Brainstorm
Sitting outside on his front porch, Francis Muck held in his hand Lamplight Lane’s newspaper, The Lamp Post. His eyes bulged out at an ad for a photography contest at this year’s Pepper Festival. Lamplight Lane was known for its pepper plants and their production, thus making it the town’s most beloved spice. Every year the town got together and celebrated their pepper heritage by having contests, games, and entertainment of all sorts. One of the most popular games was the Sneeze Olympics. Contests in the Sneeze Olympics ranged from the Sneezathalon, where contestants competed for loudest, most powerful and most original sneeze, to the Last Man Sneezing contest, where competitors saw who could sneeze the longest repeatedly without throwing up, passing out, or popping out an eyeball. Francis stared at the newspaper, imagining himself winning the photography contest and having his photo put on a stamp. The grand prize for the photography contest was four dollars!
Wait a minute, sorry, Francis was so excited about this he’d drooled on the newspaper, covering the two zeros. It was actually four hundred dollars. But who was Francis kidding? He never won anything. There must be a way he could win.
An idea came to him like a flash of lightning. A moment later, Francis woke up on the ground, slightly toasted but with a grand idea. Sheesh! Francis thought. That’s the sixth time this year. I should really start thinking indoors more, and on less cloudy days. The words “Old Man Groys” escaped his lips along with a small puff of smoke.