299 WORDS CONTEST

MONTEREY COUNTY HERALD

June 22, 2008

Write a story exactly 299 words in length 

and 

 include the words "jump" and "otter"

First place winner

Paul Henry, Carmel, CA

 

One would be hard pressed to find a pair more mismatched than Jamie Cobb and Nathan Holbrook.

Jamie, with his Deep South background, complete with regional accent, was fulfilling his boyhood dream by seeking employment with any Wall Street brokerage firm that would hire him. Thus far he had never managed to get farther than talking to a receptionist.

Nathan, on the other hand, was a retired university English Professor who, after his retirement, founded NSI, the National Speech Institute.  He often joked that NSI actually stood for Nathan’s Speech Institute.

So it was that on one particular Thursday afternoon these two men were practicing interview techniques.

Nathan asked, “Jamie, What do you say after an interview when you want to thank someone?”

The response was, “Ah say, thank yawl.”

“No, not ‘yawl’. Properly it’s, ‘you all’.”

Jamie said, “Ah see. Thank you all.”

“No, no. ‘You all’ isn’t needed. Just, ‘thank you.’”

“Ah see”, said Jamie, nodding his head.

“So, what would you say as you leave an interview?”

Jamie stood up and shouted, “Far!”

Nathan was mystified but calmly said, “I don’t understand.”

Jamie repeated, “Far! Far!”

Nathan looked puzzled and Jamie said, “Far. Far. Ah smell smoke.”

They both rushed to the window and opened it to see smoke billowing up to their sixth floor studio.  Below firemen were holding a net for people on the lower floors. Many spectators were milling around and some were shouting, “Jump, jump.”

Jamie looked to Nathan and said, “Shud I otter?”

Nathan, always the speech therapist, shouted, “Ought to! Ought to!”

To this day Nathan contends it was not his intention that Jamie should jump.

Of course, the moral to this story is, “Just because a person responds in a positive manner doesn’t necessarily mean he understands the question.”