writing

Enchiladas Without Cheese? Why My Waiter Nearly Called SWAT

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Because sometimes your dinner order is scarier than the bill.

Ordering enchiladas shouldn’t feel like a standoff—but when your meal modifications have your waiter raising eyebrows, it’s time to laugh and reflect.

I’ve developed a deep empathy for waitstaff people. They have to deal with customers like me. if there were a place where restaurant waitstaff put photos of people they don’t want to wait on I think I might make their infamous wall. Today I walked into the restaurant with a friend and we are taken to a table.. Before we get to the table, I say.I” prefer to sit over in that area.”

I get the raised eyebrows and pulling the menus closer to they chest. I’m wondering if the waitstaff thinks they’re like a Kevlar vest in case I’, dangerous. The waitstaff takes us to a table in the general area I indicated. Then I said, “Not this one but that one over by the window.”

I was afraid this waitstaff was thinking of using pepper spray on me. My friend and I sat down. The waitstaff person took our drink orders and came back asking if we were ready to order. I’m not one to eat and run. We were engaging in a good conversation and nodded no.

Two minutes later the waitstaff person is hovering nearby. I turned and asked for a few more minutes. When we were finally ready to order, my friend ordered first and the waitstaff person was giving me a look. When it was my turn, I ordered the enchiladas ranchero.

He quickly grabbed the menus but not quick enough. I said, “Hold on I need to make a few modifications.”

I thought he was going to have a seizure. I asked him to substitute grilled vegetables for the rice and refried beans. I got a snarky look and a comment, “Iis that all.”

I said , “No, I don’t want any cheese on my enchiladas. “

From the look on his face you would think he wanted to call a SWAT team. He must’ve thought I was deranged. How could I have an enchiladas ranchero without rice, refried beans or cheese. I hope I didn’t send the kitchen staff into a tizzy. I did leave a generous tip. After all, he had to put up with me.

Have you ever ordered something at a restaurant that made your waiter look ready to surrender—or disappear? How did it turn out?

Flash Fiction Prompt: Her Last Scream Echoed Through the Line

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The night was quiet—until one call delivered terror, a gunshot, and a scream that might never be forgotten.

📝 Grab-Hold First Line + Paragraph

The phone jolted him awake at 2:14 a.m., its shrill ring slicing through the dark like a blade.

He fumbled for it, heart pounding, and saw her name glowing on the screen. Relief flickered—until he heard her voice. Frenzied. Shaking. “They’re here—” she gasped, words tumbling over one another. He sat bolt upright, every nerve alive, but before he could speak, a deafening crack exploded through the line. A gunshot. Then her scream—raw, piercing, and cut short. Silence followed, heavier than any sound. His body froze, phone pressed to his ear, as if holding it tighter could drag her voice back. Was she hurt? Was she gone? A thousand questions collided in his skull, none with answers. Only one truth seared itself into his mind: he couldn’t stay in bed. Throwing on jeans, grabbing his keys, he raced into the night, headlights slicing empty streets, chasing the last sound he might ever hear from her.

If you were the one who picked up that midnight call, what would you do next—and why?

Flash Fiction Prompt: When the Sea Doesn’t Keep Its Secrets

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The ocean swallowed his brother—or so he thought. Six months later, a single phone call proves the sea never forgets…and neither do the dead.

✍️ Grab-Hold First Line

The phone vibrated against the kitchen counter, and with one glance at the caller ID, his stomach turned to ice.

✨ Ensuing Paragraph

For six months, he convinced himself the sea had claimed his brother. No body surfaced, no sign beyond the broken hull of the fishing boat drifting back to shore. When the coast guard called off the search, he wept, grieved, and, in time, stepped into the only place left for him—his brother’s home. His sister-in-law resisted at first, but grief has a way of binding the lonely. Their quiet arrangement became a fragile refuge. He mowed the lawn, fixed the pipes, and eased into her life until it almost felt natural. Almost. But every time his phone rang, a shadow stirred in his gut. Tonight, the shadow came alive. The number on the screen was impossible. Salt filled his mouth as he answered. A voice, raw and unmistakable, growled through the static: “I’m not dead. And you’ll pay for what you’ve done.”

Deep Breaths, Not Drama: Why Small Stuff Isn’t Worth It

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Life is too short to waste on tiny squabbles—save your energy for things that matter, like tacos on Tuesdays.

Most things are not a big deal. Lots of folks like to make trivial things into a big deal. When we make every small thing into a big deal we get stuck in a defensive mode. Our only response is to escalate a non issue into a serious affront. I’ve witnessed this in people close to me, famous politicians, and any other category you can imagine. Most things really are not a big deal. A few deep breaths, a walk around the neighborhood, and a slice of hot pizza will chill you out.

Here’s the thing—most of us aren’t defending honor in a medieval duel; we’re arguing over who left the wet towel on the bathroom floor. And yet, suddenly, we’re ready to unsheathe our verbal swords as if the fate of the kingdom depends on it. Imagine if we replaced every unnecessary outburst with a slice of pizza. World peace? Maybe not. But at least fewer households would fall in battle over thermostat settings.

Soaked in South Texas: Why Rainstorms Are Made for Smiling

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When the rain finally falls in South Texas, you can hide under the roof or you can dance in it. Which will you choose?

