Last summer, I challenged some of my students to help me with some columns over the summer. They gave me the first and last lines of a potential fictional short story. My task was to take those lines and write the middle. It was a lot of fun, so I’ve asked my students to help me again. This week’s inspiration was provided by Sophie Stork.
My daughter doesn’t know how to eat tacos. Somehow, some way, she always manages to spill most of the contents without getting much in her mouth. She might as well just dump everything onto a plate and use a fork for all the meat, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, black olives, and sour cream that ends up spattered around when she tries to hoist it into her mouth. Actually, it’s highly possible that the walking taco was invented for people like her!
Okay, so she’s only eight years old, but it’s an adventure any time I make them at home or we’re out somewhere like Taco John’s. And that was just the case today. Our family: me, my wife, our daughter Jane, and our son Anthony were on a family trip to South Dakota. We were planning on visiting all the touristy sites while we were there for the week. We’d already seen the Corn Palace in Mitchell as well as Wall Drug, but now we had arrived in Rapid City and the fun could really begin!
We were at a family-owned restaurant, El Paco, and were being entertained by Jane trying to stuff the taco into her mouth without losing most of it, as usual. “Stop it!” she yelled at us. “I can’t eat this with all of you staring at me!”
The rest of us stifled laughter and pretended to go about the business of eating our own food, but always with the corners of our eyes zeroed in on Jane and her ever-failing attempts to eat a taco neatly. Why she didn’t just get a burrito was beyond me.
After we were finished eating, we decided to drive up into the hills of Rapid City and see Dinosaur Park. Anthony loved dinosaurs; at the age of five he could tell you everything you ever wanted to know (and a whole lot more) about the tyrannosaurus rex, pterodactyl, and stegosaurus, among many others. He was practically bouncing in his seat as we traveled around the winding road to the tourist trap, er, site.
As we got out of the car, I noticed some dark clouds building in the west. We had already encountered torrential thunderstorms a couple of times on this trip, most recently when we stopped for the night in Murdo, home of the original General Lee car from The Dukes of Hazzard, one of my favorite television shows growing up. I kept an eye on the potential storm headed our way; no way did I want to be stuck up on that hillside if another nasty storm arrived.
Anthony led the way as we walked amongst the creatures from the past: t-rex, triceratops, and more. He wanted to climb on every one of them, just as he had tried to do at the Wall Drug dinosaur, but his mother and I kept him from too much danger. I kept glancing around as the dark clouds moved closer and closer.
Suddenly, Jane said her stomach was starting to hurt. A bad taco? I thought. That would be the ultimate irony; she loved tacos but couldn’t eat them right, and now she might be sick because of one. There would go the family entertainment during meal time on Mexican food nights!
We headed down the pathway to the gift shop, looking for a restroom. While my wife took Jane inside, Anthony and I stood near another dinosaur statue, this one a smaller one, a spinosaurus. While Anthony explored every nook and cranny, I tapped my foot anxiously, seeing the storm clouds nearly above us.
And then a huge boom shook the hillside. The skies opened up as lightning started to crash down around us. As I shouted at Anthony to get to the car, another massive rumble seemed to shake the earth. It was so powerful, it was as if it subducted the area beneath the spinosaurus. It seemed as if the foundation it was on was moving.
Just then, as the rain poured down, a car came veering out of control toward us; it must have started hydroplaning and couldn’t stop. The car smashed into the spinosaurus, whose mouth was perpetually open, but now seemed like it was open in shock. I was standing in front of the statue, frozen in fear, and the dinosaur tipped over and came toward me.
Unbelievably, I found myself in darkness but unhurt. The dinosaur’s open mouth had somehow tipped perfectly over the top of me and stood on end. I blinked and stood mute as I heard people out in the storm rushing to my aid.
Once they tipped the spinosaurus away from me, I was led into the building, where I found the rest of my family waiting. The staff brought me a cup of coffee to settle my nerves, and we sat out the rest of the storm. And that is how I survived getting eaten by a dinosaur.
Word of the Week: This week’s word is subduct, which means to push or move something from below, as in, “As I stood on top of the snow hill, my little sister tried to subduct the area I was standing on to make me tumble down the side.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!