This is a really funny tale about a “Tandem Story” from a college English class.
Do you remember the best selling book “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus“, which shows just how different men and women are? The story below is a prime example of just how differently the brains of men and women are wired. Oh boy are men’s and women’s brained wired differently, as you will find out by reading on.
The location is a classroom at a university in the USA where an English professor is talking to her class and giving them an assignment.
The English professor is stood in front of the class, talking…
Today we will experiment with a new form of story writing called “The Tandem Story“.
The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right. One of you will then write the first paragraph of a short story. Your partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story. The first person will then add a third paragraph and so on back and forth.
Remember to reread what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. There is to be absolutely NO talking and anything you wish to say must be written on the paper. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached.
The following story was actually turned in by two of the professor’s English students, Savannah and Austin.
THE STORY:
(first paragraph by Savannah)
At first, Laurie couldn’t decide which kind of tea she wanted.
The chamomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out of the question.
(Second paragraph by Austin)
Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago.
“A.S. Harris to Geostation 17,” he said into his transgalactic communicator. “Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far…”
But before he could sign off a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship’s cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit.
(Savannah)
He bumped his head and died almost immediately but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. “Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel,” Laurie read in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited her and bored her.
She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth, when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspapers to read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things round her. “Why must one lose one’s innocence to become a woman?” she pondered wistfully.
(Austin)
Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live.
Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu’udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dimwitted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace Disarmament Treaty through the congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race.
Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu’udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded.
The President, in his top-secret Mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion, which vaporized poor, stupid, Laurie and 85 million other Americans. The President slammed his fist on the conference table. “We can’t allow this! I’m going to veto that treaty! Let’s blow ’em out of the sky!”
(Savannah)
This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic semiliterate adolescent.
(Austin)
Yeah? Well, you’re a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium.
“Shall I have chamomile tea? Or shall I have some other sort of F***ING TEA??? Oh no, I’m such an air headed bimbo who reads too many Danielle Steele novels.”
(Savannah)
A***ole.
(Austin)
B*tch.
(Savannah)
Wanker.
(Austin)
Sl*t.
(teacher)
A+ – I really liked this one.
Did you go to university? I bet you have some great stories to tell, I think we all do. We would love to hear from you, if you could leave a comment (form lower down on this page).
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