"A STRANGER COMES; THE HEROINE TAKES A TRIP!"

**********************************************

"TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION!"

**********************************************

In two different writing courses I have run across an identical statement or premise: "All plots are based on two standard stories: a stranger comes to town...or, the hero (heroine) takes a trip." The people who believe these propositions can make a case for them.

Not sure in my own mind (as yet) that I am fully convinced that the above covers ALL PLOTS, nonetheless I can say that I've known of BOTH happening in the same story! And it is a true story!

A dear friend of ours was a faithful church attender. Now it so happened that as avid a "church lover" as she was, she was also a "mouse-hater" to an equal extent! In fact we might say, she was a mouse-hater of the First Magnitude. I have never known such a fierce mouse hater as she!

I could tell you a number of stories, but maybe one will suffice. There is a restaurant with an outdoor patio which is a nice relaxing place to go and sit and eat and drink iced tea. We went there often but she would not go because she heard that a mouse had been seen doing its jogging around that patio during meal times.

Well, anyway, one Sunday she was sitting in church right along the aisle, in a nice relatively new auditorium. She was sitting there in her pew singing away and the one-in-a-billion thing happened! A rare thing to happen, and still rarer that it happened to her---a mouse hater!

Yes, a mouse all at once appeared from somewhere and stopped right near her feet and at  the edge of the aisle---and instead of discreetly moving on---which would have been bad enough, he took it upon himself to stop and eyeball our friend. Who knows? Perhaps he was mesmerized by her singing!

Isn't there some saying about not eyeballing grizzlies, pit bulls, and other questionable creatures. Well, this mouse hadn't heard it, because he eyeballed our friend, his enemy, and she returned his stare---but only for a quick moment---time enough for the unbelievable to register in her mind! A MOUSE!!!!!

My friends, I must tell you that there was suddenly an unhappy worshipper in that church, a departing-immediately-never-to-return-to-that-church-worshipper! She was GONE!

Maybe the writing experts are correct about the plots. It was borne out that day---both plots at once:

"A stranger comes to town; the heroine takes a trip!"

*********30********

BY MIL

11/25/12

Sent from my iPad