Daily Writing- February 25, 2022

Writing Exercise

Make a list of chores for your character to do then write a short story of them doing these chores. But have something go wrong while they do the chores.

Side Note

I will be using Scout for this exercise.

Scout’s Chores

1. Make bed
2. Dust bedroom
3. Clean the bathroom
4. Vacuum Floors
5. Put Clean Dishes Away
6. Organize Desk

My Story

Scout dragged herself out of bed early Saturday morning. She stood in her room for a minute until she woke up more. She had to do her chores before she could to to the movies with Jennifer and Katlyn later so she wanted to get a jump on it early. Scout grabbed the list of chores she had made before bed last night off of her desk. She looked at her desk and quickly added ‘Organize Desk’ to the bottom of the list.

Scout dropped the list on her bed, got dressed, and made her bed. Once she finished, she looked for her list but couldn’t find it. Scout grumbled under her breath as she got down on the ground and looked under her bed. The list wasn’t there. She stood back up and looked at her desk, but it wasn’t there either. Her eyes landed on her bed and she groaned. Scout pulled apart her bed until she found the list on her sheets at the end of her bed underneath everything.

Rolling her eyes, Scout grabbed the list, folded it and shoved it into her back pocket. She remade her bed and walked over to her desk, eyeing the mess. School books and notebooks lay scattered on her desk. Pens and pencils were on her desk and on the floor, some having rolled under. Some post it notes were stuck to her chair somehow.

Scout grabbed the post it notes off the chair, read them, then tossed them in her trash can under the desk since she didn’t need them any longer. She bent down and grabbed her pencils, one sliding further under the desk. Scout pulled her chair out and got down on her hands and knees so she could crawl under the desk. Once she had grabbed the pencil, she crawled backwards but didn’t crawl out far enough. She tried to stand up and ended up hitting her head on the bottom of her desk hard.

Scout moved further back and carefully sat up, rubbing the top of her head. She groaned in pain and stood up, grabbing the pens and pencils on the desk into the top drawer of her desk, still rubbing her head. She even checked her hand to make sure there wasn’t any blood, just to be on the safe side. She pushed the drawer closed and tidied up the rest of her things on her desk.

Scout pulled the list out of her pocked, crossed off the two chores from her list, and headed out of the room. Her head ached but she wanted to get the rest of her chores finished so she could go to the movies. She looked at the list and decided to dust her room next. She walked into her bathroom, retrieved a clean rag and dusting spray, and returned to her room. Luckily, she had dusted two weeks ago so it shouldn’t be too bad.

Scout sprayed the rag and got to work. She wiped down her desk, her shelves, her figurines that sat on the shelves, the headboard of her bed, and the shelves in the headboard. Last, she got on her chair and wiped off the fan blades. But when she was wiping off the blades, her chair wobbled under her.

Scout quickly leapt off onto her footboard as he chair toppled to the ground. She let out a slow breath and growled under her breath. “Can I just get my chores done without all of these accidents happening, please?” She jumped down, returned her chair under her desk, and took the dusting rag and spray back to the bathroom.

She placed everything under the sink and grabbed the bathroom cleaning items so she could do the bathroom next. Luckily, she was able to clean the bathroom without any incidents. She crossed that and dusting off her list and headed to the hall closet where she pulled out the vacuum cleaner. Scout plugged it into the wall downstairs and started in the living room. She vacuumed all of the downstairs without any issues and moved onto the stairs. Scout was able to do the stairs without any problems, but once she got to the top of the stairs, the vacuum dies on her.

Scout unplugged it and plugged it back into the wall. She emptied the rollers on the underside. She emptied the bag, hoping that was all it needed so it would start up again but no matter what she did, it wouldn’t start. She stomped her foot and yelled down the stairs. “Mom!”

“Yes, Scout.”

“The vacuum died on me. I’ve cleaned the rollers and the bag. I’ve unplugged it and plugged it back in, but it won’t start. And I’m not done with vacuuming upstairs.”

“Just put it back in the closet. I’ll have your dad take a look at it after he gets home from the store.”

Scout groaned as she unplugged it and carried it back down the stairs. She out it back in the stairs then grabbed her list from her back pocket again to see what she had left to do.

Chores

1. Make Bed
2. Dust Bedroom
3. Clean Bathroom
4. Vacuum Floors
5. Put Clean Dishes Away
6. Organize Desk

She wrote ‘finish later’ next to number four and headed to the kitchen to do the last thing on the list; put away the dishes. Scout opened the dishwasher, pulled out the bottom rack, and got to work. She finished the bottom rack and pushed it back in, happy she hadn’t hurt herself.

Scout pulled out the top rack, took out a glass coffee mug, and went to put it away in the cabinet above the coffee maker. But the mug got caught on the rack and pulled itself free from her hands. It crashed to the floor and shattered into four big chunks.

“Scout? Are you okay?” Her mom appeared in the kitchen, afraid her daughter was hurt.

Scout stared down at the broken coffee mug at her feet and sighed heavily. “Yea, I’m all right. I dropped on of the mugs somehow. I think it got caught on the rack. She knelt down to pick it up, but one of the pieces sliced her palm. “Ouch!”

Her mom grabbed the dish towel and wrapped it around Scout’s hand, applying pressure to her palm where she got cut. She led Scout to the downstairs bathroom and switched on the light. Scout sat down and applied pressure to her hand while her mom grabbed the First Aid Kit from under the sink. She wrapped up Scout’s hand while Scout told her about the bad luck she had been having while doing her chores that morning.

“It sounds like you possibly have a bad luck demon attached to you today,” her mom said. She vanished for a moment then returned, tossing salt and a four leaf clover on Scout.

There was a small hiss and then a small black figure fell off Scout’s shoulder. Scout watched as it fell to the ground, burst into a small flame after her mom threw more salt on it. and then turned into a pile of ash. Scout cleaned up the mess, gave her mom the four leaf clover back, and finished putting away the dishes without any more incidents.

“Thanks, mom. I don’t know why I didn’t think about my bad luck being a demon. And we learned that stuff in school.” Scout hugged her mom before she ran out the door to meet up with Katlyn and Jennifer for their movie.