Prompted Shorties

Three Life Rules

Prompt:Start your story with: "My dad gave me three life rules to live by: 1. (fill in the blank), 2. (fill in the blank) and 3. (fill in the blank). The first two were easy, but the third one proved difficult all because of a cheeseburger. Let me explain."

Story:

"My dad gave me three life rules to live by." I told George. We'd been sitting all morning at the steps of my stairs talking about what our parents have been telling us.

"Mmhm?" Was the only response I got.

"One, the girl is always right."

"What?!" George was furious.

"That's what I said!"

"And, what did your dad say?"

"'Was your mom ever wrong?' He said. And I said no. So he said, 'there you go'. My mind was blown." George was still giving me a weird look, like he's having trouble understanding what I told him.

"Fine, the second?" Well look who's in a hurry.

"Wait I'm not done" George just gave me a blank face, waiting.

"The girl is always right, except when she admits she's wrong"

"Ohhhh" George said in realization, while nodding his head as well. I remember my dad telling me that he was confused at first when his dad told him this. He thought, why would the girl be always right when she admits she was wrong? Then my grandpa simply said, 'When a girl admits she was wrong, she is right in admitting she is wrong, therefore she is still right.'

It made no sense when my dad explained it to me.

"Two, it's better to face fear with open arms than to cower in one corner and do nothing." Now that I understood.

"But what if you're really afraid?"

"Of what? Clowns" I teased George. He's very afraid of clowns ever since he came to my 4th birthday party many summers ago. He was the reason why we never hired another clown for my 5th birthday and so on.

"Yeah! Have you seen the killer clown videos on youtube?" He exclaimed. Those were pretty scary.

"I'd run to the nearest police station if I ever see one"

"But what if he was blocking the way to the police station?"

"Then I'd run towards the clown and then to the police station"

"But you'd be killed!"

"I just have to run really fast."

"I'd probably just run the other way" classic George. I laughed and swayed my head in disapproval.

"Okay third" I spoke.

"Bring it"

"Never eat or drink anything dairy" George held his breath for a long time. Up until he couldn't anymore, then he snorted and started laughing his eyes out.

"Y-y-you never t-told me you were lact-tose intolerant!" He couldn't stop laughing.

I remember my dad telling me all these when I was five. I don't ever recall eating or drinking anything dairy before then.

"Yes I did!" He must've forgot.

"S-s-so the ch-cheese burger?" He started, but he couldn't form the sentence fast enough because he was still laughing so hard. Probably about the incident last week.

"Uggghhh, Yes George. Fine. The third one proved difficult all because of that one cheese burger!"

I never knew what my dad meant when he told me number three. I was just five then. He explained the whole concept of me being lactose intolerant but, I never fully quite understood it, not until last week.

Let me explain.

Me and some of my classmates in my school went to this new place three blocks from our school to eat and play some arcade, this place was super cool because it sells food and lets us play arcades for a few quarters. Anybody who's anybody has got to be there on opening day, that's why we went.

Long story short, I've always wondered what a cheese burger tastes like because whenever my friends and I eat at the school cafeteria and they're serving burgers, I always get the regular ones. Not the cheeseburgers that the cool kids gets. So I thought, maybe this was my time, you know?

Then I did it, I got my three dollars, exchanged the two dollars for some quarters, and paid for the dollar and two quarters worth of cheese burger and played some arcade.

After an hour or so, my stomach felt queasy, like I was about to puke.

I didn't puked though, rather, I had a fecal incident.

It was the most embarrassing day of my life. I should've just listened to my dad.