We don’t get lots of rain in South Texas. When it happens it’s time to enjoy it. You can’t really enjoy the rain if you don’t want to get wet. One has to free the little boy or girl and let them get soaked to skin. That’s what happened to me today. I went to the nearby supermarket (In Texas they’re generally H-E-B). When I arrived I could see some clouds in the western sky and thought nothing of it. When I finished checking out a buddy purposely bumped his cart into mine. I told him I was claiming a back injury and he told me I ran a light. We laughed and talked. We decided to stop blocking the aisle and pushed our carts outside. It was pouring rain. Other shoppers were hunkered under the extended roof. I fist bumped my buddy, said goodbye, and casually strolled to my car. I put my groceries in the trunk and took my cart to the cart corral. That’s when I decided to make a video of me getting soaked.

Flash Fiction Prompts: The Night She Stopped Doubting and Started Watching

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What happens when suspicion turns into a discovery so raw it shakes the ground beneath a woman’s feet?

✍️ Grab-Hold First Line

She told herself it was just paranoia, but as the office lights flickered on and she saw him through the window, her breath turned to fire.

✍️ Paragraph

She had parked across the street, fingers clenched on the steering wheel, convincing herself she was being foolish. He said he’d be late—deadlines, meetings, all the usual excuses. But tonight her gut gnawed at her. The building loomed against the night sky, and every minute her pulse tapped louder in her ears. When he finally appeared, laughter followed him — a laugh too intimate, too unguarded. She leaned forward, narrowing her gaze. A woman’s silhouette stepped out beside him, her hand brushing his arm with casual familiarity. That single gesture, fleeting yet undeniable, struck like flint to kindling. Something feral, long buried beneath years of trust, clawed its way to the surface. Her heartbeat no longer begged for answers; it demanded reckoning. As he glanced around, unaware of her watching, she realized she no longer feared betrayal — she feared what her rage might make her do.

Question for Readers:

If you were writing this story, what would her next move be — confrontation, silence, or something far darker?

Self-Talk Can Be a Comedy Show, a Therapy Session, or Both at Once

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A wry, tender back-and-forth that reveals how small routines — games, popcorn, phones — hide the bigger question: how are you, really?

A Dialogue With Myself

How was your day, Ray?

You really want to know or should I give you my stock answer?

Ah, was it bad?

Does it make a difference to you?

There’s a football game on tonight. You’re not going to do anything stupid, right?

Like not watch the football game, then tell you tomorrow how great it was and I read the score?

Do you do that?

All the time.

When was the last time you watched a football game beginning to end?

When my kids visited and they were into the game.

Did you enjoy it?

I kept getting up to make more popcorn and check my phone. Than k God for instant replay.

Well, how are you feeling?

I’d feel better if you’d watch your game.

Can you make me some popcorn?

When you ask yourself “How was your day,” do you give the honest answer — or your stock reply? Tell us one small thing you did today that mattered.

Flash Fiction Prompt: Love or Ambition: Which Way Do You Turn?

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When love and career collide, the heart doesn’t always win.

Grab-Hold First Line

They held hands as if gripping a lifeline, knowing love alone couldn’t erase the miles about to come between them.

Flash Fiction Prompt

Five years of laughter, late-night takeout, and quiet Sunday mornings had shaped their lives together. She knew the rhythm of his silences; he could read her joy in a glance. Their love wasn’t a question—it was a fact. Then the offer came. Her career, her dream, demanded the West Coast. His family, his roots, held him firmly in New York soil. They tried to imagine the in-between, but each scenario ended in the same place: too many hours, too many miles, too much ache.

On their last night before the move, they walked the streets that had carried their story. They stopped under a lamppost, the city humming around them. “I’ll always love you,” she whispered. “And I you,” he said. Yet both knew: sometimes love bends to ambition, and dreams demand sacrifice.

Now it’s your turn. Will you write them toward a bittersweet goodbye, a reckless leap of faith, or an ending no one sees coming?

If you were writing this story, would you have them choose love, ambition, or an unexpected third path?

Flash Fiction Prompt: A Father’s Grief Turns Into a City’s Reckoning

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How far would you go when grief meets rage? This father’s loss ignites a war on the streets.

Grab-Hold First Line

The night his son died from fentanyl, Mark buried his grief in a shallow grave beside his mercy.

Flash Fiction Prompt

Every parent fears the phone call. Mark got his at 2:14 a.m.—a cold voice, a sterile report: his son, gone. Not from recklessness, not from adventure, but from poison disguised as escape. The fentanyl had stolen his boy, leaving only silence in his room and fury in Mark’s chest. The funeral was quiet, polite, and utterly wrong. People whispered about healing, about moving on, but Mark knew there was no moving on—only moving through. And he would move through blood.

By day, he wore the face of a grieving father, shoulders heavy, words slow. By night, he studied the alleys, the bars, the dealers who traded death for cash. He mapped their faces, their cars, their habits. He no longer cared about laws written in ink; his law was written in loss.

Each night the city’s underworld tightened its grip, but Mark was already pulling at the threads. The grieving father was gone. In his place stood a vigilante, sharpened by rage, unafraid of dying because the worst had already happened.

If you were writing this story, would you make Mark a hero, a villain, or something in between?

The Pain of Things Left Unsaid

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Unspoken words don’t disappear—they echo in the heart as regret.

“Much unhappiness has come from things left unsaid.” Leo Tolstoy

I have an acquaintance who a few years back, lost his father. He shared with me how he rarely connected with his father because of his work demands. My acquaintance took his father’s death hard. When I occasionally connect with him he reminiscences about his childhood and his youthful relationship with his father. In between all of his spoken lines I recognize he is trying to find a way to say the things that he left unsaid to his father. He’s not unusual. So often we take the people close to us for granted until it’s too late. My acquaintance is filled with regrets regarding his relationship with his father. Let those you love know how you feel about them. You’ll find yourself living a life without regrets and filling with pleasant memories.

Have you ever wished you had said something to a loved one before it was too late? What would you say now if given the chance?

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