was agape,
the points and the curves made an undefined shape,
I’m not sure how they made it with cardboard and tape.

But enough with the boxes, (I thought it aloud),
I took out my knife and the cardboard was cowed—
it opened quite nicely: then I saw the book,
it glowered at me with a challenging look.
The pages were thick and the language was blunt,
“Assembly Instructions” was written in front,
and every instruction was step and repeat,
in Urdu and Russian and Spanish and Greek
and French and Chinese—but not one that I speak.

So I took the thingy and jiggled it hard,
into the doohickey, then added some lard,
to grease the flangdoodle, then did a handstand,
fit whosit to whatsit with three rubber bands
the whatchamacallit required a spin
I danced it ten times until it dipped in.
the last thing to fit was the thingamajig
which wriggled in place with a zag and a zig
it was finished at last—and was really quite big.

Now sweaty but proud, I just sat back and looked
at my new firpensmaggle in its place by its hook—
it hung from the ceiling and shone glitter white,
it had a red front piece, which gave out green light,
it was smooth-ish and rough-ish (both at the same time),
its spires were a spiral, its flowers sublime,
and when it had power, everyone spoke in rhyme.

I blew in the mouthpiece and wiggled some keys
which started to wind in the wires with ease,
I tapped at the pedals and whistled a tune,
which started the process of drawing a rune,
I squiggled the switch with a shimmy and spin
which sent streams of silly string onto my skin.
I jumped so the lever was bumped by my head—
Too Hard! I jumped backwards and tripped past a thread,
and I sat bruising hard as the green light switched red.

I stared and I swore as it beeped and it smoked—
my new firpensmaggle was already broke!

line count: 50

Prompt ▼

Prompt for: Sept 12, 2015 (fyn)
Subject or Theme: Follow Directions.
Directions are a difficult thing thing to follow. You just received your new firpensmaggle by express delivery! It requires some assembly before you can operate it. Write directions for assembly and operating your new firpensmagle and don't forget to tell us what it does.
Word(s) to Include: flangdoodle, whatchamacallit, thingy, thingamajig, whosit, whatsit, doohicky (or any derivatives of these words)
Forbidden Word(s): turn, knob, rotate, fill, on, off, left, right, up, down, twist, heat, pour (or any derivatives of these words)
Additional Parameters: Must be at leat 50 lines in length.
Remember, do not use forbidden words ANYWHERE, including title or the brief description.