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"SSC15 - A trip to the lake"

The station wagon ground to a halt outside the lofty wooden house, which overlooked the elegant lake. Out of the driver’s door stepped Alan Parker, the epitome of an thirtysomething husband and father, kitted out in pastel shades and a sweater tied over his shoulders. From the passenger door clambered Mrs. Alan Parker, or Susan as she was sometimes called, wearing a clichéd cotton summer dress with a red and white polka dot pattern. “Want me to help you carry the bags inside, honey?” Secretly she expected him to decline, but wanted to make up for the fact she read the map wrong and made them take a two-hour detour with a bag-carrying gesture.
“It’s ok, I’ve got them sweetie.” replied Alan, knowing it was his manly duty to carry the bags inside, but after driving them all the way there the least she could do is carry her 9 pairs of shoes inside.
The back door of the car clicked open and out stepped Jake, squinting against the blinding sun and wearing a disgruntled look on his face. “We drove seven hours for this?” he asked antagonistically, gazing up at the wooden morphodite they had to spend the summer in. He knew he should offer to take the bags in, but also knew his role as an agnostic teenager and swiftly dug his hands into his pockets and sulked into the house.

That evening, gathered around the dinner table, Alan cleared his throat and set about making a speech to his family, still slightly annoyed at having to traffic their luggage from the roof rack.
“Well, here we are!” he began with faux excitement, “isn’t it beautiful out here?” he asked with a hint of rhetoric in his voice. “Well, I remember when I was a lad and my folks brought me out here.” He rubbed the back of his neck nervously, trying to entertain his audience but failing on all accounts. “I must have been about your age, Jake” he quipped, startling the teenager from playing with his mashed potato.
“Oh” replied Jake uninterestedly, “How nice.”
“There’s no pleasing you, is there?” yelled Alan at his son
“I wanted to go to summer camp like all my friends” he retorted, standing from his chair and stomping out of the room as loudly as he could.
“To be young again!” laughed Susan, wondering if she still had the name of a therapist in her phone book or not.
“We were all that age once” quipped Alan, wondering how many clichés had already been cashed in today.
The couple gazed longingly into each other’s eyes. Susan’s smile stretched at the corners of her mouth, happy she was on holiday and had time to spend with her family. Alan smiled back, his eyes twinkling in the twilight, knowing he was guaranteed sex tonight.
“Perhaps you should try and bond with Jake a little more, Alan”
Alan grunted, still thinking about the sex
“Alan are you listening to me or just staring at my chest?”
“Of course I like your chest!” he replied
“I think maybe you should take Jake fishing or something tomorrow, he’s growing further apart from us and I can’t bear to see my little boy drifting away from us.”
Alan agreed, riding on the back of the promise that Susan would do ‘that thing’ tonight.

The sun burned through the crack in the curtains and awoke Jake from his angstful slumber. Alan was laid curled up in the foetal position, still grinning from the night of festivities.
“Alan” yawned Susan, “Alan wake up”
“Wha, whosat?” he murmured
“Alan the house in on fire!” He sat bolt upright and leapt out of bed. “Just joking honey, but you promised you’d take Jake fishing today. Get going before its noon.”
‘You deceitful cow!’ screamed Alan to Susan, though only in his mind. He didn’t want her to file for divorce, he just enjoyed sleeping in on a morning.

Jake was reluctantly lumbered into a boat with his father and pushed out into the lake to bond and suchlike. Fishing, Alan thought, wasn’t exactly the manliest activity to bond over. Perhaps shooting a bear would have been better, chirped his internal monologue, which he usually silenced with drink and caffeine. However in movies fishing is the bonding tool between father and son. Who was Alan to prove otherwise?

