Diary of a Cramp

PROMPT -- Last birthday week prompt
In honor of the Cramp's birthday on January 23, 2002 let's venture into the fictional past. Your last prompt is to create a static item that is actually a "Dear Diary" journal entry, dated with the Cramp's birthday.

Your entry MUST begin exactly like this -- copy and paste it just to make sure you don't alter it in any way:


January 23, 2002

Dear Diary,

AND it must include ALL of the following words. In order to be considered a qualifying entry you must use and BOLD each of the following SIX words in your entry
six
squirrel
waltz
cramp
milkman
bowling

Word count: 536


January 23, 2002

Dear Diary,

Today has been a really strange day. There's been some kind of flux in the world, I'm sure. Something momentous has happened, but what? Some strange and wonderful thing has come into being today, and I have no idea what it could be...

I've noticed a lot of weird goings-on today. This morning I went down to the coffee shop for a cup of tea to drink in the park. When I opened the door, the milkman was there. He was dancing a lovely waltz around the tables with the barista; you know, the one who never smiles. Well, she was smiling today. They finished with a perfectly executed dip and pose, and she twirled away back to her counter. The milkman bowed as he was going out the door and handed me one of those "Got Milk?" refrigerator magnets.

If that wasn't enough to convince me something was going on, what happened when I went to the park to sip my tea was a clincher. When I sat down on my usual park bench to read the paper, the headline read, "Beware! Bowling Bandit Blows through Broadway!" Of course I had to read it, since it was so stunning, not to mention alliterative. It seems there's a guy roaming the streets holding up liquor stores and apparently party supply stores. He always wears bowling shoes, the rental kind, with a six on the back for his heists, and his calling card is a birthday balloon that he blows up and leaves at each place he hits... The cops are looking for a tall guy with really small feet, who is probably out of breath.

Later today I was at home reading a book by the afternoon light shining on my window seat, and I happened to look up and out into the yard. A squirrel was running up and down the oak tree like a little grey demon. It had six acorns it was trying to get into a knothole in the tree. I think it must have thought there were thousands of acorns, because every time it went up and dropped one or two into the tree, they fell out another hole, a foot below the hole where it was dropping them, and rolled back to the original pile. I laughed so hard watching this squirrel I got a cramp in my side.

Well, it's late, and I have to work tomorrow. I wish I knew what happened today that caused things to go all strange. I guess it will remain a mystery.


January 23, 2008

Dear Diary,


At last! I finally know why all the strange things were happening on January 23, 2002. Do you remember the milkman doing a waltz, the robber with the number six bowling shoes, the demon squirrel and the terrible cramp I had from laughing? Well, now I am completely amazed. I joined a writing site several months ago, and today I just found out that six years ago today, a crazy, wonderful contest called "The Writer's Cramp"  was created. I just knew there had to be something special going on in the universe that day, because everyone knows that coffee shop baristas never smile.