Bobbing inside a not-entirely-watertight rowing boat, the pair cast their lines and waited for something, anything, to happen.
“So, how’s school Jake?” asked his faux-doting father.
“S’ok I guess” was the flat reply he received.
“Um” his father began, “So do you, like, have a girlfriend?”
“I’m sort of seeing this girl called Lauren, but I’m not sure if she… since when did you care about my life anyway?”
Alan couldn’t tell the truth, ‘I’m only pretending to be interested because your mum made me promise I would and then had kinky sex with me’ so instead gave the growing-up speech that all men give to their sons in books and films.

Back at the jetty Jake and Alan shook hands in a really manly and bonded manner, before Jake jogged inside to tell his mother about the days endeavours. Alan sat on the jetty, legs dangled over the edge almost skimming the water, and pondered. He remembered his trip to the lake when he was a boy, he remembered the fishing outing in the lake where he and his father made a connection that lasted a lifetime, and he realised that he and Jake had reciprocated this pattern. The circle of life spiralling from generation to generation as it always has and always will, in some vague and obscure way. A smile spread over Alan’s face as he basked in the wonderment of life. The warm sunshine and sparkling water set the perfect scene, Alan couldn’t have been happier in life, until he realised his father probably had the bonding talk with him in return for kinky sex with his mother. Alan leant over the jetty and violently vomited into the warm, clean water, turning it a cloudy shade of orange. He wiped the sick from around his lips on his shirt, and made his way inside for dinner.

No fish were caught that afternoon, but father and son were closer forever.

Until Jake went back home and knocked Lauren up and her father made Jake marry her. Jake now lives in Arkansas in a basement apartment and works at a convenience store 7 days a week.

Alan and Susan later joined a swingers club and now share their kinky brand of sex with other like-minded couples across the country.

Now look what you've made me do, I said I wouldn't comment on this matter again, but you've gone and forced my hand.

D'uh! I know you were being sarcastic. Hence my response. If I thought you really were as you said, would I have replied in the way I did? No. Sarcasm is hardly a difficult concept to grasp.

I was being sarcastic.

Father Crilly wrote:
> Meka Dragon wrote:
> Stereotypes are there for a reason - people really ARE like that.
>
> Phew, thanks. For a moment there, I thought I wasn't a kilt wearing
> ginger who eats haggis on a daily basis and drinks whisky even more
> so.

Not everyone, obviously, but where do you think they came from? You don't have ot take them to extremes either. But if stereotypes aren't true, how come I walked past a group of three teenagers who all had the same cap and coat? People conform.

I shalln't comment on this again.

Meka Dragon wrote:
> Stereotypes are there for a reason - people really ARE like that.

Phew, thanks. For a moment there, I thought I wasn't a kilt wearing ginger who eats haggis on a daily basis and drinks whisky even more so.

Didn't like the ending. There are some good bits, but to me it seems that you think there's something wrong with using the cliché or the stereotype. Stereotypes are there for a reason - people really ARE like that. If you create a character that seems a little stereotypical, don't worry about it, there's no need to try to be ironic about it.

Yep enjoyed that overall. Didn't need the last two small paragraphs and I would have thought that the father would have laughed not puked at the thought that his father had done the same.

99% of the story was great.

No, really.

I must say that I didn't like the forced jokes at the end and the 'bonding' seemed too quick, it seemed that there should have been some event that happened to change them. My only other nit-pick would be that some of the conversations were followed by a forced sounding 'he murmured' or 'she screamed' etc, not all conversation lines need an ending. Oh, and faux used twice {shivers}

The scene was set wonderfully though and the characters were all believable with a nice story being built up along the way (bar the last two sentences).

That was very nice, reminded me of Pleasantville. In a good way.

Nice change from the forum usual, good one.

That was quite funny in places, and the familiar overuse of cliches preceeding an unexpected and abnormal plot turn was a good technique.

Like the boat though, the writing wasn't watertight and despite being something obviously not intended to be taken seriously, it was a bit unconvincing and weak in areas.

Still, enjoyable.

I was going for the post-script approach and trying to be funny, both which obviously nose-dived.

I'm glad to see I'm not totally crap at dialogue then, I'll just realise I can't be funny in future.